Suppliers

Do let me know of any suppliers of forest garden plants and perennial vegetables that I have missed off this list.

Note that, post Brexit, nurseries have warned that they will not be able to deliver plants or, in many cases, seeds from the UK to the EU or vice versa.

Scotland

Appletreeman nursery supplies a wide range of apples, pears, plums, and damsons suitable for Scottish growing conditions, including a number of old Scottish varieties brought back to the country for the first time in many decades. Also some nuts, native trees, hedging and soft fruit. Based in Perthshire.

Glendoick Garden Centre sells traditional fruit tree and soft fruit species suitable for Scotland.

Scottish Heritage Fruit Trees sell a wide range of, er, Scottish heritage fruit trees.

Poyntzfield Herb Nursery, based in the Black Isle, supply both seeds and plants of medicinal and culinary herbs, broadly defined.

The Fruitful Forest Garden Nursery is the new name of the former Red Shed Catalogue. It is now based in Aberdour and supplies a wide range of plants for all layers of the forest garden.

Ann Miller’s Speciality Mushrooms is the place to go for mushroom spawn.

Kevock Garden Plants mostly supply ornamental plants but their range includes some that are useful for the forest garden.

Plants with Purpose sell herbs, wildflowers and unusual edibles suitable for the forest garden.

England and Wales

The Agroforestry Research Trust have the UK’s widest range of forest garden plants. They do both plants and seeds.

Incredible Vegetables in Devon also supply both plants and seed, with a firm focus on perennial vegetables. Edulis in Berkshire also have plants and seeds of perennial veg, but seem to be tending more towards ornamentals.

The Kore Wild Fruit Nursery in Wales has wide range of fruit.

Crûg Farm, also in Wales, do ornamental plants plus some useful and otherwise hard-to-find species for the forest garden.

The Edible Garden Nursery, now relocated to Lincolnshire, does what it says on the tin, with an excellent range of pot-grown plants, focusing on herbaceous perennials but with some annuals, shrubs and trees too.

The Backyard Larder is a small nursery selling perennial vegetable plants. They are sometimes sold out but regularly pot up new stock and have a newsletter with what’s coming up for subscribers. The proprietor, Alison Tindale, also writes a nice blog about perennial vegetable gardening.

Earthed Up! are a not-for-profit agroecological small plant nursery in Derbyshire. They sell plants mail order and locally, with perennial veg and herb plants and a small selection of own-grown seeds. 

Chiltern Seeds are based in Cumbria and have a wide range of seeds, including both ornamentals and useful plants. Where B&T World Seeds (below) and Chiltern both have a variety, Chiltern is usually cheaper for UK delivery. Their catalogue is worth getting for its entertainment value alone. A similar seed supplier worth checking is Plant World Seeds.

European Union

B&T World Seeds are based in France and carry a huge range of seeds. If you can’t find it anywhere else, try B&T.

Myrrhis Permaculture Garden in Denmark supply seeds of perennial vegetables. The site is in Danish but autotranslate, Latin names and pictures make it usable without needing to go to Danish classes.

Canada

Nurseries in Canada often deliver to Europe and the US

Fiddlehead Nursery in Ontario specialises in plants for edible landscaping. I have had excellent results with their seeds.

Richters Herbs, also in Ontario, supply edible and medical herbs as plants to Canada and the US.

United States

Nurseries in the US usually only take orders from within the US for both plants and seeds.

Cultivariable have a great selection and lots of useful advice on Andean root crops.

Edgewood Nursery in Maine specialise in unusual edible plants, which they supply as both plants and seeds.

Perfect Circle Farm in Vermont supply nut trees, fruit trees and berry shrubs.

Edible Acres, in New York state, sell plants for all layers of the forest garden, wither in pots or as bare root plants.

Tripple Brook Farm, in Massachusetts, sell a wide range of plants in pots, with an emphasis on those native to the region. Many of them are useful perennial edibles.

Oikos Tree Crops, in southern Michigan, sell not just trees but also soft fruit and some perennial vegetables. They have an American persimmon from northerly seed sources for northerly gardens. They only sell plants within the US but their website says that they will send seed outside at the buyers risk. 

One Green World sell fruit, nuts and perennial vegetables as plants or tubers from Portland, Oregon.

In Washington state both Burnt Ridge Nursery and Raintree Nursery sell fruit and nut trees and soft fruit. Raintree have a few other unusual edibles besides. Far Reaches Farm sell perennials in pots. They are not specifically for edibles but have a very wide range and come up in a lot of my searches for the more obscure plants that I am trying to get hold of. I just wish they delivered to Scotland!

South America

Chileflora, a website about the flora of Chile, has an associated shop which supplies seeds from this cool temperate corner of the southern hemisphere to the rest of the world.

7 thoughts on “Suppliers

  1. nutshell

    Hi Alan
    just found your blog! great stuff!
    we played a game of risk together with some shared planet folk in… 2002? 🙂
    i only discovered permaculture in 2008… have been doing this work in Luxembourg for a while:
    http://www.cell.lu
    All the best!

    Reply
    1. nutshell

      i didn’t like risk. only time i played in my life. 😉 hope you’re well.
      are you working as a gardener full time?

      Reply
      1. Alan Carter Post author

        I usually enjoy Risk but I seem to remember that game wasn’t much fun – it can be taken too seriously! I’m working doing a mixture of forestry and gardening. I got quite involved in community-run greenspace, so that takes a fair bit of my time – quite a lot of it voluntary.
        Hope you’re well too.

        Reply
  2. Sarah

    Hi there! Reading through your blog, little by little, there is so much information, very useful, thank you very much! I would like to let you know of some suppliers I have found, which are not on your list: Pennard Plants, i think they are based in Somerset and they have quite a few perennial edibles, I am up in Yorkshire and so far all the plants I bought have survived up here! Also in France, Pépinière Eric Deloulay has a very extensive range of perennial vegetables, heirloom varieties as well as medicinal plants (no seeds though). I am French so it helps but give me a shout if you want to order from them and get stuck! I have just ordered perpetual leeks from them as I couldn’t find any in the UK, hopefully They will grow and I can share with you next year!

    Reply
    1. Alan Carter Post author

      Hi Sarah. I’m glad you’re finding it useful. I got my Daubenton’s kale from Pépinière Eric Deloulay and he’s listed in the article on that plant. Luckily my high-school French was enough and I didn’t accidentally order something else!

      Reply

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