'I help people to create their dream gardens at my Shropshire plant centre'

“We’re a design-led plant centre offering a personal touch,” says owner Mark Lavers.

All of the staff at the centre, which is based within the courtyard of Apley Farm Shop, are experienced horticulturalists.

The business’ roots go back to 2016 when Apley Estates, along with Boningale Nurseries/Worfield Plants, started selling plants from the farm shop site between Telford and Bridgnorth.

In 2018, Mark, who has a BSc degree in horticulture and amenity, purchased the business and re-named it Moongate Plant Centre.

At the time he was working for Worfield Plants, but he later joined Moongate Plant Centre full-time in 2019 after 20 years working in wholesale.

The business expanded in 2020 with the addition of a second polytunnel, a shop and landscaped gardens, including a pond.

Since then the business has continued to grow and now has four different divisions – the Plant Centre, garden maintenance, border creations and wholesale.

The team of seven take pride in offering high quality, good value plants, including alpines, herbs, seasonal bedding, vegetable plants, fruit bushes, herbaceous perennials, climbers, deciduous and evergreen shrubs, specimen trees and large ornamental trees.

As well growing their own plants, which can be identified by their magenta pots, the team sources plants from local suppliers where possible.

They are also more than happy to track down harder-to-find plants for customers.

“If somebody comes into the plant centre and we haven’t got what they want in stock, we try to get it for them,” explains Mark. 

Visitors to Moongate Garden Centre can take inspiration from the beautifully planted Secret Gardens, which offer year-round interest and colour.

The team, who also supply wholesale nurseries, offer a border creation service, designing tailor-made planting schemes for individuals and businesses.

They can also create themed gardens for special events such as weddings, birthdays and anniversaries.

“The idea was to create a plant centre that was a little bit different and would offer a design service,” explains Mark. “Customers can come in and we can help them to choose the right plants or pull together a border or one of the team can go to their garden and create a border design,” he adds.

The team’s first project was at Wolverhampton Grammar School in 2019, and since then they have created more than 150 borders or complete gardens. They can also work in partnership with hard landscaping firms on larger projects.

Alongside the border creation service, they offer garden maintenance, such as pre- and post-season ‘tidy-ups’, weed spraying, lawn mowing, lawn maintenance, pruning, turf laying, the building and planting of raised beds, hedge planting and cutting.

The team currently maintains more than 30 gardens on a weekly/regular basis throughout the year.

Visitors to the plant centre will also find a wide range of pots, planters, galvanised containers, and salvage-ware on site, including garden mirrors, garden artwork, wall art, furniture and stoneware as well as wind-spinners, windchimes and obelisks. There is also a gift shop selling a wide variety of gifts for the garden and home. A good majority of the stock is produced in the UK and is eco-friendly.

The shop also stocks DCUK wooden ducks in bright colourful wellies and hats, eco-friendly greeting cards from UK artists, locally made coasters and bags, seedball wildflowers and herb seeds, houseplants, scented hand-made soaps, indoor pots, gardening tools and gloves.

Mark shares his time between the plant centre, border creations and running the maintenance team.

“It’s a really varied job which I love. I’ve got a very experienced team around me who have really embraced what we’re doing at Moongate,” he says.

“We get a lot of positive feedback and a lot of people come back because they find it a relaxing place to be. They can sit down in the gardens or they can wander about, it’s not pressured,” adds Mark.

For more information about the plant centre, which is open every day, see www.moongateplantcentre.com or www.facebook.com/moongateplants/.