Our environmental legacy

Everything we do in our gardens has an impact on the environment. With a large nursery and over 2,000 plant varieties to care for, we at RHS plants have to be particularly conscious of our actions. We believe in making the right decisions for the environment; so we’re committed to doing all we can to minimise our impact on the environment around us and work to make our business as sustainable as possible.

Bees and Neonicotinoids

We take the plight of the bees very seriously. We keep our own bee hives here on the nursery, and both our directors are keen beekeepers with their own hives at home. We stopped using the 3 neonicotinoids that are linked to problems with bees on the nursery well before the law was changed, and we are doing everything we can to ensure that the plants we sell to you are free from clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam.

We use over 60 specialist growers and suppliers and they know how passionate we are about the issue. However, none of us can be completely certain that every plant is free of chemical residue. So we could never say categorically that all our plants are neonic-free, even if it is our sincerest wish.

This issue, and the wider issue of disease and pest transmission from outsourced plants, has meant that we have invested in a new propagation unit which, from this autumn, should give us increasing levels of biosecurity as our own production accelerates.

It will also give us ever new opportunities to grow unusual and rare plants that previously we were unable to offer! More for you to enjoy and more for the bees to pollinate!