What's new in the world of gardening?
This week is all about Garden Press Event which brings together gardening businesses and the media, giving garden writers the chance to see what's new and innovative in the world of gardening
Yesterday I attended the Garden Press Event. This is an annual event held at the Design Centre in London, bringing together garden businesses and brands with journalists, editors, bloggers and the like. It’s an opportunity for us to see what’s new, innovative and exciting in the world of gardening and, yes, a chance to catch up with fellow writers and journalists. It’s not surprising that the atmosphere was buzzing.
With almost 100 companies exhibiting, there’s was much to see. The advantage of the 2-hour train journey home was an opportunity to write down my thoughts while they were fresh in my mind.
My top 10
1. Biofleece produced by Andermatt. This has to be my favourite product of the day. It looks just like the plastic lightweight fleece you can buy in garden centres, but this one is a plant-based product, made from natural organic acids derived from corn plants. It will protect plants down to -6C, so the same as 30 gsm plastic fleece, but it will biodegrade. If you kept it clean and wrap it up when not needed, it will last two growing seasons, possibly longer. This one definitely gets my vote as I hate the idea of a fleece degrading and dropping microplastics all over the garden The biofleece is 2m wide and is supplied in 10m packs @£19 They also do an insectonet – also plastic free – which is expected to last 3 years.
2. Climate Gardeners and Climate Proof Plants from Rijnbeek Perennials in Holland. Not surprisingly, I made a bee-line for this stand. Rijnbeek had put on a great display of plants that they feel are more climate resilient than most. They are looking to help gardeners create low maintenance and high diversity plantings that don’t need a lot of watering, but can also cope with wet winters. And gardeners can buy the mix ready to go. Some of the spring plants on display included Crocus 'Aqua', hellebores, muscari, primroses, sweet violets and perennial cornflowers. All are raised in peat free composts and sold in recycled pots made from cardboard.
I had a long chat with their director, Arno, and its clear that they are really putting a lot of thought into their choices. For example, their spring bulb selection (Bulb Mania Mix) comprises species that will naturalise – muscari, narcissi and species tulip – avoiding the need to replace bulbs every year.
This Dutch company is also leading the way on the peat free front. They have teamed up with Lensli Substrates to produce a quality peat free compost, the result of 9 years of trials. Currently, it’s sold to professional horticulturalists across Europe, but they are looking to make it available for both pro and amateurs over here. Definitely, one to look out for.
3. Vibrant Verge On the same stand was another Dutch company called Jub, which has teamed up with Pictorial Meadows to produce a long lasting meadow mix – the Vibrant Verge range. There’s two versions – one for a sunny site and the other for shade, both mixes formed from more than 30 species. I liked this mix because it was made up of annuals, biennials, perennials and bulbs, so its not a one-off mix but should thrive for many years, with the balance of species changing each year. The sunny collection includes camassia, narcissi, muscari and alliums. The packs will be on sale later in the year for sowing in autumn.
4. Blue Diamond and the National Trust The Blue Diamond group of garden centres has tied up with the National Trust to sell collections of seeds, bulbs and plants inspired by some of the iconic National Trust gardens – Sissinghurst, Lytes Cary, Montisfont, Hidcot etc. Last year, my local Blue Diamond garden centre was selling collections of potted plants and now you can buy roses, dahlias and seeds. The seed displays were grouped by colour and growing conditions – the white collection is based on Sissinghurst, while the dry garden was inspired by Lytes Cary and Tintinhull which are local to me.
5. Hortiwool Many of you may know the wool felt that is used as insulation for frozen food deliveries. Hortiwool is using a similar felt as mulching mats and hanging basket liners etc. Its not really innovative, but it’s making use of wool which sadly would go to waste. I have used the fleece from my sheep as mulches, in hanging baskets and slug deterents (although not convinced!) on my beds for years, but having Dorset Downs, the white fleece is a bit unsightly. This felt is a mix of shades of grey and brown. They sell a bundle of 5 mats for £10 or 2 larger pieces for hanging baskets for £12.
