Weeding the Web

A concession to gardening - if you're lucky

I had a double whammy view of the future this week. Let’s see what you think.

First, I visited a local garden centre. It's recently added an enormous, warehouse-sized space, around half of which is given over to a tray-service café/restaurant. It’s a light and airy, with a finger-on-the-pulse, environmentally aware sedum roof. It’s very pleasant, and the food is very good.

It’s also bang on trend. Back in February the Horticultural Trades Association (HTA) ran a conference dedicated to catering in garden centres (GC). You can hardly criticise the interest. According to HTA research, over 36 million people visit GC cafés/restaurants annually, with an average 8% increase year on year. That’s a third of GC visitors ending up in front of cup of coffee, with people choosing which GC to visit according to whether it has a café.

Gardening on a pittance at Buckingham Palace?

Quite a stir arose last week over Buckingham Palace's need for a new gardener. The Daily Telegraph concentrated on the eco emphasis of the job, with an article describing the handling of garden waste, taken pretty much verbatim from the Monarchy's official website.

As you might expect, The Daily Mail takes a slightly snide view, by concentrating on the salary. The job description can be found in their article. They're not alone in being exercised by this. Over at the Landscape Juice Network, members felt £15000 a year to be particularly tight-fisted.