BUSINESS has been blooming for Judith Heaphy, known in Minehead as ‘the Plant Lady’, who over the past four years has raised almost £10,000 for local good causes from the flowers and vegetable plants she sells from stalls under awnings by her front door.

“Since the lockdown things have gone crazy,” Judith said. “It seems everyone has suddenly realised the joy of gardening and I can sell absolutely everything I can get my hands on. In the past three months I have raised nearly £5,000 for charity from the sale of plants. I’ve never known anything like it.”

On Wednesday, Judith handed over a cheque for £1,655 to Clare Pound, manager of Home StartWest Somerset, raised from plants sold in June. This followed a donation of £3,325 - taken in April and May - to cancer charity Hope for Tomorrow’s Bumble Bus, which recently lost some of its funding.

“In future I will be selling plants for the benefit of both charities, plus the Somerset Unit for Radiotherapy Equipment (SURE)” Judith says. “They all do wonderful work and you couldn’t find more deserving causes.”

Up to 30 customers a day have been heading for the narrow lane just off the seafront where Judith produces a constant stream of plants from her three-metre by nine-metre back garden which is taken up by masses of plants and seedlings in pots and trays.

Her conservatory doubles as a greenhouse and she borrows two more greenhouses from kindly neighbours. “I just can’t meet the demand at the moment from my own garden, but luckily friends with surplus plants are helping me out,” says Judith, who has a degree in plant science.

“I have never advertised. People just hear about me from friends or notice the plants as they walk by and then the same people come back year after year. My garden is simply unable to keep up with the demand so if any local gardeners have surplus plants I would be delighted to sell them for charity.”

To buy or donate plants, contact Judith at [email protected], 07827 330750, or call at 3 Quay Lane, Minehead.