The plants of dreams

Wildegoose Nursery, Munslow, Shropshire An abandoned walled garden in Shropshire gave nurserymen Jack and Laura Willgoss the blank canvas they needed to create a striking contemporary showcase for the plants they grow. Natasha Goodfellow reports

- Natasha Goodfellow

IT was a difference of opinion over a polytunnel that led Jack and Laura Willgoss to the walled garden of their dreams. As owners of Bouts Violas, they were propagating in their back garden near Munslow, Shropshire, but longed to make a garden where they could not only show off the plants they raised for sale, but experiment with others they’d never had the chance to grow. Being deep in the Welsh Marshes, which has recorded some of the lowest-ever temperatures in England, a walled garden was top of their wish list as a location for a nursery, but, despite having approached several local estates, they had had no response.

That changed when, walking the dogs, they bumped into their neighbour, who commented that the Bouts Violas polytunnel she could see from her property was none too pretty and suggested they plant another hedge. They explained their ambition to find a new site, which delighted their neighbour. In turn, the Willgosses were delighted to hear that she was a close friend with the owners of Millichope Park, home to the walled garden at the very top of their list. ‘Within half an hour, we had the owners’ number and instructions to call them,’ reveals Mrs Willgoss.

As luck would have it, the owners were keen to develop the walled garden. A few months later, by late December 2012, the Willgosses had leased the two-acre site and its wonderful, if dilapidated, curvilinear Georgian glasshouses (see box). The land had not been cultivated since the 1960s, so the first task was to clear the mass of nettles, brambles and assorted detritus which had accumulated over the decades.