Weeding the Web

Shrewsbury Flower Show 2013

When was the last time you went to a major flower show that wasn't RHS?  The sheer power of their media presence overshadows the fact that others exist. Yet, earlier this year, 2,342 of Which? magazine's online members voted Harrogate's Spring Show the best in the country, and relegated Chelsea to 8th place.

In 6th place was Shrewsbury's, where we found ourselves last weekend. Held over 2 days, the flower show has just passed its 125th anniversary and, according to some, is a shadow of its former self. A comment left on The Shropshire Star complains, "Shrewsbury seems to have forgotten that it's a FLOWER SHOW, now it's more like a car boot..."

Could a show "more like a car boot" be voted a better experience than the world's premier gardening event?

The show is held in The Quarry, a large sloping, grassy area held in a crook of the River Severn. It's a lovely setting. On the other side of the river, Shrewsbury School holds a commanding position; an iron bridge (paid for by Shrewsbury Horticultural Society, no less) gives access to a pub on the opposite bank.

To gain the greatest impression of the show's individuality, it's best to start by the river. Here the local element is strongest. Enormous marquees house the competition entries - best veg, honey and wine classes, along with information stands on local gardens, the Alpine Society, the Institute of Groundsmen...  

Here's a brief interlude of what we saw:

 

And flower arrangements, WI classes (with interpretation of Mary Poppins), and a tribute to Shrewsbury's famous Parks Superintendent, Percy Thrower.  

 
  

One Master D Dobson got a First and "This is wonderful" from a judge of the Plant a Boot or Shoe class:

There was plenty of entertainment of a non-horticultural nature, including free rides on Prince, an engine from the Festiniog railway, showjumping, precision riding by the Royal Signals White Helmets, and a full programme of music on the bandstand.  

 

 

So far, it's the sort of thing you find at a county show. What, you ask, of the Flower Show? Well, moving up the hill, slowly because of all the stands and stalls, you reach the main attraction: The Floral Marquee - 52 nurseries and growers. There's a preponderance of more northerly growers, as you'd expect, but many are familiar from Hampton Court and Chelsea. The displays matched anything you'd see at the RHS shows.

Valducci Brugmansias from Shrewsbury, recreated a Columbian garden (read more about Luigi Valducci in James Alexander-Sinclair's article):

Gladioli, from Pheasant Acre Plants, Glamorgan, who won Gold at Chelsea this year: 

 

Plant Heritage, whose Shropshire group looks after an impressive 28 genera, had a prize-winning stand which included many plants from the national plant collections in the county:

Every Picture Tells a Story, from Liverpool, specialises in Bromeliads and tropicals. They've won medals all over the place:

And, outside, six little show gardens, which I might cover in a different post.

So, more car boot than flower show? 

I can see where the comment came from. It cost £26 on the gate for a day's entry, which, if you were only interested in the Floral Marquee, would feel a little steep. Of the stands ranged around the grounds, most are garden-orientated - furniture, equipment, plants and bulbs - but there is a significant presence of home-ware and clothing. The "Ideal Home" tent, a disparate collection of furniture and gadgets, felt tatty and its situation, right on the edge of the grounds, seemed to acknowledge that it didn't really belong.

Criticism arises in comparison with past shows. Another comment at Shropshire Star describes it as receiving only half the visitors of the past and being "a parody of what it used to be". Former, greater glory is hinted at in an interview in this year's show catalogue. Ivor Davies, show contractor for over 60 years, remembers flower exhibits 50 feet long.

The main elements, though, seem not to have changed over the years (as you can see in a video clip of the 1969 Shrewsbury Flower Show). I'm sure the current formula is very similar to that of past decades, when trapeze artists and parachutists featured in the arena. Anyway, those of us who don't remember past shows can only compare it with current alternatives. 

