If you’re perusing the furniture section at Petersham Nurseries, an upscale garden oasis nestled just a meadow’s distance from the Thames in South West London, you might wonder if you’ve accidentally wandered into a salvage yard. This isn’t your typical garden center experience.
Amid the vibrant array of bedding plants, shrubs, and climbing vines, customers are met with the unexpected sight of rusted metal decor—tables, chairs, mirrors, and urns—that might look more at home at a thrift market, all seamlessly integrated with the surrounding greenery.
Dangling from each piece is a neatly tied paper tag, proudly bearing the nursery’s crest—a pair of elegantly hand-drawn elephants—alongside the item’s price.
Ironically, the appearance of these weathered, vintage-style treasures belies their price, which is far from modest.
Take, for instance, a duo of rusted cast iron urns, their red and white paint showing significant signs of wear and tear. These relics carry a hefty price of—you guessed it—£800, prompting a double-take.
Owned by the Boglione family, Petersham Nurseries – around a mile from Richmond station – has a discerning clientele who come to browse plants and enjoy the cafe and restaurant
Oxidation fixation? Rust is de rigueur at the upmarket Surrey garden centre which sits close to the River Thames in Petersham. This metal table has a £950 price tag
The once painted surface has given way almost entirely to rust. Right: The small cardboard tags that discreetly share the price of each item
Elsewhere, a circular metal garden table with almost all of the once painted surface now giving way to rust rings through the till at £950 and a ‘French garden’ bistro set with four chairs, this time with more of the paint intact, will set you back a cool £1,200.
The junkyard chic items somehow work when set against the truly ambrosial backdrop of what is arguably the country’s poshest garden centre.
And, according to one interiors expert, the oxidised look is very on trend.
Lucy Mather who works for luxury home brand Arighi Bianchi told The Daily Mail: ‘The rust aesthetic is one of those trends that sounds incredibly counterintuitive until you see it in context.
This grey five piece French garden bistro set retails at £1,200
‘It’s the decor equivalent of beautifully-creased linen or age-softened leather – it makes a real statement that things don’t have to look pristine to feel luxurious and intentional.
Petersham’s latest weathered stock is, she adds, ‘part of an overarching move towards embracing imperfection and individuality in home décor. It’s all about celebrating the marks that have been left by time, and nothing tells that story better than rust.’
‘That’s why we’re seeing people investing in corten steel planters and oxidised furniture that give the impression they’ve been sitting outside for years.’
The Petersham Nurseries greenhouses don’t just house plants, bulbs and garden tools either; the cafe and restaurant are just as big a draw for the well-to-do customers who venture here.
Pretty as a picture: The garden centre is hugely popular with celebrities and well-heeled locals
A pair of simple metal and wood bistro chairs with layers of paint peeling off, costs £330
Just ten miles from the bright lights of central London – and a mile from Richmond station, landing in Petersham, where the average cost of a house teeters around the £2.5million mark, feels like you’ve arrived at some rural idyll.
The previous nursery had been snapped up by the Boglione family when they purchased nearby Petersham House back in 1997, and re-opened again – this time as a more bohemian garden nursery – in 2002.
Its popularity soared and the original restaurant won a Michelin star thanks to the creativity of renowned Australian chef Skye Gyngell, who died at the age of 62 in November.
Gyngell wowed diners with menus that centred around the slow food movement, often using locally-sourced ingredients.
A cast iron urn, once painted red and white but now looking a little worse for wear comes as one of a pair that costs £800
The urn’s interior reveals the rust that taken over the iron planter. Right: The price tag for the red-and-white urn
Unsurprisingly, this bucolic spot by the river has enjoyed a carousel of celebrity visitors over the decades, from Mick Jagger to Madonna. Tom Holland and fellow A-lister Zendaya, who live close by, have also been spotted dining out at the posh garden centre.
Indeed, Petersham Nurseries has become one of the attractions – alongside Kew Gardens, the ancient Royal reserve of Richmond Deer Park and the town’s pretty cricket green – that have seen the well-heeled – and the famous – snap up Victorian and Georgian properties in the borough.
Indeed, the ratio of celebrities to mere mortals continues to rise, with Richard Osman, author of best-selling The Thursday Murder Club series, reportedly buying an £8million home in the town last year.
House of Games presenter Osman, who shot to fame as Alex Armstrong’s sidekick on Pointless before turning his hand to writing thrillers, is in fine company in the princely TW10 postcode.
Sir David Attenborough resides quietly just around the corner, where he’s lived in the same pretty, lilac-painted home – with, as you might expect, a beautiful garden, since the early Fifties. His late brother, Richard Attenborough, also owned a home on Richmond Green until his death in 2014 at the age of 90.
A sizeable mirror stands close to the nurseries’ shop on sale at £2,100
A sticker on the item describes it as a ‘tall cast iron mirror’
The world’s most famous naturalist, who celebrated his 100th birthday in May, may have travelled the globe extensively in pursuit of the planet’s rarest species but he maintains that the corner of London he calls home is his ‘favourite place on earth’.
Across Richmond Park, the 1000-hectare green space once used as a hunting ground for Henry VIII, you’ll find the London home of Spiderman star Tom Holland and fellow A-lister Zendaya.
The couple, who have dramatically renovated the townhouse they bought for £2.5million back in 2017, have been spotted shopping in Waitrose in nearby New Malden, enjoying long walks with their beloved black miniature schnauzer, Noon, in the royal park close to their luxury property.
While perennially popular – Richard E Grant, The Rolling Stones and Sir David Attenborough all discovered this pretty South West London riverside town decades ago, Richmond’s popularity with major stars has ratcheted up a notch in recent years.
Hollywood stars Tom Holland and Zendaya reside close to Petersham Nurseries and have been spotted dining there (Pictured: The pair enjoyed a date day at Henry VIII’s former home by the Thames, Hampton Court Palace, in the spring of 2023)
House of Games presenter and best-selling writer Richard Osman, pictured with his wife Ingrid Oliver at the UK premiere for The Thursday Murder Club in 2025, recently decamped from nearby Chiswick to an £8million property on Richmond Hill
If homes in the likes of Primrose Hill, Holland Park, Chelsea and Hampstead were once London’s most lusted after addresses, it seems the exodus a little further west has begun in earnest.
One local independent estate agent told the Daily Mail earlier this year that he’s watched his patch transform in the last decade, as high profile high earners flock to a borough that has impressive transport links to both central London and Heathrow, independent shops galore, two theatres and major tourist attractions including Richmond Deer Park and Kew Gardens.
However, the real reason behind so many famous faces moving in comes down to one major celebrity deal-breaker – privacy.
Jonathan Mills, owner of agency Parkgate, says that residents take a laissez-faire approach to stars in their midst, which is hugely appealing to A-listers yearning for a quiet life.
He says: ‘Privacy is respected and I think that’s a large part of the appeal of Richmond. Celebrity is normalised here – residents may give a cursory nod of appreciation but they won’t run up screaming to them requesting photos.’
The Daily Mail has contacted Petersham Nurseries for comment.
