We'll always encourage you to support local businesses, but sometimes ordering plants online is more convenient, particularly when online garden centres are freed from the constraints of floorspace and can sell a bigger variety.
Alongside traditional nurseries (some of which are over 100 years old), there’s also a burgeoning industry of houseplant sellers aimed at a less-green-fingered audience looking for easier-to-maintain plants (jump ahead to see our list).
What to consider when buying plants online:
- Don't necessarily expect instant delivery, since plants – even in greenhouses – grow and mature at specific times. But most online stores offer a ‘despatch window’ and list expected arrival times against their products.
- Buying outdoor plants online can be a bit of a minefield, with things arriving in a mess of compost, much smaller than expected or with pests and diseases. To avoid these risks, it is always best to buy from a reputable seller who will pack your plants with care.
- Nurseries are increasingly switching to more eco-friendly packaging, so this is worth checking as well.
Looking for seeds? Here's where to buy seeds online.
Best places to buy plants online in 2024
Dobies
Dobies was established back in 1894 and now delivers its seeds, bedding, bulbs, fruit bushes, and trees across the UK. It’s one of the best online garden centres and runs with a distinctly no-nonsense, no-frills ethos. If you head to the site’s ‘Plots, Tips and Advice’ page, you’ll find it chock-full of useful blog posts on growing and caring for a wide variety of plants.
Thompson & Morgan
Thompson & Morgan started out in a small garden behind a baker’s shop in c.1855 Ipswich, but it's now the UK’s largest mail-order seed and plant company. The brand also sells bulbs and fruit trees, and has its own Suffolk-based plant-breeding programme, where it grows new discoveries like ‘Buzz’ buddleja.
There’s sometimes a small discrepancy in arrival dates as the growers dispatch plants when they’re in prime condition.
Crocus
Founded in 2000, Crocus is a mere sapling of seller by comparison, but widely respected, and now the biggest gardening website in the UK. We particularly like its seasonal ‘Inspiration’ page and bespoke sourcing service; if you’re after a rare plant, the staff will help you.
Hardy's Cottage Garden Plants
Hardy's Cottage Garden Plants is one of the UK's leading plant nurseries, founded in 1988 by Rosy Hardy (pictured). It's a family-run business stocking over 1,200 plant varieties, and a Chelsea gold-medal-winning nursery, so you know you're buying expertly grown plants when you shop from Hardy's.
Shop now from Hardy's Cottage Garden Plants
Gardening Express
You might call Gardening Express founder Chris Bonnett the Jeff Bezos of online garden centres. Back in the ’90s, when still a teenager, he had already cultivated a passion for gardening and saw the huge potential in internet retail.
Fast forward a couple of decades and the site boasts a comprehensive plant catalogue with everything from climbers and vines to exotic and tropical plants. There's even a five-year guarantee on hardy plants.
Botanico
Botanico specialise in growing rare and unusual plants, so they are a great place to visit if you're looking for something on the more exotic side. What's more is they grow seventy per cent of their plants on site and deliver in recyclable packaging.
Gardening Direct
Gardening Direct is an online seller with nurseries that span seven acres of greenhouses on Jersey. It sells a wide variety of outdoor plants, including bedding plants, but also a range of indoor varieties such as orchids, yuccas and potted roses. Free delivery is offered on orders over £50.
Beth Chatto
All of the plants at the Beth Chatto nursery are propagated, grown and tended on site, according to the legendary founder Beth Chatto's methods. There's a wide range of around 2,000 unusual plants available, with very helpful descriptions.
You can search for plants alphabetically, by growing collection (eg bees, bugs and butterflies) or by garden conditions (eg dry areas, damp areas, shade).
Calamazag Nursery
Calamazag Nursery are one of the best places to buy outdoor plants online. They grow over a thousand varieties of plant and specialise in Dianthus.
Shop now at Calamazag Plant Nursery
Primrose
Primrose is strictly more of a general garden store stocking a sweeping range of tools, equipment and furniture. But it also has an entire vertical on its site given over to plants and trees.
Look out for the RHS’s Award of Garden Merit badge on certain plants as a marker of a plant’s excellence and resilience in gardens, all done with all the rigorous testing you’d expect from the RHS.
Claire Austin
Claire Austin is the daughter of the legendary late rose breeder, David Austin, and has followed in her father's footsteps with her own specialist plant nursery. She offers a wide range of easy to grow perennials, peonies and irises, all grown on-site.
Search for plants alphabetically, by type, or by collection (eg soil type, colour scheme, growing with roses) or by garden conditions (eg dry soil, shade).
Garden Beauty
Garden Beauty are a great place to buy shrubs online, especially hebes, which they specialise in. They grow all of their own plants in their nursery in Southampton and everything is 100 per cent peat-free.
Van Meuwen
Van Meuwen founder Aart Alders went to a prestigious horticultural college in the Netherlands in the 1960s before moving to the UK and starting a mail-order company in 1977. It earned its reputation through strict quality requirements and expert knowledge. The store even promises to refund or replace if there’s no growth after 30 days… and you’ve followed the instructions properly.
Best places to buy houseplants online
Bloombox Club
Bloombox Club CEO Kate Cooper is a former psychologist who would encourage her clients to surround themselves with plants as part of their therapy. The focus here is definitely on self-care with certain plants listed as air-purifying and pet-friendly too if you’re nervous about your pooch or kitty.
There are also some fabulous pots available, which can be bought in bundle deals with plants.
Harriet's Plants
Harriet's Plants is one of the best places to buy houseplants online. Founded by Harriet Thompson, the ethos of the business is around supplying peat-free, pesticide-free plants to minimise the impact of horticulture on the environment.
The Glasshouse
The Glasshouse has a great range of houseplants from small up to extra large varieties. When you shop from them you are also supporting a social enterprise that helps ex-offenders grow and nurture plants and gain horticultural training. The project is based in East Sutton Park prison for women in Kent.
Read our feature on The Glasshouse.
Bloom & Wild
Bloom & Wild has made its name for itself selling gorgeous bouquet arrangements and super-convenient letterbox flower subscriptions. But the brand also sells fabulous house plants. We were delighted to discover that the pots the plants are photographed in are also included in the delivery!
Patch Plants
Here's another online house plant seller that's captured a millennial audience. Patch actually sells both indoor and outdoor plants, which are categorised by size – ‘tiny’ to ‘tall’ – and by the intended room of the house. Rather sweetly, plants are also given names like Dora, Emma and Neva.
Root Houseplants
Root is a particularly eco-friendly online store; its plants are delivered in recycled cardboard and filled with starch-based packing peas, which can go on your compost heap. It stocks a wide range of house plants, plus stylish products like ceramic pots, scented candles and art prints.
The Little Botanical
If you want to search through a comprehensive house plant site, take a look at The Little Botanical. You can filter your search through a long list of criteria; for example, if you want a low-maintenance, patterned plant under £40, you can tick those boxes, and the results will appear.
For sustainability reasons, orders are kept to a minimum of £20.
Shop now at The Little Botanical
For more online shopping inspiration, visit our Kit section. You'll find everything from our selection of the best wheelbarrows, to gardening gifts and mini greenhouses. We've also listed our favourite grow lights to help indoor plants thrive.