Shrewsbury certainly doesn't compare with the RHS Big Two. Show gardens and controversy are not a feature, celebrities do not turn out in their hordes (Paul Hollywood joined Chris Beardshaw as a celebrity attraction). The number of growers and stalls is smaller.

But nor is it cramped; nor do you end the day on your knees from exhaustion. It's a proud moment in the Shropshire calender, and whole families attend. You could be only mildly interested in flowers and still enjoy it.

There's plenty of seating where you can listen to the full programme of bands and choirs or enjoy an ice-cream or coffee without feeling that you should move on to give someone else a chance to sit down, a children's area with a non-stop programme of entertainment (magic, songs, and Chris Beardshaw getting them to plant seeds), plenty of space around the grounds.

This is still a local show, in the way that Hampton Court and Chelsea never have been, and consequently feels far less commercial. Not everything there is trying to prise money out of you nor advertise itself to people with far more money than you have.

There's another attraction too - its situation right in the midst of quaint and (mostly) beautiful Shrewsbury. Get your hand stamped to allow re-entry and you can drift out into town for a look at the castle or a bite to eat, if the foodstalls within the grounds don't appeal.

Included in the price was an evening concert by multi-award winning folk band Bellowhead, followed by massed bands, and a spectacular display by Kimbolton Fireworks. Experts in synchronising fireworks with music, last New Year they set the firework display on the Thames for the Mayor of London. I watched open-mouthed at the perfect timing of Chinese gunpowder with Wagner's wilder passages. £26 suddenly didn't seem so steep.

Then, as a final farewell, a lone piper at the gate, to see (or maybe hurry?) the contented crowd on its way.

 

No, it's not Chelsea, and it's not Hampton Court (which was placed second after Harrogate); it doesn't absolutely live and breathe gardens and gardening, but it's centred on very high quality exhibits while remaining relaxed, friendly and a pleasure to spend time in.

It might seem sacrilege to say so, but as an enjoyable day out, I thought it did, indeed, deserve its ranking.

If you've been to Shrewsbury, or one of the non-RHS flower shows, how did you think it compared? Do comment below.

NB If you've never visited Shrewsbury and Shropshire, I highly recommend it for a holiday. Shrewsbury is always floriferously and beautifully dressed (The Dingle is one of our loveliest public gardens), with lots of medieval, Georgian and Victorian architecture and small shops. Shropshire is muscle-bound with history and has plenty of gardens, properties and areas of natural beauty to enjoy. Incorporate the Flower Show into your holiday to add the icing on the cake.

Hampton Court Flower Show 2013 (part 2 - the gardens)

So, what trends appeared at Hampton Court this year? Well, I think there's been a better balance of plants and landscaping; straight lines seem less prevalent (thank goodness).  The collection as a whole felt less scolding, less inclined to bludgeon us to death with worthy messages, which I've found overwhelming in recent years.

Just about everything is kind to wildlife. If one more garden had said it was planted with bees in mind, I think I'd have screamed.

Having said that, a favourite was Bugs in Boots, one of the Association of Professional Landscapers' Low Cost, High Impact gardens (does that title give the public the wrong impression?).  Designed and built by Caspian Robertson of Surrey Gardens in the £13,000 category, its aim is to direct rainwater to a lower part of the garden where it can safely drain away via the SUDS (sustainable urban drainage system) beneath, without causing run-off problems. (Silver medal, and I really should have managed a better photo angle!)

The curved metalwork contrasted with the upright foxgloves, and Caspian thought that raindrops would look attractive dripping from them.

I guess it's not surprising after last year, but drainage was also on the mind of another of APL's gardens, In at the Deep End, designed and built by Monty Richardson and Peter Cowell of Living Gardens. It made a lovely oasis costing £7,000 (Silver medal). The planting broke up the hard landscaping, softening the edges of the steps...

...though I do I wonder how easy it would be to keep it in check.

