Nursery owners Cédric Basset and Manon Rivière don’t do ordinary: they’ve spent their careers discovering and growing unusual plants. Since January 2020, they have been running Pépinière Aoba in Brittany, France. Aoba means greenery in Japanese, so it’s an apt name for a nursery that specialises in species from Asia, with a focus on foliage, climbing and shade-loving plants. Its range is impressive, with more than 5,000 species, and includes national collections of epimediums, polygonatum, Japanese hydrangeas, species irises and Lardizabalaceae.
Before they set up Aoba, Cédric and Manon each had their own nursery in the east of France,