6. Autopots Last year, I invested in a set of autopots for my new greenhouse and they were generally successful – I had a few glitches but they saved me a lot of time re watering etc. I had a good chat with Jason, the founder of the company and he solved a few problems for me. He introduced me to the Tray2Grow, a self watering tray with mat that accommodates 4 seed trays or free standing fabric plant pots or could be used for growing microherbs. It will fit a grow bag too, so I suspect I will be buying one of these. It retails at around £70. I also discovered that Jason knows a good friend of mine who also keeps Weimaraners. My friend is a member of the National Veg Society and we are like chalk and cheese when it comes to gardening. He is a successful giant veg grower, analysing nutrient requirements and making use of every bit of technology he can find, which is so not my style.
7. Maximato from Envii There were a lot of plant feeds on the stands. This was Envii’s new organic liquid tomato plant feed derived from seaweed with the elevated magnesium and calcium levels needed by tomatoes Very like Maxicrop and other offerings.
8. Seed starting kits from Germie. Not quite sure what to think about these – it’s a range of compact and reusable seed starting kits aimed at newbie gardeners. You assemble the planting cells from moulded pieces of plastic (made from recycled food plastic) to create a honeycomb arrangement which is placed on the tray and filled with compost. You sow one seed per cell, fill the tray with water and place on window ledge. When the seedlings are large enough to be potted on, you lift one a row of cells, separate the two sides to release the seedling without any root damage. They come in different sizes and can be reused many times. The price is £20 for one tray’s worth of cells – that’s 13 cells for large seeds, 25 for medium seeds and 41 cells in the small seed germinator. They are very neat and look to be foolproof, but quite pricy.
9. Heart of Eden This Cumbrian company had a wide range of grow media and barks etc all from sustainable sources. Their peatfree multipurpose compost looked good, so they are sending some for me to trial. There’s more info on the range on their website.
10 And finally, but definitely not least, some innovative bird feeders from Finches Friends Wildlife. Did you know that bird feeders are contributing to the spread of a disease called Trichomonosis that is hitting finches particularly, and that we should be cleaning our feeders weekly? I didn’t. Bird feeders are visited by many birds so it’s the ideal place to spread disease, plus spillage encourages rats. Design engineer Dick Woods has come up with innovative range of bird feeders that minimise the risk of disease transfer by keeping the food dry, reducing the amount of food that falls out and having a design that makes it easy to take them apart for regular cleaning. Some clever design has gone into these products, but they are not cheap, starting at £24 for a window feeder and £50+ for a classic hanging feeder, but if it reduces the spread of disease amongst our garden birds, it will be worth it. Check out their website.
Discount codes
I have been promised some discount codes from these suppliers, so if you are interested, hang on a week as I will post them in the next newsletter.
Climate change orchard
I have long bought trees from Frank P Matthews, so it was interesting to talk to the team about their newer varieties and what they were doing to future proof our fruit trees when it comes to climate change. They recommend that we go for later flowering cultivars so there is less risk from frost and move from MM106 rootstock to M116 which is far more tolerant of waterlogging, with resistance to fungal disease, such as collar rot, caused by Phytophthora. Trees grow to around 3m. But … and there is always a but… it’s not as cold hardy as MM106 so not ideal for regions where winter temps fall below -8C for long periods. However, it looks perfect for my Somerset orchard which has heavy clay soils that have been waterlogged for much of the winter.
When buying trees, the recommendation is to go for semi vigorous rootstocks and avoid dwarfing root stocks, which are designed for container use and small spaces. Their smaller rootballs means that they are already under stress so they are less resilient when it comes to drought and waterlogging and quite short lived.
There will be more on this later in the year.
Its still wet …..
It’s rained a lot since last week, 48 mm here with peak rate of 15mm a hour overnight on the 18th. We’re pretty waterlogged now and like all gardeners I am hoping for some dry, chilly weather ‘cos my chill hour count is lower than usual and I am worrying about my apple trees.
Happy gardening
Sally
PS Don’t forget our new books are soon to be hitting the shelves and available for pre-order on Amazon. If you are thinking of buying one, a pre-order really helps the Amazon algorithm….
Sally has written The Resilient Garden and Allotment Handbook and Kim The Climate Change Resilient Vegetable Garden and of course you can still buy The Climate Change Garden written by both of us