I really wanted to talk to Sue Thomas, who designed the Willow Pattern garden, or Richard Thomas who built it, but unfortunately my visits didn't coincide with their presence. Its position was in afternoon shade and the graduated blues added to its calming, cool respite on a hot and hurried afternoon. (Silver medal.)

 

And then there were the conceptual gardens...

Some were just daft. Actually Dual/Duel wasn't a show garden, but "a concept art installation concerned with human nature" by Tony Smith of Hortus Infinitus, but it's so much what we've come to expect of conceptual gardens that I've included it here.

"Why do we fight?" it asks. We're meant to ponder whether it's because of personal differences or our descent from aggressive tribal animals (animals have tribes?). I ponder what dark secret lurks in his past that his overwhelming desire seems to be to up-end wheelbarrows.

Tip of the Iceberg (silver gilt award) I was prepared to hate. A pile of fridges? Sigh. But designer Caroline Tait won me over to quite a degree, though I still think they're not the perfect representation of man's wasteful nature, as fridges might create a waste headache when they're dead, but also prevent a lot of waste while they're alive.

The decommissioned fridges themselves were actually rather lovely (go on, you know you want to touch white goods) - pristine white and smooth ("The secret is car polish."). They were planted with alpines (fridge mountain, see?). The plants stood out against the installation and so took on a starring role that is sometimes lacking in this type of garden.

Caroline has discovered an unexpected fascination with fridge technology, and I wondered if we might not see reconditioned fridge carcasses gain chic as modern planters.

 

Ashes to Ashes (gold winner), designed and built by Bruce Waldock of Outerspace Designs, draws attention to the possibility that some ash trees will survive the Chalara onslaught by highlighting the project to return elms to the countryside, using potentially resistant specimens. It had a drama and balance between the stark blackened oak (ash can't be moved around Britain) surrounded by red roses (flames, of course) and the green mound which rose in hope, carrying a spiral of young elms. The curves and contrast gave a definite yin/yang feel.

Bruce really enjoyed making this garden. "There aren't many opportunities to create massive oak tombstones for a client," he said.  

 

Anything I hated? Valley Garden (silver gilt). The premise is good - a "pop-up" construction that can be assembled with different planting as desired on temporary sites. It's meant to bring landscape to a human scale, but felt cramped, gave you nowhere to contemplate it while others were waiting to journey up the 'V', and the black-dyed water looked mucky and dusty in the sunlight which showed up all the floating plant debris.

And finally, another I was surprised to like a lot. The Ecover Garden (gold, and Best in Show). Designer Matthew Childs used recycled plastic partly to draw attention to it as a material we should think about using more (something I've written about on several occasions). A great deal of plastic ends up in the oceans, so the theme of water covered many aspects.

You might question the desirability of a giant toilet cleaner bottle forming the fountain, but I think we can conjure glancing references to Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol in that, while allowing for Ecover's natural desire to advertise themselves... The planting itself was delightful, airy, swaying, evocative of water. In interview, Matthew explains a bit more.

For more pictures and comment, visit Down on the Allotment, Vegplotting, Out of My Shed, Dobies of Devon for Anne Somerset Miles' view of the McCarthy and Stone garden by Chris Beardshaw, In My Garden for a look inside the Rose tent.

If you'd like me to add another blog to the list or just want to opine on the gardens, do leave a comment below

 

Hampton Court Flower Show 2013 (part 1)

Facts about Hampton Court Flower Show:

• Area of showground: 34 acres
• Exhibitors at first show: 265
• Exhibitors last year: 600

That, you will realise, now makes for a mighty show to get round. It's reached the stage where it's just about impossible to do it in a day, although the new zone arrangement means that it's no longer necessary to traverse the entire site to see both the small gardens (this year named Summer Gardens) and the show gardens.

Chances are that all of us who made it to the Press Day yesterday missed something  Chris Young tweeted a picture from the Language of Flowers exhibit, missed by me (and Vegplotting). Mark and Gaz at Alternative Eden have already posted some lovely pictures, but are returning later to mop up the rest of the show.

