As autumn swept across Serge Hill last year, one area of the site was very much springing into life - Sunnyside’s Orchard Nursery. After years of working with Tom and Sue Stuart-Smith on various projects, Sunnyside Rural Trust, which provides work and learning opportunities for adults with learning differences, set up its fourth site at the Serge Hill Project, propagating plants from The Plant Library.

The first set of the stem cuttings were settled in before the cold came and the woolly hats went on. A mild winter, coupled with great support from Head Gardener, Millie Souter, enabled us to carry out almost continuous divisions from the Plant Library beds. The nursery area, once a quiet corner of the site, became a vital hub of learning and work.

Daily groups (numbering between 4 and 8 per day) attended as part of horticulture and employment skills courses, along with wellbeing focused groups and Sunnyside trainees with a particular interest in nursery skills. With over 2,500 plants propagated by the new year, things were rocketing along at an exciting pace.

By late spring, having really hit our stride, over 6,000 plants had been propagated by people with learning differences at the Serge Hill Project – and with a great deal of pride we started selling to Plant Library visitors. We have loved chatting to people at Serge Hill Project garden openings and plant fairs and telling them all about our work and have enjoyed having lots of visitors to site.

As autumn approaches again, Sunnyside’s staff and trainees look forward with huge excitement to growing from the Plant Library through 2025/2026. For autumn planting purchases, please see our availability list here, and for the 2025/2026 propagation list, please see here. We are able to grow to order from the Plant Library, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch!