Re: Garden Show impressions
- Subject: Re: Garden Show impressions
- From: A* L*
- Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2002 10:18:22 +0000
Bracey Tiede wrote:
>
> Thank you for starting this thread, Sean.
>
> The large displays were a disappointment in general. Our small group all agreed
> on this.
Gosh, you're a picky lot!Think of the poor wretched exhibitors with
their wilting leaves, struggling through endless traffic jams to some
well-concealed urban site with inadequate unloading facilities and
parking half a mile away, coping with the organisers whims ("sorry we
have put you in the wrong place, please could you dismantle your exhibit
and move it three feet to the right?") the judges ("you only got a
silver....no, your exhibit is perfect, but there wasn't enough prize
money to go round so someone had to get the wooden spoon....") and the
public of whom the knowledgeable want to snitch cuttings from the
exhibits and the usual dumbos who smile indulgently as their children
scoop up the grit from among the alpines and chuck it into the water
feature. Then at the end we pack up, try and get our vans through the
deep, churned up mud (I am writing from England naturally) and return
home to face the unimaginable disasters that have befallen our nurseries
during our absence.
Last year we had Foot & Mouth ("Hoof and mouth" to you lot) and so no
shows. What utter bliss!, no disruption to the smooth running of the
nursery nor to my digestive system and virtually no impact on our
profits......So never again, or not unless someone pays us a vast amount
for putting on a show.
However, for those of you who would otherwise go into a serious decline
at the absence of my friendly smiling face as you travel round English
shows this year, I am giving a talk on the creation of butterfly gardens
at the Daily Telegraph National Gardening Show at Alexandra Palace,
London on the 13th April and those of slightly impaired judgement who
find my plants more attractive than myself, will be relieved to know
that other exhibitors will be using them on their stands at Chelsea,
Hampton Court and Tatton Park.
And, of course, all Mediterranean gardeners are welcome here at the
nursery where we have had three days of idyllic sunshine in a row and
where you don't have to struggle through virtually immobile crowds of
sweating humanity to see some interesting plants luxuriating in their
own home.
Have a good summer
Anthony
