Lime Cross Nursery was established in 1946 when Alan and Olive Tate made a new start after the war with a smallholding at Lime Cross. Early attempts at earning a living included rearing pigs, which ran freely in the woodland and from growing tobacco - not such an unusual crop then as the government encouraged its growth to make up for the huge shortage of imported tobacco.
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| Alan & Olive Tate 1938 |
By the early 60's production was concentrated on bedding plants, cut flowers and several acres of field-grown wallflowers, as seen in the photo.
Their son Jonathan joined the family business in 1971 and brought new crops into production including Leylandii that proved very popular for hedging at the time - before it spread everywhere!
Over the years the Nursery has moved on to container grown trees and shrubs, with over 500 cultivars of conifers, trees and a great many of the specimen shrubs.
