At Norwell Nurseries in Nottinghamshire, Andrew and Helen Ward offer a masterclass in growing for tricky conditions, with the beautiful plants they sell showcased in sand, shade, frost and heavy clay in their own on-site garden
WORDS PHIL CLAYTON PHOTOGRAPHS CLIVE NICHOLS
I’ve always found that the appeal of any nursery is boosted if you know there’s an on-site garden where you can see how plants offered for sale will grow and fit together. This makes Norwell Nurseries near Newark in Nottinghamshire, established by Andrew and Helen Ward in 1994, a particular favourite of mine. Set behind a row of terraced cottages on a heavy clay frost pocket, an unprepossessing, overgrown field has been developed by the couple into a superb nursery and an impressively diverse two-acre garden. They’ve manipulated the difficult conditions to their advantage using skill and sustained physical effort.
“The weather extremes here are perhaps our biggest challenge, and we’ve had more of them than ever in recent years; winter is not my favourite season, but you can be sure that if a plant does well with us, it is going to be pretty hardy,” says Andrew. The couple, who met in the mid 1980s at the University of Birmingham, describe themselves as gardeners above all else. They curate two Plant Heritage National Plant Collections, one of astrantias, another of hardy garden chrysanthemums, the plants mixed through borders as well as in dedicated beds. Norwell also has a pond and bog garden, twin herbaceous borders, a hosta walk, colour-themed plantings and raised sand beds where plants that need sharp drainage thrive.
In spring it is the woodland gardens that impress: paths wind between beds of bulbs and perennials that flower in that all-too-brief time before canopies of trees and shrubs develop. North American woodlander Podophyllum peltatum (May apple) thrives under a large magnolia, its spring shoots unfolding like little bronze umbrellas. Later in the year, once foliage has turned green, white cup-shaped flowers appear below the leaves, followed by dangling red fruits. “We find it excellent and unusual groundcover. Helen and I planted it 15 years ago, and it thrives partly because we regularly improve the soil here, mulching it with material from the compost heap,” says Andrew. “It has underground stems that must have spread about 15 feet, but although it’s groundcovering, other woodlanders pop up through it, such as pr
