The team
Eirlys answers the sandwich-bag questions; Gethin waters three acres and drives the van. Sandra runs the café kitchen and is not to be interrupted before ten.
Owner and plantswoman
Eirlys grew up in the bungalow at the top of the yard; her parents put up the first glasshouse in 1984. She trained at the horticultural college at Pencoed, spent six years propagating for a wholesale nursery in Worcestershire and came home when her father's back gave out. She propagates most of the perennials herself and answers the sandwich-bag questions.
Yard manager and delivery
Gethin came on a Saturday job at sixteen and never really left. He runs the yard, waters three acres in a dry July, builds the larch planters in the shed and drives the van. He played prop for Bedwas until his knees asked him to stop, which is how he can lift a bulk bag strap with one hand and still complain about the hill.
Since 1984
Glyn and Mair Morgan bought the top field on Pant Road in 1983 with the idea of growing bedding plants for the markets in Caerphilly and Newport. The first glasshouse went up the next spring. People kept coming up the hill to buy straight from the bench, so by 1988 there was a till.
The lean-to went on in 1996 and the barn in 2004. Eirlys took over in 2011. It is still the same three acres, and the bungalow at the top of the yard still has someone living in it, which is useful when the frost alarm goes off.
Bring a photograph of the bed or a leaf in a sandwich bag. Free parking for sixty cars, soup in the lean-to and a van for anything that will not fit in yours.