Alongside training at Great Dixter and four years working at the renowned nursery De Hessenhof with Hans and Miranda Kramer in the Netherlands, gardener and writer Jonny Bruce has also been the sole gardener at Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage, situated on the shingle beach at Dungeness, since 2018.

Join us in the Apple House for an evening of inspiring horticultural conversation as Jonny talks to Tom Stuart-Smith about his current project, setting up a perennial nursery in the heart of the Cotswolds.

In August 2024 work began in earnest on a field near the village of Siddington, just south of Cirencester. These few acres of field, pond and mixed woodland represent the culmination of a long held dream to start an organic plant nursery.

Jonny was inspired by traditional nurseries, such as the one at Dixter where he had trained, but it was his time with the Kramer's at De Hessenhof which convinced him that he should start his own.

It was clear that there was something fundamentally wrong with the industrial nursery model and its mass production of often poor quality and environmentally unsustainable material. Traditional nurseries, once such a familiar part of Britain's physical and cultural landscape have been closing down, despite providing a much-needed antidote to this fast fashion approach as well as offering learning opportunities for a new wave of people many of whom discovered the joy of gardening during lockdown.

Hosted in The Apple House eco-barn, in an old orchard, guests can explore Tom Stuart-Smith’s Plant Library of over 2000 herbaceous perennials and bulbs ahead of the talk and enjoy a drink while they do so.