LV Bonsai Nursery in Bexley: Junipers by Appointment Only

LV Bonsai has no walk-in hours. The homepage says the nursery is by appointment at all times, so you message Lee Verhorevoort first and then drive to 2 Taunton Close, Barnehurst, Bexleyheath DA7 6NN, in the London Borough of Bexley on the Kent border. In return you get a private look at Japanese specimen trees chosen by a grower who lived and worked in Japan, which is rare for a bonsai nursery in London.

The biography page tells the story. Lee started with a Saturday job at a UK nursery as a teenager, and at 18 he took the step of moving to Japan to live and work in bonsai. By his mid-twenties he had founded his own nursery, and trees from it have appeared on gold medal exhibits at the Chelsea and Hampton Court flower shows. The site does not give an opening year, so his age is the only marker.

That background explains how the nursery feels. It is a working collection run by one specialist rather than a garden centre with a bonsai corner, and the site describes it as the biggest bonsai nursery in Kent, a claim worth reading as local pride rather than a measured fact. Barnehurst sits inside Greater London, but the postal address still says Kent, which is why both names turn up when you search for it.

Stock covers every classic size, and the homepage lists mame, shohin, kifu and chuhin trees. The styled bonsai page shows the kind of material Lee is known for: Itoigawa and Sargentii junipers with live veins and pale deadwood, Japanese yew, and English yew, a native species that suits British weather. These are outdoor trees. Anyone after a ficus for a flat is in the wrong place and should look elsewhere.

Imported junipers, pines and Chamaecyparis have to go through a three month quarantine before sale, and the site says they can be reserved with a 50% deposit while they wait. It also says Lee cannot quote prices until a shipment arrives, and that hundreds more trees are due in spring 2027. If you want first pick, the practical move is to ask now to be told when that delivery clears quarantine.

Tools are the one area where the website lists prices, and the range comes from the Japanese maker Kikuwa. A small scissor is £29, a large scissor £35 and a root scissor £35. A 180mm bud side cutter is listed at £65, an extra large 270mm side cutter at £75, a high quality jin plier at £49 and a grafting knife at £45. A Japanese coco brush for cleaning the soil surface costs £6.

For a beginner, the honest advice is to skip the big cutters at first. A pair of scissors and one concave cutter will handle most work on shohin and chuhin trees, and the larger tools only earn their price when you start removing thick branches from field-grown junipers. Ask Lee which cutter matches the trunks you actually own before buying the full set, since he will have seen your trees in person.

The soil page lists Akadama Double Red Line hard grade, 3 to 6mm, in a bag of about 10kg for £25, and the finer shohin akadama at 1 to 3mm for £35. Kanuma, the acidic mix used for azaleas, is £25 for 18 litres, kiryuzuna is £25 for 14 litres, and bio charcoal is £12 for 2kg. Buying a bag here saves on courier charges that can double the cost of heavy soil.

Japanese bonsai wire is sold at £25 per 500g, in grades from 1mm to 5mm in half millimetre steps. Cut paste is £15 for 160g, camellia oil for blade care is £16 for 240ml and pot mesh is £5. Fertilisers include Yamato at £8 for 600g, Naruko at £15 for 2kg and Bio Gold Original at £75 for 5kg. The site marks one fertiliser and a brass hose nozzle as out of stock.

Taunton Close is a quiet residential street, and the appointment rule exists for that reason, so do not turn up hoping the gate is open. Say what you are looking for when you book, whether that is a shohin juniper, soil for twenty trees or advice on a yew you collected.

Group workshops are currently not available, according to the workshops page, so do not plan a trip around a class. Lee does still offer private tuition for individuals or groups, private consultancy and Japanese garden design consultancy, with no prices published. Bonsai clubs know him as a visiting teacher, and Swindon Bonsai Club described a November 2025 session as one of a regular series of workshops with him.

The people who book are mostly committed hobbyists: club members who want an Itoigawa with real deadwood, collectors filling a gap in a shohin display, and gardeners who have killed one too many supermarket junipers and want proper advice. If you only want a first tree to try, a walk-in nursery is the easier start. Miyagi Bonsai in Tottenham and WindyBank Bonsai in Carshalton both publish opening hours and sell good entry-level stock.

If an appointment does not fit your week, WindyBank at 60 Woodmansterne Lane opens without booking on Saturday and Sunday and focuses on outdoor Japanese trees, so it is the closest match to LV in spirit. For serious specimen material, though, the hour spent arranging a slot with Lee is worth it, because you are seeing trees that rarely appear on the open market.

Barnehurst station, on the Southeastern line through Bexleyheath, is about a kilometre from Taunton Close, so a visit by train is realistic if you are only buying tools or a small tree. Allow a short taxi ride back if you leave with a large juniper and a sack of akadama. The surrounding streets are interwar suburbia, with Martens Grove Park, a stretch of old woodland and lawn, a few minutes away beside Martens Avenue.

For a longer outing, drive about two miles south to Hall Place at Bourne Road, Bexley DA5 1PQ, a Tudor house built in 1537 for Sir John Champneys, a former Lord Mayor of London, with formal gardens and topiary beside the River Cray. After an hour among sculpted junipers, the clipped yew shapes in the Hall Place gardens make an interesting comparison between English topiary and Japanese bonsai.

Address: LV Bonsai, 2 Taunton Close, Barnehurst, Bexleyheath DA7 6NN, London Borough of Bexley. Visits: by appointment at all times, as stated on the official homepage. Email: info@lvbonsai.co.uk. Stock: outdoor Japanese and English trees from mame to chuhin, Kikuwa tools from £6 to £75, soils, wire and fertiliser. Tree prices are quoted once shipments arrive, and group workshops are paused. Nearest station: Barnehurst.