As Trevena Cross Nurseries near Helston spreads an annual reminder of autumn’s importance in the planting calendar, the nursery itself is making plans for future planting by installing a brand new tunnel on site.

This will be capable of housing around 20,000 new plants, in four litre pots, to hugely increase the nursery’s growing capacity.

Already growers of around 80 per cent of the plants they sell, Trevena Cross Nurseries & Garden Centre is keen to push this figure up to at least 90 per cent. Owner Graham Jeffery said: “We stand apart from other garden centres, because we grow most of the plants that we sell on site. To increase our self-sufficiency further still, by reducing reliance on other suppliers, will be a big leap forwards, ensuring greater consistency in quality across the very diverse range of plants that we stock.”

The new tunnel, which has been built in the existing 32-acre nursery adjacent to the garden centre, will offer an opportunity to grow more of the centre’s most popular lines, as well as completely new lines they’ve been reliant on other suppliers for up until now.

The additional growing area will offer customers even more Cornish plants, grown just metres from where they are put in the trolley.