Re: Garden Show impressions
- Subject: Re: Garden Show impressions
- From: C* D*
- Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2002 07:22:51 -0800
>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
++++------------------
And you know what the tragedy is?
Both groups are right, in their own way. I'm sure
Anthony's picture is true. And isn't that a shame?
The fact that the exhibitors probably develop a notion of
competing with other exhibitors allows them to forget what the viewer
has come to see.
And if the exhibitors do do what the viewers want, the show
may be rather dull, everybody tending to do the same thing.
Do I have an answer? No. Everybody does their own
thing, as usual. Some like it, some don't!
I was in England last year and saw the Chelsea Flower Show.
It was mildly interesting to me. I'm interested in bromeliads. As
expected. there were few. I'm also interested in caudiciforms. I
don't remember seeing any!
I guess we just leave things as they are. I would prefer
seeing your nursery Anthony. But how long would it take for me to
visit the nurseries of every exhibitor at Chelsea? Aye, there's the
rub! ---Chas---
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