Absurdities on the border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland

JOHNSONS OF WHIXLEY, a Yorkshire plant nursery, has been selling around £500,000-worth of plants each year to customers in Northern Ireland. Now it has to stop, because it grows those plants in British soil.

To avoid a hard Irish border, the UK and EU agreed that Northern Ireland remains bound by many EU regulations, which include a ban on the import of soil. Johnsons could continue to sell in Northern Ireland if it used concrete or plastic to keep plants from touching the soil but, says Jonathan Whittemore, the firm’s head of production, that would mean a “complete change” in its processes. Plants may also be sold to Northern Ireland if they are grown in peat—which encourages peat bogs to be stripped for horticulture, thus contributing to climate change. The company had grown a rare type of hedging to order for a Northern Ireland customer. With that sale now impossible, Mr Whittemore expects that some of the plants will be dumped.