I bypassed most of the trade stands, cast a cursory glance round the Plant Heritage tent, missed the roses completely. Here are a few of the things I did see:

Nikki Tibbles goes for an typically opulent (if rather impractical) henhouse design. The six designers included Deborah Meaden and Kate Humble and the houses will be auctioned on eBay. More pictures at Wild at Heart.

 

Edulis created a rather exotic look in the Growing Tastes tent:

Hooks Green Herbs managed 111 herbs in one stand:

The Native Butterfly garden was delightful (see that blur - butterfly in action!), and made it much easier to see the butterflies than Eden's biome, there to advertise their new overhead walkway.

New addition to the show is the Association of Professional Landscapers' "how to" display. During the week they'll be demonstrating how to lay turf, plant a tree and lay a deck (no fencing or slab-laying unfortunately, as the demos are only 10 minutes long). Their display shows a "bad" front garden and a "good" one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrities are more spread out than at Chelsea, though to be honest I'm not sure Mike Read counts. (He was reporting for Radio Berkshire, when not posing in front of Ecover's garden).  

 

Sir Donald Sinden took a spin around the Queen Elizabeth Foundation's garden, specially made for "people on wheels" as Bella Darcy Read told him. She consulted with designer Heather Appleton. His grand-daughter Harriet had been one of the team working on Cool Garden which won Best Summer Garden.

But what, you ask of the Show Gardens?  That's definitely something for a whole new blog post.

Will James Wong get gardeners excited?

Have you noticed how everything has to be exciting?

This struck me anew as I read the Horticultural Trade Association's interview with James Wong. He'll be speaking at the HTA National Plant Show today about engaging the younger generation. "My talk will cover my own - very personal - views on strategies that I believe garden retail (and in fact the whole industry) must adopt if it is to speak to younger audiences in an exciting, fun & relevant way. Whether it's to get 'em to pick a course at college or to secure a purchase at a garden centre."

(Oh, yes: "fun". I forgot that everything has to be fun as well.)

Now, two points. First, why is there a general assumption that no one will be able to raise a jot of enthusiasm about anything unless it's presented as - yes - exciting?  James is merely on trend with marketing speak, but I'm beginning to find it patronising. I don't need to be excited to find something interesting, and while I might not be the demographic that James is talking about, I know I never did. Children, in particular, are targets of this approach. Cue this month's RHS page for families.

"June has the longest day in the year and so is an exciting time of year to get out in the garden and enjoy early summer flowers.  Sow clarkia flowers for summer colour and radishes too for a vegetable with bite."

The rest of us do not escape. Get Your Grown-Ups Growing is promoted by the RHS :

"As part of the RHS Campaign for School Gardening this exciting new project encourages schools to get local grown-ups involved in their garden providing valuable resources and much needed help."

Pause for thought. Enjoying flowers - exciting? Sowing clarkia and radishes - exciting? Getting grown-ups in to do your digging - exciting? Hmm.

And this is my second point. How would you describe gardening? Absorbing, yes. Engaging, yes. Addictive - certainly for some. Satisfying, gratifying, comforting, soothing, puzzling, frustrating, intellectually challenging. All sorts of adjectives spring to mind. But not exciting - at least, not until you've become so absorbed, engaged, etc., etc., that the arrival of a new blight-resistant potato makes you buzz with anticipation.  Excitement does not come first.

Of course, there are prospects within gardening which most non-gardeners might recognise as potentially raising the pulse-rate: designing a show garden for Chelsea, for example; launching your own gardening business. But ordinary, everyday, suburban soil-delving comprising the main activity of all those youthful wallets that James Wong wants to wedge open at garden centres? I don't think so.

And there's the rub for the garden industry. Gardening isn't exciting. Gardening is the epitome of delayed gratification. We wait; we nurture. People who need excitement in the quantities that gardening marketing departments would like to serve up go sky-diving, bungie-jumping, or throw all their savings into a once-in-lifetime venture. Those of us who garden find it has exciting moments, but we do not do it for excitement.

