Our 2025 sustainability report
Last updated August 2025
At Crocus we believe gardening sustains us, and that we have a responsibility to give back to the earth we love. That is why we have put together this Sustainability Report. We hope it gives our customers a behind the scenes look on our nursery. This year marks our fourth report and explains the changes we made in 2024 and our goals for 2025 to be a better business. You can read the full report or see the key stories below.
Welcome to our nursery
The only online gardening brand to be Plant Healthy
The only online gardening brand to be Plant Healthy
In 2023 we became the first online gardening brand to achieve Plant Healthy. This DEFRA-backed accreditation is given to growers who have been rigorously assessed and shown to maintain the highest standards of plant health and biosecurity. Achieving Plant Healthy means that our customers can rest assured that we’ve done everything we can to keep their plants pest and disease free. We are audited every year to ensure we still meet these standards and last year we passed once again and are committed to maintain this mark of quality.
100% self sufficient for our water needs
We have a large reservoir on the nursery which can hold up to 7 million litres of rain water and ensures that we are self-sufficient for our nursery’s watering needs. This means all of our plants which are out on the nursery are watered with recycled rain water. Once we have finished watering, the pipes collect this water again so that we are able to recycle 80% of water used for watering.
Recycling 80 tonnes of green waste
We often have a lot of plant waste material on the nursery due to our team cutting back or potting plants on. In 2021 we built three industrial sized composting bays to collect our green waste and turn this into compost. Every year this is rotated, sieved and eventually turned into compost. In 2024 we used this compost for our Chelsea Show Garden designed by Tom Stuart-Smith and for various landscaping projects and topping up plants before we send them out for delivery.
Protecting our nursery’s pollinators
We prefer to grow our plants as holistically as possible, so we've adopted an integrated pest management scheme (or IPM). In a nutshell, this means that when faced with a potential pest or disease, our first course of action will be to look for a cultural or biological solution. This practice has allowed us to massively reduce the use of traditional synthetic pesticides, while completely putting a stop to the use of broad spectrum pesticides such as neonicotinoids that can be harmful to non-target species. We’re also proud to offer our customers the largest selection of pollinator friendly plants online.
Key changes we made last year
More UK and peat free plants
Every year we look to improve on the amount of plants we grow ourselves in our Propagation Unit and we’re pleased to say that in 2024 we were able to increase output by 22%, growing a whopping 1.22 million plants from cuttings, plugs and seeds. All of these plants will have been grown in the UK and potted into a peat free mix designed and tested by our nursery team.
Reducing plastic pots
Plastic pots are a big concern within the gardening industry, which is why we only pot into plastic pots which are made from recycled materials and can be recycled by our customers at home. For larger plants we have switched to a new pot which has cut our plastic use by 35-40% and we are hoping to do the same for smaller plants. For plants from our UK suppliers, most have moved to a similar policy and we estimate that in 2024 75% of our total plants came in recyclable brown and taupe pots.
Switching to brown paper packaging for products
Whilst most of our plants arrive in brown paper packaging, we know we have further to go for our products. Focusing first on our Crocus Collection range, we are on track to switch all packaging to brown paper packaging and plastic free alternatives, aside from some glass items. From October 2025, 50% of all new Crocus Collection stock will arrive in plastic-free packaging.
What’s next for our nursery
80% of our plants to be grown in the UK
Where we can’t grow plants in our Propagation Unit, we work with trusted nurseries who start plants off and then we continue to grow them at our nursery. To reduce plant miles, we prioritise UK suppliers wherever possible. For 2025, our goal is that 80% of our plants are UK grown, including houseplants, bulbs, and seeds.
Removing peat from our supply chain by 2026
Whilst we have done a lot of work to create our own peat free mix and work with UK peat free plug suppliers, unfortunately some plugs sourced from our European suppliers do contain a very small amount of peat. We are actively trialing new methods on the nursery to ensure we can grow these ranges ourselves. For plants from our suppliers, our policy is to always favour a peat free supplier where possible and reasonable to do so. Ultimately, our aim is to be peat free for ‘garden ready’ plants by 2026, as in line with the UK’s government’s agenda.
Removing plastic from our packaging
All of our plants are hand picked by our nursery team and packed in our warehouse using cardboard and paper packaging. Aside from blister packs, which are made from recycled plastic, we don’t use plastic at all for the delivery of your plants. We are now taking this approach to our product packaging and we hope to be plastic free for all our Crocus Collection packaging in the future. In the meantime, we are also working closely with suppliers to reduce plastic packaging and are encouraged to see a growing shift across the industry towards more sustainable alternatives.
When it comes to minimising our impact on the environment, we know we still have further to go but we’re proud of the changes we’ve made so far. If you’d like to read more information on our approach to sustainability, what’s going on at our nursery and the goals we have set for 2025 read the full report below.
