TO farmers, I’m the weed man,’ declares Donald MacIntyre, founder of Emorsgate Seeds and conservation pioneer. He started collecting wildflowers from east London wastelands in 1980, pinching paper bags from supermarkets to store his coltsfoot. His first growing space was a five-acre plot borrowed from Norfolk County Council, together with snatched corners in council-house gardens across the Fens.
‘Businesses coming into the market focus on easy wins. We focus on increasing variety’
Today, Emorsgate is the UK’s biggest wild-grass and flower-seed company, managing 850 acres across sites in Norfolk and Bath, Somerset. On two contrasting topographies—silty and flat in the East, heavy and hilly in the West—the company grows an extensive range of wild-origin
