Gardening at Charlecote Avenue

Our Plants of the Moment right now are clematis - reliable and easy to care for. Remember to keep their roots in shade and they'll provide colour in your garden for several weeks each summer (lovely in a large pot too).

We opened our new Avenue plant centre last year on a tiny budget. We collected fittings and equipment that other National Trust properties were offering for recycling, and the Trust's carpenters at Dudmaston made our wooden benches from their own woodland timber.

All our plants are in peat-free compost, and we're sourcing lots of the plants that you'll find growing in our garden borders. Roses, herbs and herbaceous plants as well as shrubs are in stock right now. Do ask if there's anything you can't see - we're adding to the list all the time.

With new stock coming in every week you'll find plants from Pershore College, the NT plant centre at Lanhydrock, Hairy Pots, David Austin roses, perennials from peat-free specialists Prenplants, and F.P. Matthews fruit bushes (blackcurrants and raspberries).

We have the full National Trust gardening range - plenty of practical and decorative items for your garden and British-made Hawes watering cans. Look out for our colourful glazed pots and terracotta planters in all shapes and sizes. We've also commissioned Whichford Pottery to make a bespoke range of their pots for us and we have some of their traditional garden pots too. 

We have a wide range of herbs – all your cooking favourites, 5 different types of thyme, as well as strawberries, angelica, horseradish, buckle-leaved sorrel.

There’s always lots of seasonal colour for your garden. We recommend buying one or two plants throughout the year rather than all at once - that way, you'll ensure there's something interesting in your garden all year round.

The National Trust has been a key player in the drive for peat-free compost for many years. We’re stocking SylvaGrow multi-purpose compost - awarded two Best Buys by Which? Gardening and endorsed by the RHS. It doesn't contain any "green waste" and is suitable for seeds, cuttings, potting on, planters and as a growbag too.  

With a poor peat harvest last year, you'll find peat-based ranges elsewhere are going up in price and down in quality - perhaps it's time to try the best of peat-free.

We’ve also got Rootgrow mycorrhizal fungi granules as recommended by Monty on Gardeners' World – scatter it in the hole around the roots when you plant out something new and your plant will establish much more quickly and successfully without needing additional artificial fertilizer.

Every plant you buy from us here directly helps to fund our work looking after the gardens at Charlecote. Thank you.