Looking ahead to this year's Gardeners' World Live Show

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

This year I’m unable to make it to the press preview before the show opens, but thankfully I’m still able to get to the show. For the first time I’ll be going along on the Sunday, so it’ll be interesting to see how the show is different on its final day.

As ever the Gardeners’ World team have an amazing line up planned for theshow, and my plan is still to see as much of it as I can - but this year, more than ever, I need a plan so we can cram as much as we can into a single day.

1 Nick Bailey’s Show Garden - The Plant-Based Garden

I’m keen to see how Nick has incorporated the ‘Make a Metre Matter’ campaign into his garden. The pre-show information says that it will be packed with Make a Metre Matter metres, so I’m sure it will provide plenty of inspiration for me, and everyone else who visits the garden.

Picture credit © BBC Gardeners’ World Live - A Sketch of Nick Bailey's Headline Show Garden, The Plant-Based Garden

2 Pip Probert’s ‘Make a Metre Matter’ collection

Yes, this campaign has really captured my imagination - we all have a metre that we can ‘donate’ and make good use of. At the show Pip aims to bring some of the BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine’s creative ideas to life, and she’s also designed some special metres to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Greenfingers, the charity which creates children’s hospice gardens.

3 The Green Rooms

With more houseplants than I’ve ever had before I’m keen to find out more about how I should be caring for my ever growing indoor plant collection, getting as much advice as I can from Sarah Gerrard-Jones (@theplantrescurer) and Ian Morrison. And maybe of course I’ll be able to add to those…

4 All of the Show Gardens and all of the Beautiful Borders

Yes, there are lots of these and it’s my plan as ever to get to see, and photograph, them all. I already know there’s going to be some corkers, and I’m especially going to be looking out for the Midlands Air Ambulance Reflection Garden, the New Build Garden by Mimosa Design Ltd and Garden Organic’s wildlife garden.

Plus this year the APL Show Gardens will have a theme of water, which is something that’s not really big on my garden wish list, so we’ll see if these professionally designed gardens can change my mind.

The theme for the Beautiful Borders this year is ‘Cultivating Connections’ and includes a design from Lego, the 160th Unbirthday of Alice in Wonderland, the Golden Hour and the Milky Way - so I’m even more intrigued than I was to see how they’ve interpreted the theme.

5 Hot Off The Potting Bench in the Floral Marquee

I know that the marquee is going to be an assault on all of my senses, but last year I really enjoyed seeing the new plants and varieties on show, and which we may see in our garden centres in the years to come.

And finally,

And I don’t think I’ll ever stop enjoying the Health for Life Wheelbarrow Competition, with entries from local school children. The theme is once again a ‘food and climate’ theme so it’ll be interesting to see their interpretation, which at times is far from what you’d think from these creative young minds.

This year may be the year we spend time in the Plant Village as it could also be the first year that we drive to the NEC, rather than go on the train. It could be very dangerous, but also as it’s the last day of the show there could be some bargains to be had. We’ll see.

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

Eat the City

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

I’m sure it’s no surprise by now but gardens that feature edibles and flowers together always get my vote, and when the garden’s also called ‘Eat the City’ then it’s also got my attention. This garden, designed by Phoebe Walsh-Gamgee is inspired by the urban environment and puts into practice the edible-ornamental approach along with companion planting to create a beautiful space for both the community and the wildlife.

I did like the central feature which spiralled through the garden providing a focal point and a place for planting - and the succulents growing vertically out of one of the spaces between the planks was a nice touch. It was also good to speak to the designer, who had clearly been working hard to get the garden together. Saying that I liked how some of the succulents had escaped raised a bit of a panic as they weren’t supposed to be falling out - oops. But as I said only she knew that, and not even the judges who were due imminently would know for sure, but I did leave her to fix it. I can’t imagine the stress of putting such a garden together, and to be honest, I’m not sure I ever want to try that.

The show notes included something quite profound, but also so very true:

A neighbourhood, a city, a community, and a garden share the same habits - they must grow. You cannot build a neighbourhood any more than you can build a tree; you can only create the right conditions, plant the seed, care for it and wait.

Isn’t it a great little garden?

This is the last show garden that I’m planning to share from the 2024 show, it won’t be long before this year’s show opens and I for one can’t wait.

* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, it was just as good as I expected! I’ve shared more from my visit to the show - I hope you enjoy it as much as I have, this is the last garden I’m sharing from the 2024 show - it’s not long now until this year’s show, and I’m looking for to seeing what’s in store this year.

A Brace of Embraces

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

The Urban Gardens were a new feature at the 2024 show. They were both designed by Cherry Carmen but the gardens were brought to life by two teams of landscapers both vying to win the competition hosted by World Skills UK. Each garden was designed to embrace issues related to climate change - one focussed on Shady & Wet, and yeap you’ve guessed it, the other on Sunny & Dry. But which would win out?

Determined to have its own say, the weather wreaked havoc with both of the garden signs - the wind managed to rip the board from the wood for the Shady & Wet sign - ironic much? And both signs ended up laying down alongside its garden - you couldn’t make it up could you?

Shady & Wet

This garden was landscaped by Anna Mcloughlin and Ceri Furber and showcases a waterlogged or boggy garden. It’s a north-facing garden so doesn’t get the sun to dry it out, and so the planting demonstrates how to work with your garden’s reality and how by using correct techniques and plant choices you can still achieve something quite special.

I liked the planting in the Shady & Wet garden and I think that each of us can do more to work with what our garden gives us - just because we like a plant, it doesn’t mean it will thrive in the space we have - and we have to learn and respect that. In our previous garden we rarely had any bedding plants, save for a few around the patio, as there just wasn’t the light they needed given the large shrubs and trees we had. It’s something we came to accept, and obviously saved a lot of work trying to force things to work where they really weren’t happy.

Sunny & Dry

The landscapers for this garden were Aimee Copland and Jacob Mercer, and as you’d expect from its name this garden is south-facing and so becomes very hot in summer. Once again the planting and design has been adapted to work with, rather than fight against, the garden’s conditions.

This garden has a lot going for it and the plants appealed to both MOH and I. In fact this was MOH’s favourite garden in the show, which kind of surprised me and kind of didn’t. He likes strong sculptural plants - and has his eye on a banana plant, which while I’d be happy to have in the garden, so far I’ve resisted as I don’t think we’re quite ready to care for it, or have the supporting plants and infrastructure around it which I think it will need (but that’s a whole other post!)

I do think that there is something to learn from the dry gardens that we’ve seen, both here in this garden and previously at the show and in other gardens, such as the RHS Hyde Hall - and I think that is definitely something we’ll be incorporating into our future garden. I think more and more of us will do that too especially as the climate continues to change.

Oh, and I almost forgot - the Sunny & Dry garden was awarded a gold medal, so I guess that garden won, and I’m not disappointed by that.

* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, it was just as good as I expected! I’ll be sharing more from my visit to the show - I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.