Looking ahead to Gardeners' World Live

* I have been invited to the press preview of Gardeners’ World Live and provided with a pair of tickets to visit the show once it opens, therefore all my posts will be marked as 'Ad’ though as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.

Last year was my first time attending the press preview event and I loved it, so when I was invited again this year there was only one answer, and that was of course yes! This year though we’re obviously not travelling to Birmingham from London, but from Nottinghamshire - and while I contemplated driving, mainly so I could fill the car with garden goodies, we have decided to go on the train instead. It’s a bit more cross country this time rather than inter city, but it’ll be fine and will most likely be quite the adventure. We loved the place we stayed at last year in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter (paid for, not gifted) so are returning there too.

As ever the Gardeners’ World team have an amazing line up planned for this year’s show, and my plan is to see as much of it as I can - but I know I need a plan so we can cram as much as we can into what will be an action packed couple of days.

1 Adam Frost’s Show Garden - The Chef’s Table

Adam Frost’s garden is at the top of my list - he’s a bit of a favourite of mine on the show. The garden promises ‘a large walk-through garden full of vibrant home-grown produce, a rustic outdoor cooking and eating space’ and a daily programme of conversations and demos, hosted by Adam. I’m hoping that we’ll also get a chance to catch one of those celebrity guests as James Martin and Glynn Purnell are at the show on the same day.

2 Urban Gardening Showcase Gardens

While I can no longer claim that my garden is urban, I can still admire the design skills and implementation of this space which is all about ‘inspiring town and city gardeners’ - and sponsors Blue Diamond will showcase their top 25 plants essential for any urban garden. All of these plants will be available to buy at the show, so urban garden or not it’s probably just as well I’m not taking the car!

3 ‘The Good Life’ Show Gardens

The Show Gardens are always my highlight, and this year their theme is ‘The Good Life’ - I’m already wondering how many of them will take that literally and include their take on the 1970s sitcom, and how many Tom & Barbaras and Gerry & Margots we’ll spot! I’ll be very disappointed if that tally is none.

4 Beautiful Borders

The beautiful borders are always a busy part of the show, and with good reason. It’s amazing how much these garden designers can pack into a small space, and how much inspiration there is which can be adapted. I’ve shared many of the Beautiful Borders from previous shows, and you can expect to see much more of the same in the coming months too.

5 The wheelbarrows!

I love these - and often spend way too little time admiring the work put in by local school children, so I plan to change that this year. Previous year’s themes have included the ‘Meal in a Barrow’ in 2018 and last year’s competition focused on climate change and its impact on food production around the globe.

This year the theme once again has a ‘food and climate change’ theme, so it’ll be interesting to see what is on offer this year - and I’m sure it will be as hard as always to decide on which ones to vote for.

And finally,

My Gardeners’ World Live visit wouldn’t be complete without a scout around the BBC Good Food Show - it’s a cacophony of noise, smells and tastes, and I wouldn’t miss this part at all, in fact it usually ‘fuels’ our journey home.

* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, I’m looking forward to seeing this year’s show.

Escaping seasons of the mind

* I was invited to the press preview for and provided with a pair of tickets to Gardeners’ World Live so I’m marking posts from the show as 'Ad’ - as usual my views and opinions are very much my own. Be sure to check out all of my posts from the show.

In the last of my posts from last year’s Gardeners’ World Live I’m sharing a reflection garden which for me was one of the most thought provoking gardens at the show. It’s designed by Lilidh Matthews and John Tallis and is exquisitely beautiful, even more so when you understand the meaning behind it.

There are eleven corten posts which represent the ubiquitous architecture of the cityscape, and the garden takes you on a journey through the seasons, illustrating the passing of time. This is done, not only by the change in height of the beautiful corten posts, but also through the changing colours of the planting again representing the seasons.

“The garden was inspired by two facts:

1. 90% of our lives are spent indoors. The central space portrays how we are trapped in a void of our own four walls.

2. Most suicides happen in the autumn.”

The cracks in the paving slowly grow closer together as you pass through the garden and arrive at the 12 o’clock point; a bench in summer where you can admire all the beauty of the four seasons.

It is a stunning garden full of symbolism, but even without knowing the symbolism it would be a great place to spend some time and exactly the sort of space to nourish your mind.

I can’t wait to see the showcase gardens, beautiful borders and everything else that this year’s show has to offer. I’m planning to attend on the first day, and I just know my phone will be full of photos - I’ll share some shortly after our visit on Instagram, but will also start another series of posts from the 2024 show just as soon as I’ve sorted through all my photos!

* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, it was as fabulous as ever!

Sunflower watch: sowing seeds into Wool Pots

I was given a free sample of these Wool Pots - an alternative to plastic plant pots - to try for myself, and so I’m marking this post as an ad, as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.

It’s been a fair while since I’ve sown some seeds, and far too long really. There’s been a number of reasons why I haven’t, but one of the big factors was the lack of success the last time I tried - well, not with the seeds, but with the actual growing on. That was a lot to do with the lack of light in our old garden given the tree canopy, which because of lockdown was way behind its usual pollarding schedule.

And then we decided to put our house on the market, and our priorities were to sell the house, and naively I thought it would be relatively quick, so I wanted to avoid moving more plants than we needed to - and no, I wasn’t planning on leaving them for the new owners! All in all moving house ran over two growing seasons, and so when we arrived here in July planting seeds couldn’t have been further from my mind.

I don’t have a greenhouse here (yet), so it’s not ideal for sowing seeds but I was keen to get growing again. Dad also gave me some seeds for a multi-headed sunflower and so with seeds, wool pots and the will to get sowing, what could go wrong?

And yes, the wool pots are well named - they are made of wool, and are pots!

They are knitted from washed wool… and while knitting plant pots sounds strange but the makers assure that Wool Pots are strong, naturally biodegradable, environmentally friendly and plants love them. The company aims to raise the awareness of the plastic problem in horticulture and let people know there is an alternative, and show them a solution. Wool pots are also proud members of the Campaign for Wool and are thrilled to be helping farmers find a new market for their wool.

Rather than bring the seeds indoors, which is an obvious way of giving them some heat, I kept them in the garage opting to use my heated propagator, and bring them out into the sun during the day, which was a fair bit of faffing but it did result in a majority germination - with five out of eight pots producing seedlings, though some were slower to germinate than others.

As the days went on, the seedlings started to grow their true leaves, not just the seedling leaves. It’s worth noting that the wool pots should have space between them to prevent the roots merging into each other - the space enables ‘air pruning’ and will make it easier to plant them on when the time comes.

But my biggest concern now that they’d germinated was when to leave them outside, but thankfully the weather decided to improve to help with that. With the seedlings nestled down in one of my currently half-empty pots, and in a more sheltered part of the garden I braved it, and they all survived!

In fact they’re all doing really well, with more leaves developing and getting taller too. Now instead of bringing them out of and into the garage each day, I’m checking that they’re not growing into each other - and so far so good.

I’m sure it won’t be long before I need to work out where to plant them so that they can grow to their full potential. And the best bit, is you can pot on the whole wool pot - I’ll share how I get on when the time comes.

* With thanks to Wool Pots for providing a sample of their innovative project for me to try.