Saying Goodbye to a Northern Gem: Dove Cottage Nursery Closes its Gates
It’s with a touch of sadness, but immense gratitude, that we mark the upcoming closure of Dove Cottage Nursery in Halifax at the end of September. After 30 years of hard work and dedication, owners Stephen and Kim Rogers are retiring. For those of us in the North, and indeed further afield, this nursery has been a beacon of horticultural excellence, a treasure trove of plants, and a fount of knowledge. So, if you haven’t already, make sure to pay a visit over the next few weeks before they finally shut their gates.
My own journey with Dove Cottage began in early 2018, around the time I first started planting my walled allotment garden. Working in a garden centre on minimum wage, I vividly remember biting the bullet and splashing out £70 on plants. But I knew these weren’t just any plants. They were tough perennials, the best selections of their own seedlings, and top cultivars from the finest British, Dutch, and German nurseries. Some were old favourites, tried and true, while many others were the most up-to-date introductions: more disease resistant, stronger growers, and longer flowering – simply the best of the bunch. At that time, nurseries of this calibre were mostly found in southern England or on the Netherland. These initial purchases became the foundation of my plant collection, an investment in quality that I’ve cherished for years, dividing and expanding them with each passing season.
Since then, I’ve visit the nursery two or three times a year, always finding something new as their offering varied depending on what stock plants were ready and what new introductions they had. My first purchases were Veronicastrum virginicum ‘Album’ and Thalictrum delavayi ‘Album’. In a perhaps naive attempt, inspired by what I had seen at Sissinghurst, I was aiming for a “white garden.” I quickly learned, however, that without a team of gardeners to deadhead and replenish bedding plants, a perennial white garden is a tricky beast to tame, with white blooms often fading to an unappealing brown.
A History Rooted in Passion
Dove Cottage wasn’t an overnight success; it was a labour of love born from Stephen and Kim’s dedication. Stephen, a former butcher in Halifax market, and possibly the region’s only vegetarian butcher, decided he wanted to change careers after realizing he didn’t want to spend his life indoors. He sold his business, enrolled in a horticulture course, and for a good few years worked at the Saville Gardens at Windsor Park, where he was propagating plants for the 10,000-acre estate. However, one morning, with their three young children in tow, Kim told him she wanted to go home—the spur they needed to move back to Halifax and start their own venture.
They bought three acres of land from Stephen’s father, who had a smallholding. The site was a steep, precipitous clay field, and they had to landscape the whole place from scratch, despite originally wanting a flatter site. Each year, they painstakingly built a new terrace, with even the paving slabs donated from customers’ gardens or driveways.
When they first opened their gates to fellow plant lovers in Easter 1996, they sold about 50 varieties of perennials from a tabletop, with takings collected in an ice-cream carton. This humble beginning set the stage for what would become a renowned nursery. For many years, making ends meet was a struggle as they spent time collecting precious stock plants and getting the nursery off the ground.
In those pre-social media days, spending time with their few peers in the industry, visiting nurseries down south, was invaluable. Kim shared stories of learning specialist propagation tips and nursery management skills from the likes of Graham Geoff at Marchants and Marina Christopher, where they also began to gather plants for bulking up for sale. They were also heavily influenced by the work of Dutch designer Piet Oudolf. When they discovered that many of the varieties they wanted to sell were not available in England, they took a van to Holland, filled it with plants, and never looked back.
Kim explained the long hours and unwavering dedication that go into running a nursery. There’s never time to relax in the morning when the watering needs to be done. Seeds, cuttings, and potted plants are incredibly vulnerable, especially with our changing climate. Keeping plants looking good and ready for sale all the way through spring and summer, ensuring they flower and find their way into a customer’s basket, is a monumental effort. A huge amount of unseen work goes on, day after day, to bring those healthy, beautiful plants to us.
On a recent Saturday morning, I explored the nursery in the sunshine, sharing the peaceful atmosphere with a few other plant enthusiasts. The site is on a north-facing slope, more than 400ft above sea level, which means the plants they grow are exceptionally tough. It’s always been a wonderfully tranquil spot.
The Hidden Garden and Future Horizons
Until a few years ago, Dove Cottage boasted a truly exquisite display garden, hidden behind a tall yew hedge and accessed through an oak gate. This immersive, wild-feeling garden was a masterpiece of layered, dense planting, maintained with what seemed like the most relaxed and light touch. It featured microcosms of intricate, self-seeded plants, mostly growing in road planings but mulched annually with compost. The garden has been featured in several magazines and on the BBC’s Gardeners’ World.
While the garden has been closed to the public for the past few years, Stephen generously allowed me in a few times, even gifting me handfuls of seed like small teasel, which he believed he received from Henk Gerritsen. The garden has since been left to find its own way, a beautiful process in itself. Years of careful maintenance set it on a path it is now autonomously exploring, seeding and sprawling. Although the gate to the garden was closed on my last visit, its image remains vividly in my mind: Actaea rising from a purple moor grass meadow, the fragrant Sporobolus along the pathway, Clematis winding through the yew hedge, and sea hollies self-seeding in the cracks of a breeze block wall.
Stephen and Kim are now looking forward to a slower pace, to taking time to simply observe, visit nature reserves, and escape the rush of daily nursery life.
Stephen and Kim also gave me invaluable advice about where to go to see the types of plants and planting I was becoming obsessed with. They pointed me towards Waltham Place, designed by Henk Gerritsen (who worked with Piet Oudolf in his early years), and to Bury Court and Scampston Hall, two of Piet Oudolf’s earliest British commissions.
Investing in the Future of Northern Nurseries
The closure of Dove Cottage is a reminder of the importance of supporting specialist nurseries. They are not just places to buy plants; they are libraries of knowledge and inspiration, vital for the health of our horticultural landscape. As one door closes, let’s make sure to invest in other fantastic specialist nurseries in the North and beyond, such as Hootons Walled Nursery and Cliff Bank Nursery.
Just like with food, it’s all about finding and choosing great ingredients. Thank you, Stephen and Kim, for 30 years of dedication and for enriching our gardens and our lives. You will be greatly missed!