I'm sorry I'm going to miss James's talk. He believes that "garden centres will begin to need to look and feel more like plant 'food halls' than factory outlets in the very near future". At least that might moderate the vast expanses of lifestyle products that I first mentioned in A Concession to Gardening and which have become the mainstay in many garden centres.

But he envisages what sounds to be an exhausting pitch of excitement, and a dizzying round of innovation.

"If our industry is going to survive it will need to take a leaf out of the books of ruthlessly innovative supermarkets, who are constantly striving to surprise and excite an increasingly discerning customer, instead of just churning out more of the same...

"Rewarding these horti-customers with a spread of exciting, novel varieties, quirky in-store displays and useful point of sale 'how to' advice - just like food and clothes retailers do as standard - is a guaranteed way to keep plant geeks (novices and veterans alike) wanting more."

What do you think? The horticultural industry is a tiny proportion of GDP. That's because gardening is not an inherently consumerist activity, unlike the food and clothes industry, where food gets eaten or perishes and clothes fall apart or out of fashion.

Picture yourself confronted by the panoply of novel varieties described above. Plant geeks grabbing more or, as the "increasingly discerning" customer whom James envisages, choosing the odd plant to try in that awkward corner? 

Those who might be drawn in are those who aren't discerning, those who are just starting off with the garden when, for a short time, you're like a kid in a sweetie shop - should I buy that? That looks good. Let's try that. But you buy your plants, you put them in, some die, some get replaced, and, unless you become absorbed, engaged etc., that's pretty much it.

If you do become absorbed, engaged etc., I can't help feeling that you won't be jumping up and down in the garden centre with excitement at a dozen novel varieties. You'll think about your garden, seek out a particular cultivar, choose with care.

And when that's done, you won't be in the shop, you'll be in the garden - growing, not consuming - and doing what you like best.



A Walk Round Chelsea Flower Show 2013

Chelsea's Hundredth - you couldn't miss it.

Press Day is also VIP Guest Day. Drawback? Your interview's interrupted by self-important Americans. But what is Chelsea without celebs? If I'd walked faster I might have treated you to Helen Mirren; everywhere I went I'd only just missed her. Still, I found Mary Berry, hiding behind a tree. 

Wonder what she thought of Sparsholt College's cupcakes? (Teavolution won silver-gilt.)

And Joanna Lumley was the trouper we've come to expect. She's quite keen on gardening too.

On Burncoose Nursery's stand (silver-gilt), they told me the lovely Jo had been there for hours, with only a break for coffee. But who was she supporting? There have been lots of pictures but not many details. How annoying is that for the stand-holder? (She was on the M&S stand; it won silver.)

Outside, Johnny Kingdom hammed it up on a vibrant driftwood sculpture by James Doran-Webb (pictured left). Johnny was behind at The Winning Post, two galloping horses for £28,000, already snapped up by one of the gardens' sponsors.

Whew! You end up walking a lot, but seats don't feature at Chelsea. Surely they can't want us to sit only where we have to buy food? Wellywoman, on her first visit, has been shocked at the prices, but I've been stung before - so I bought a sandwich from M&S before I arrived.

Where to eat it? (The Press Tent was no answer. It burst at the seams all day.) But here was a tempting resting place...

With plenty to read to pass the time:

It was Birmingham City Council's gold-winning Enlightenment. Alternative Eden shows more of the Great Pavilion but I was off to look for gnomes. (After all, they've gained worldwide coverage.)

Those pesky little creatures need putting in their place.

Charles Hawes feared for their lives at times but the jolly chap pictured below was safe in a four-year research project into grassless lawns. That sounded boring. "What's its name?" asked a reporter instead.

And let's not forget all the work that went into getting Chelsea ready. Opposite the gold-winning Trailfinders Australian garden that Vegplotting particularly liked, was a regiment of wheelbarrows - surely too clean!  

