We are Franzi and Tim and we are the owners of Bee Plants, a small family-run nursery situated on our family farm in the heart of Farnham, Surrey. Franzi has grown up in Germany where she’s always been around plants from a very young age, helping her grandparents in their garden picking cherries, watering plants, and collecting plant seeds. Tim’s family have also always been very keen gardeners and he still has an annual competition with his mother on growing the best tomatoes on the farm.

When we heard about the decline in native grassland in the past 60 years and the worrying low numbers of important pollinators in recent years, we wanted to do something to help and make good use of the land on the farm. We started to sow a wildflower meadow in one of our fields to give our local pollinators a place to forage and live. But we didn’t stop there – we’ve rebuilt the old and neglected polytunnels on the farm that were initially built to grow plants for the farm 20 years ago to house our new nursery to create space to grow as many bee-friendly plants as possible. Our polytunnels are carbon neutral and self-sufficient in that we use collected rainwater from the guttering of the polytunnels, additional rainwater from the well on the farm and any electricity needed is powered by solar panels. We make our own compost from any plant waste that we get on the farm, and we reuse all our plastic pots in the nursery, so that you can receive your plants in fully biodegradable packaging.

We hope that we can make a small change for our pollinators but also bring colour and buzz to your gardens at home.