For Blming Good Plants.

A family-run garden centre in the heart of Water Orton

Pop in for the plants, stay for the cake.

Orchard Nurseries has been helping gardens grow across Water Orton, Coleshill and the east Birmingham villages for over 50 years. We are a small, independent team, so the advice is friendly, the plants are chosen with care and the kettle is never far away.

Right now the Christmas shop is full of decorations, lights, cards and gifts, our first potted Nordman non-shed Christmas trees are in, cut trees arrive mid-November and our homemade holly wreaths follow from 28 November. Santa himself visits on 19 and 20 December.

Celebrating 50 years of growing

Orchard Nurseries began in February 1973, when founder Ken Cole, having taken redundancy from Fishers, spotted an advert for a site on Vicarage Lane. There was one greenhouse, a couple of sheds and a tap. Two more greenhouses followed, along with a polytunnel and paving.

In 1986, after 18 break-ins, Ken made the sad decision to close. But the thieves were traced, details went to the police, and the family chose to carry on and find new premises. In 1990 we were offered the present site on Birmingham Road. It was literally a blank canvas: a house and a field.

The three cedar greenhouses were moved and re-erected, raised beds were built, and an old van was swapped for a caravan for tea breaks and storage. In 2003 our first keder building went up, now the entrance and exit, with a brick shop front added in 2008. The farm shop opened in 2010 and became the Gardeners Rest Tearoom in 2019, improved again in 2021 with courtyard seating and 24 indoor seats.

When lockdown arrived in 2020 we had spring plants ready and seedlings arriving, so we put one offer on our Facebook page and took six telephone orders, delivered on the way home. Within days the phone was ringing non stop, and when we reopened there were reported queues of traffic down the road. That hard work let us block pave the car park and refurbish the plant area in time for our 50th birthday.

A big thank you to all our customers, past and present. We look forward to the next 50 years.