Don't forget, there's still time to bid for Mark Quinn's sculpture.  "“Hopefully, the flowers and the sculpture blend," he says in an interview. Will the sculpture be diminished without the planting?

And - did I mention? - Chelsea's 100.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

Of course, to reach this enormous café, I had to filter through the Christmas gifts, past clothing and a very small aisle of spring bulbs, before crossing a narrow area which displays gardening equipment.  The layout doesn’t encourage you to linger, however, so you pass rapidly into the new space, past bird feed and books, sucked towards the wide mouth of the café.

Then I received Concession News, published by First Franchise, and sent out with the October edition of HTA News. First Franchise specialise in matching retail concession brands with “forward-thinking” garden centres, and the history of garden centre concessions on their website will, if you read it, probably feel very familiar, mentioning everything from The Works (books) to Yankee Candles.

Stephen Cooper became property manager of Wyevales in 1991 and in the newsletter he writes that, over 15 years, their centres increased from 25 to 126. “The aim,” he says, “was always to economically expand and upgrade sites to create destination shopping centres.”

A look at First Franchises’ list of partnerships gives a glimpse of what might move to a garden centre near you: Mountain Warehouse (camping retailers), Moshulu (shoes), Ponden Home (sheets, pillows, etc), Hammonds (fitted bedrooms), The Framing Centre, Pure Party, Clinton (cards), Anglian Windows, Cook (cook-chill), Cargo (furniture etc). All in all, nearly 40 companies are listed, with only a handful, such as Bowland Stone, having a direct gardening relevance.

The garden centre network was represented for the first time this year at the British Council of Shopping Centres conference in September, when First Franchise outlined GCs as the growing market for home and lifestyle products. Eyes must have lit up. GCs offer seven-day trading, free parking and a high-spending, mainly female customer over 35 who is likely to come for the day.

First Franchise aren’t the only ones trumpeting GC advantages. In their post When is a Garden Centre Not a Garden Centre? Taste Modern (clever!), who specialise in display products for the hospitality industry, state, “With an ever-increasing captive audience as people opt for a greener lifestyle, planting and growing vegetables, the UK garden centre has become the alternative shopping mall experience with a country living edge.” Out-of-town shopping centres have been castigated in recent years, and yet a whole new generation “anchored” to GCs is creeping up on us.

Should we mind? We, the customers, are driving this.  First Franchise says that it’s the relaxed informal shopping environment that makes GCs the consumers’ choice of retail destination. Mountain Warehouse’s Property Director, Jim Pinder, is quoted. “Garden centres are more than just garden centres these day – they are shopping destinations in their own right…We’re just following where our customers go.”  The current enthusiasm for grow-your-own, with its overtones of self-sufficiency and lack of consumerism, is promoting the very opposite ethos at the places we go to explore our new interest.

For some of us, they’ve missed the point. I’ve enjoyed garden centres because I enjoy gardening.  Yes, I’ve found them relaxing, and I’ve enjoyed the ambience. No canned music, light and spacious surroundings, cake (oops!). But, most of all, they’ve been about gardening. That’s what I go for. That’s why they’re relaxing.

At my local garden centre, the heart is being displaced. Gardening items are being pushed to the edge and you can’t reach them without passing the franchises and smelling the coffee, and the thought of being forced to trail past the existing lifestyle concessions already puts me off. I can’t be alone, but I fear that we are in a minority.

According to First Franchise, there are around 2,500 garden centres or retail nurseries in the UK. That’s a ripe market for expansion and I doubt that the tide will turn soon. But the people who enjoy them in the future, I think, will not be the people who enjoy them now and I predict, where planning permission is given, that in less than ten years your local garden centre will be a tiny blip on the edge of an expanding retail “village”.

Those of us whose hobby really is gardening will no longer be visiting the garden centre.

 

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.