The Dutch Nursery Garden Centre
The Current Company
Garden Centres are no longer just for plants. We are now more of a retail outlet than just a garden centre. At the Dutch Nursery we sell Outdoor plants of all kinds as well as indoor plants, cut flowers and arrangements from our on-site florists, gifts, books, garden furniture, aggregates, fencing, trellis, pots, BBQs, tools, lawn movers, strimmers, trimmers, seed, bulbs, general garden chemicals and sundries. With clothing and consumer goods the list is extensive. Furthermore, we now run events on site, such as children’s out days, craft days and organise coach trips to various venues near and far.
The company owns two Garden Centres, one at Hatfield, Hertfordshire and one in Coggeshall, Essex.
Our History
The Dutch Nursery was founded by Hans and Anna Henn. Anna Van Hage had come to England from Holland in 1952 as an au pair Hans arrived from his native Germany in 1953 to work in the nursery division of the Cheshunt based company, Rochfords. They were introduced at church in Waltham Cross and got married in 1956.
Together in 1957 they started their own “Dutch Nursery” selling Dutch bulbs and container grown plants - at the time revolutionary as most plants were sold bare rooted. They rented a site adjacent to what is now the cock of the north pub and The years between 1958 and 1966 were very busy ones, not only did they grow and sell seven days a week but they had six children 5 boys including twin boys and a girl.
After the appalling winter of 1963 the cucumber nursery across the road which suffered extreme damage came up for sale and the Dutch Nursery moved to its current site. In 1964 they started demolishing and rebuilding the nursery to provide the bones of what you see today.
Hans and Anna are still involved with the business today and all their children have either worked or are still working in the company. Robert runs the Garden Centre at Coggeshall and Antony runs a garden design business Gardens for Life from the Dutch Nursery at Hatfield. Jose is a florist and is now living in New Zealand. The twins Alex and Richard run the Hatfield site together and Julian runs Dutch Woodcrafts, specialising in Garden Woodwork from a workshop on site.
Great North Road, Brookmans Park, Hatfield, Herts, AL9 6ND Tel: 01707 653372
