Hillhouse nursery - Devon

[charlie]

Just seen that sadly this will close for good in July, very much the end of an era. While Ray (Hubbard) was alive it was an Aladins cave of plants. Being taken around Rays propagating house and closed off greenhouse was always a treat. His son Matthew took over but although he had always been there working he lacked that thing that made you want to grow something even though it was daft from a point of view of actually being able to make any money selling it!

I dont have any information as to why its closing down but there there is a long term trend of the more individual nurseries calling it a day. If I hear more I will pass it on especially if they are going to sell off some of the stock plants which may prove of interest!

[MartinNicklin]

Charlie for years they have offered plants I would gladly have paid to order but as far as I know they never offered a mail order service. They were missing out on a trick because I think small businesses, especially in horticulture which can appeal to a limited audience, have to try every trick in the book to remain viable and sadly they didn’t. Even selling some of my agave pups on EBay I made some significant money. Not everyone is able or willing to travel great distances to buy plants, however esteemed the proprietors or the establishments are. You have to do everything you can in business to drum up those sales.

[charlie]

Its tricky Martin, I had many a long chat with Ray on the subject of Mail order, he like me disliked doing it and also like me had a wife who said its something you need to do if offering unusual stuff, so he did do it for a couple of years, but unlike us Hill House grew their plants in a wide variety of pot sizes rendering packaging an absolute nightmare and getting the pricing right also pretty tricky - Matthew certainly had no intention of carrying on the mail order! But given the plant selection on offer and their location up narrow lanes I always felt they were missing a trick

[charlie]

Paid a fair well visit on Thursday, look a bit sad and unloved, went around all the "Out of bounds" greenhouses, not sure what fate awaits all the big in the ground established plants Ray used for cuttings?