Larch Cottage Nurseries was founded in 1985 by landscape designer Peter Stott on around an acre of land at Melkinthorpe in the Eden Valley, initially to grow stock for his own landscaping business. It has since grown into a single-site nursery covering some four acres of display gardens, including formal parterres, a Japanese garden and a walled kitchen garden, with a further twenty acres of growing fields nearby. The nursery propagates much of its own stock, offering rare and unusual shrubs, perennials and climbers alongside statuary and garden ornaments. In 2021 it became the first winner of the Royal Horticultural Society's Partner Garden of the Year award, a distinction Stott has said means more to the business than a Chelsea gold medal. A café on site serves visitors browsing the gardens.
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