Pioneering retailer Eddie Topping of Barton Grange Garden Centre was among a UK group attending the opening of the world’s first ‘nursery park’ in Tuscany last week.

The group, which included landscapers, landscape architects, garden designers and contractors, was organized by Europlants, UK agents for Pistoia nurserymen Vannucci Piante, the driving force behind the new Pistoia Nursery Park.

The project, a cross between a display nursery and a botanic garden, houses more than 1,000 mostly mature specimen plants in 10 hectares and is already a local landmark. Although aimed at trade buyers and landscapers, it will be opened for limited public access.

All the specimens on the parkland site, from field maple and horse chestnuts to catalpa, cedars, dogwood and Magnolia grandiflora, are in massive containers – and are for sale. Hundreds have already been bought in what promises to be a constantly rolling stockturn that will transform the park’s landscape from week to week.

Vannucci’s managing director, Vannino Vannucci, says the ‘nursery park’ concept was a unique way of displaying plants.  “For some time we have felt a need to respond to all those who expressed their wish to see the plants placed harmoniously, naturally, not constrained by the strict geometry of a nursery. We felt the need to express the growing ‘contamination’ between our sector and other fields, hitherto little explored: art, creativity, design, lighting.” He believes the Park will inspire new projects and ideas.

Eddie Topping and the other members of the UK party spent two days exploring the massive range of plants, all available for import from Hatfield-based Europlants, across Vannnucci’s nursery network in the Pistoia region. In addition to the sprawling main nusery, there are 165 other pockets of production, ensuring that few buyers need leave empty handed, whatever the shopping list.