Staff on the Hartley Botanic stand at the Chelsea Flower Show welcomed a very special guest this week – Sarah is the granddaughter of Norman Hartley who together with his brother Vincent founded V & N Hartley in 1938. Sarah’s mother Elizabeth (Normans daughter) has spoken to Sarah of her memories of visiting Chelsea the year of the Queen’s Coronation in 1953, where her father and uncle proudly exhibited their greenhouses, and 62 years later Sarah wanted to see for herself and catch up on the history of Hartley Botanic.
Hartley are still manufacturing and retailing from the very same factory premises, in Greenfield England and indeed some of the machinery from those founder years survives to manufacture precision components for Hartley greenhouses today .