Here's a magical story, of a wonderful surprise arrangement, I believe with a little help from above…

Over this last year, we’ve been planting more in the garden as we have had no ‘Connie’ following behind digging everything up. We lost our beloved dog and reclaimed our beautiful garden.

One day in May, me and Neil were going to a garden centre for a butternut squash to plant in our garden. We’ve been there plenty of times before but on this particular day, we decided to drive there a different way instead.

On the way, Neil noticed a sign for 'That Plant Place' pointing in to a farm yard.

He said, and I agreed ‘Let’s go in and have a look! I can’t believe I’ve never noticed that before!’

And it was like one of those magical moments when suddenly you enter another realm, a door opens and you enter a different world.

We went in through the entrance to the yard and there were some small storage units at the entrance on the left, a car parking area and farm buildings on the right with a little lane going off behind. At the back was a beautiful, rustic, little plant nursery. We both instantly headed straight for it. It was really charming.

I instantly fell in love with this place

We entered a wooden gate, on the right was the office in a porta-cabin painted olive green and on the right, a really huge, long poly tunnel bursting with colourful plants. All around lay raised platforms displaying beautifully arranged pots of plants of all sizes and shapes. It was divided into sections; herbs, perennials, bedding, plants at the back that would be flowering again the next year, plants that had recently been re-potted into bigger pots, azaleas still in full bloom, fruit bushes and lots more for the eyes to feast on….. it was absolutely gorgeous! A sight to behold.

Then Neil noticed a man scrambling about on the floor under a huge shelf at the back holding up hundreds of beautiful clematis - he was doing a bit of weeding.

Neil asked 'Is this your place mate?'

And he said

'No, it's Dean's'

Dean

And with that, this huge happy, smiling man (Dean) came out of a potting shed where shade loving plants were kept and he said ‘Hello!’

Neil looked so happy! In fact I can remember feeling really excited too because they knew each other! - They'd played football together 20 years ago and had lost touch as time went by; Neil had moved to Singapore when he was 20.

So they hugged! Neil loves him and remembers him fondly from his football days….

So taken in by the whole thing, and acting on impulse from the heart, I said -

'I love it here! Can I work here?'

And he said

'Yes'.

So now I am working there!

Dean and his wonderful work partner, Diane, started their plant nursery from scratch over 7 years ago - their story is amazing, really amazing, they have both worked so hard!

I have a new part time job, starting in August (I’ve been going up to help a few days already, in fact last week we had a stall at a local school’s Summer Fair!) 3 days a week, Sunday Monday Tuesday, although I secretly think I’ll be there a bit more sometimes. I’ll be re-potting, weeding, cutting back, and all the other jobs that need doing to run a plant nursery. I have some gardening skills and it’s always been a passion of mine, so I’m feeling really blessed!

And to make things even better, Dean will have a blog page on Carry Forth Tradition!

That Plant Place — Carry Forth Tradition

summer fair at a local school

One day, Dean mentioned that he had been invited to have a stall at a Summer Fair at a local school, so obviously I offered to help and jumped in. It was the first time That Plant Place had done a fair, and it was such a wonderful experience. We loaded Dean’s van and my Citroen Berlingo full of the most beautiful, colour plants, and you can see our display in the pictures.

People really loved to see it, and one little boy even ran across the playground when he saw it shouting ‘Flowers!!!’. It was lovely being there for a few hours and chatting to people about plants and watching them taking their new garden additions away with them looking really pleased.

We are already booked up for another local fair in November!

that plant place

Since meeting and working with Dean, we have decided to make some videos
about the goings-on at the plant nursery.

We will have some useful information and advice about the plants and plant care.

Here is our first video!