Welcome TO alan's Jungle Plants
Croeso i Blanhigion Jyngl Alan
A catalogue of hardy and half-hardy plants for the exotic garden effect
About Us
Our Philosophy
Our Philosophy
Our Philosophy
Growing exotic jungle-like garden plants is fun but can be challenging. We supply a variety of hardy and half-hardy plants for a jungle effect and are honest about their requirements. We aim to specialise in bananas, gingers and aroids but also stock other hardy exotics and tender plants. Our business is largely by mail order.
Our Plants
Our Philosophy
Our Philosophy
We aim to offer plants that are less likely to be found in the larger garden centres. Some plants are quite rare in cultivation, others more common but essential as tropical garden plants. Most of our plants are propagated on the nursery by seed, cuttings, divisions or other methods. Our seeds are fresh and stored for no more than a year.
Our Staff
Our Helpers
Our Helpers
Alan Hemsley is the eponymous founder of Alan's Jungle Plants. He has many years of experience growing a variety of jungle plants. Alan is also a renowned botanist who taught, palaeobotany, geoecology and soil science at Cardiff University. Paul and Kate lend a hand when times are busy.
Our Helpers
Our Helpers
Our Helpers
We are an organic plant nursery and do not use pesticides or herbicides. The ducks on the nursery do a good job hunting slugs, snails and other pests. We use soil-based composts to reduce the risk of vine weevil, while our nursery compost and other organic fertilizers keep our plants healthy.
What we do
Plant sales online
We are a mail order business specialising in tender, half-hardy and hardy plants for the creation of a jungle-style garden. We grow mostly plants propagated from our own stock but buy in some plants from suppliers that we then grow on to maturity. Many of our plants are raised from seed on the Nursery. We grow as much as possible outside in summer so that it is acclimatised to our weather conditions. We also sell surplus seeds harvested from our stock plants.
See our range of plants and seeds in our online shop.
The nursery
We have a wider range of plants on our nursery and some larger specimens that are too big to mail, particularly shrubs, trees and bamboos. Please enquire for details. We are happy to have visitors but would ask that you telephone beforehand so that someone can be available to greet you. Please see opening times further down this page. Plants purchased at the nursery attract a 20% discount on our mail order prices.
See our 'Nursery Chatter' page for our blog and information on what is happening on the nursery.
As part of our organic and recycling philosophy, we are happy to receive any unwanted, undamaged robust plastic plant pots which we will reuse for our plants.
Produce
Fresh, free-range duck eggs are usually available at the Nursery, March to August - £1.80 / half dozen.
Public lectures, talks and educational visits
Alan is happy to speak about various aspects of horticulture and botany. Please inquire for availability and rates.
We can cater for educational groups (max 6 children) between May and August. Learn about jungle plant botany and enjoy an entertaining afternoon surrounded by hardy exotics. (£25 + £5/child). Adult supervision required.
Please be aware that we do not have public toilet facilities on site.
Plant details and cultivation notes
Our A-Z of plants we have sold is now complete and available. The updated lists (for 2024) contain over 600 plants, each with a description, and cultivation notes including light and soil preferences, as well as instructions on how to get the less-hardy plants safely through the winter. The complete list comes in six parts (A-B, C-E, F-J, K-O, P-R and S-Z) of which P-R is free as a 'taster'.
You can order them as downloadable PDF files in our shop either as part of a plant or seed order or on their own.
We also plan to have advice sheets available for particular genera in due course so keep an eye open for these.
Our Plants
What do we stock?
We stock a variety of trees, shrubs and perennials, both hardy and half-hardy. They have been chosen to give an exotic appearance as individuals or in combination. We aim to offer a wide variety of bananas, gingers and aroids for the jungle-style garden. We also stock many plants that will live happily in a conservatory or garden room. Our stock of any individual plant is usually small and only available plants are listed in the online shop. The shop content therefore changes frequently so we hope our customers will visit our website often to see what is new.
We are keen to stock plants that you want to purchase so if you have suggestions to improve our range, please let us know. We will respond as soon as possible.
Hardiness of our plants
The Royal Horticultural Society uses a scale of hardiness from 1 (least hardy) to 7 (most hardy). We use this new system in our plant descriptions. We sell fully hardy plants, plants that require some winter protection in the UK, and some plants which need to be kept free of frost at all times.
The Jungle Score
Tropical plants have a number of characteristics which are adaptations to their environment. We can score these out of a total of 5. This unique system shows which plants will contribute most to an exotic planting. See our list of recommendations.
Why buy from us?
No 'out of stock' items
Unlike some online stores, we do not show stock that is unavailable. If we sell out, we remove it from view as soon as we can. This means if it's in our online store it's available now.
Prices include postage
We include the cost of Royal Mail 2nd Class postage in our prices. This means no nasty surprises at the checkout. You'll know exactly what your order is going to cost right from the start.
Reduction on larger orders
If you spend more than £15.00, you can use coupon code ajp24 at the checkout to get a 10% reduction or if you spend £35.00 or more, use ajpx24 to get 15% off. This is because larger orders are proportionately cheaper for us to mail.
No pesticides or herbicides
We encourage wildlife as much as possible so we don't use chemicals to control pests and weeds. Sometimes this means our plants are less than perfect but probably healthier for it.
