Jamie Butterworth honours plant nursery heritage with recent acquisition
Jamie Butterworth on growing Form Plants to honour Chobham’s plant nursery heritage with the acquisition of Jacksons Nurseries.
After being met with resistance from other growers while working as a plant specialist maintaining gardens, Jamie Butterworth identified a need for a means to source his own plants, leading him to grow his own and ultimately to him establishing his own nursery in 2021.
Form Plants, as Butterworth shares, derives from a quote from garden designer James Alexander-Sinclaire: “All you need to know about planting design is that of form and fluff.”
He explains that these are the two ‘simple’ rules he follows. After forming the garden’s structure, it is then enhanced with ‘fluff’ – referring to the planting that brings the garden to life and tells its story. Form Plants stands at the centre of nurseries ‘fluffing’ a garden design, says Butterworth.
Today, the nursery works alongside garden designers, landscape architects and landscapers.
Butterworth – a plant expert who has been working in plant nurseries since the age of 14 – admits he has an addictive personality: “If I like it, then we’ll grow it,” he jokes.
Formally a nursery that could hand-pot just 400 plants a day, the itch for more is what inspired the recent acquisition of Jacksons Nurseries in Chobham, Surrey. Now able to pot over 4,000 plants, the Form Plant’s team not only expands its stock for clients, but Butterworth is able to explore his devotion to perennials.
“Perennials are my passion, and so I’ve always been trying to make it work. Before we bought Jacksons, we couldn’t grow that many of our own plants. We could stock maybe 10,000 perennials at any one time in amongst the trees. It meant we didn’t have enough space to be able to do grow much of our own. We were forever buying stuff to top up orders.”
Passing the perennials
One of Jacksons top customers over the last five years, Butterworth details that a buying agreement almost came into fruition just three years ago. “I told the owner, Peter Tilbury, ‘if you ever get bored, I’d love to take over this nursery. I love the heritage, I love the history, I love the quality, the team and the location.’” While this didn’t work out back then, Tilbury eventually approached Butterworth in July 2025 with an offer.
“From the relationship we already had with the team and how Jacksons operated and the quality it produces – it was a no brainer in every sense.”
Now retired, Tilbury and his family’s line grew Jacksons for almost 90 years. Ready to hand his company over to Butterworth, the pair worked together, across several months, to streamline the process, both internally and for both companies existing customers.
Operating in both Addlestone and Chobham in Surrey, Form Plants remains at its Row Town site in Rodwell where its office, showroom, specimen trees, multi-stems, shrubs and hedging are kept. Located at the original Jacksons site, now known as Burrow Hill, Form Plants holds herbaceous perennials, ferns, ornamental grasses and climbers.
When deciding to take on Jacksons, Butterworth describes his disappointment after Chobham had been transformed from the epicentre of plant nurseries in the UK to leaving behind just a few. “At its peak there was around 58 nurseries all based in and around Chobham. It had such heritage. They all used to act as a cooperative and work together,” he reminisces.
Rebuilding a generation
“We talk about this generational skills crisis in general. There are so many nurseries across the country who have been going forever, but they aren’t lasting into the next generation. Kids aren’t interested,” says Butterworth. A tough industry; from weather implications, the economy and the on-going climate crisis – “the passion needs to be there,” adding: “I love the idea of rebuilding these cooperatives in and about Chobham. I hope to see more nurseries come up.”
Intent on rebuilding Chobham’s historic legacy, Butterworth says he has always encouraged the very best people to come in and work for Form Plants, he admits: “I’ve got no idea what minimum wage or living wage is, and I don’t really care, because I try to make sure we’re nowhere near that.”
In turn, Form Plants has “not been afraid to be at the upper end of the market so that we can guarantee the quality, whilst paying the team. We’ve spent a long time growing this, and this is what it’s worth,” he explains.
A much larger business, Form Plants can now offer an expanded range to its customers as Butterworth prepares to work with designers across larger scale projects. As well as allowing him and his to focus on going completely peat free across the new site. Whilst Form Plants has been peat free since the very beginning, it’s time to make the change at the new site.
“I understand the importance of peat bogs and the damage that has been done to environments such as the Lake District. The lasting damage of ripping these out don’t just leave a scar on the landscape, but it’s the emissions that it produces.” The company have saved 300,000l of compost to date, that would have otherwise been peat.
A big year for Butterworth, not only did he celebrate getting married, but after creating a RHS Chelsea Flower Show Garden with horticulturalist Monty Don, he finished 2025 with more land, a bigger business and most importantly, more perennials.
