A return to the autumn show

It's a while since I attended the Autumn show and it was well worth the wait until last Saturday as I thoroughly enjoyed my day there. A gin-clear sky and warm sunshine meant the hills made a glorious backdrop to the day's events.

The horticultural content may be lower than the spring show, but there was still more than enough to see. Floral excellence was to the fore in its new dedicated marquee and there were plenty of informative talks in the adjacent tent. I particularly enjoyed the garden version of 'Just a Minute' with subjects supplied by the audience. Much laughter flowed from the ensuing discussion and banter by James Alexander Sinclair, Alys Fowler, Joe Swift and Gyles Brandreth.

Malvern celebrates the harvest, with its own dedicated tent and the world of giant vegetables in particular. Half a dozen world records were broken this year, one twice in the space of 5 minutes. Another was broken by one grower who used the seed given to him by the previous record holder. He looked a little bemused on Sunday's Breakfast News, but that may have been due to the vagaries of live outside broadcasting.

There aren't any show gardens in autumn, though there are permanent gardens at the showground if you need that particular fix. Instead an opportunity is taken to display the fruits of the season, especially as Malvern is at the heart of England's top fruit activities. This was of particular interest as I have a few projects lined up for the coming years and I wanted to talk to the experts about them.

RV Roger deservedly won Best in Show with their exhibit of top fruit. They were also extremely helpful with all my questions about how to grow stepover apples. They highly recommend Lord Lambourne for this technique and so I duly added it to my list of potential varieties to grow.

I also took the opportunity to learn more about perry pears by going on a walk around the wider Three Counties showground. The national collection used to be held there, but has since moved to the aptly named Hartpury (reportedly meaning hard pear). Jim Chapman displayed 90 varieties from the new national collection and I giggled when I saw one is called 'Gin'.

There are still some perry trees to be seen in the grounds and I found I'd actually parked my car under one of them. We also tried one of the pears picked from a tree on our walk... rather hard and bitter tasting at first, with the familiar pear taste to finish. Back in the Orchard tent, the local perries tasted much finer!

I also took the opportunity to conquer a long held fear, but that story deserves a post of its own...

Help create a show garden

Usually the only chance we get to interact with show gardens and their makers is by admiring them at the shows. This year is different as we are all invited to make a knitted contribution to one of the most intriguing and heart warming displays set fair for this year's RHS Malvern Spring Festival.

There's going to be a knitted garden, created to raise awareness of and funds for the Sue Ryder Leckhampton Court Hospice in Gloucestershire. Clare Young - the garden's creator - took up knitting to manage her own grief after losing her husband Ken, who was cared for at the hospice. The items she created raised funds, and then after she and a group of friends yarnbombed a thank you to the hospice, she was invited to create a garden for Malvern.

Clare aims to raise £50,000 from her garden and to help her do so, she is asking for contributions of knitted and crocheted hearts. Take the link to find out more about her Work of Heart Garden, plus further links to the pattern.

I'll be making a heart or two and I look forward to seeing the completed piece at the show!

Wordless Wednesday: Paeonia lactiflora 'Avalanche'

From Primrose Hall Nursery

Exhibitors' Essentials #5

Innovation and new twists to traditional ideas. Auriculas are always popular at the shows and an Auricula Theatre is the oft used way of displaying them. Here, Pop's Plants of Wiltshire has taken this display form and given it a fresh twist by marrying it with the show's Silver Anniversary celebrations.

As a result, the display was chosen most days (if not all) as the winner for the People's Choice awards in the Floral Marquee category.

Exhibitors with all of my 5 essentials stand a very good chance of achieving #6: a gold medal. Here is Meet @ Malvern's as awarded by the multiple gold medal winning designer, Cleve West on our last day at the show :)

Exhibitors' Essentials #4

A great sense of humour. The label next to this rather striking dark-leaved dandelion read:

Taraxacum faeroense

(Asteraceae)

Great for a lawn display

Exhibitors' Essentials #3

A good name - click on the image to see what caught my eye ;)

I mean 'good name' in both senses of the word: not only an appropriate business one like the one shown above, but also a good reputation. The many nurseries who exhibit at Malvern have oodles of both as evidenced by these healthy plants in tip top condition ready to be snaffled up by visitors.

As well as the 100 or so nurseries exhibiting in the Floral Marquee, there were dozens more in the shopping areas. If you enter the show via the South Car Park you are greeted by a long row of specialist nurseries such as those pictured. Absolute heaven!

Like their marquee counterparts, these nurseries have exquisite displays to show off their wares in addition to the many rows of plants for sale. Jekka's Herb Farm was exhibiting here for the first time in 5 years and was awarded an unexpected gold medal. I hope to be catching up with Jekka soon, as she's kindly agreed to be a VP VIP :)

The second of the pictured nurseries is Heucheraholics (formerly the Solva 'Sweetie Shop'), who changed their name after Arabella Sock coined the term. It was great to see Sean again, who promptly shouted over to Jooles: Hey, it's VP, much to the consternation of their customers. I was duly presented with this year's pen and a Heuchera themed mousemat. Sean and Jooles will also be at Chelsea later this month, so do pop over and say hello to them if you're going there.

Exhibitors' Essentials #2

Attention to detail, dedication and infinite patience: here's just three of the hundreds of daisies Alex (one of the team of three designers) added to the Anniversary show garden's pristine turf by hand last week. Apparently one of the RHS judges tried his hardest to tug some of them out of the turf, failed and so declared they must be natural.

On Thursday the garden was open for vistors to stroll around and Alex had to cheerfully stand by as his two young children merrily ran and crawled all over the turf, picking many of the lovingly applied daisies as they went.

Update: Claire has written a piece on her blog about putting the show garden together with lots of great photos of the finished result :)

Exhibitors' Essentials #1

Trolley loads of quality plants to top up your stand's sales area, plus somewhere to make a decent cup of tea. Ahhhhhh, that's better.

I had a fantastic time at Malvern and from the posts and the buzz on Twitter I've seen so far it looks like everyone else did too. My mind's in a bit of a whirl at the moment, so I only feel capable of pulling out the odd image and a quick summary to tell you about what happened at the weekend.

Everyone else is being much better about telling you about their experiences and the show, so I'm going to hoover them up into a Mr Linky below so you can trawl through them all at your leisure. My dear fellow Malvern Meeters: do feel free add any posts of yours I've missed...

The Floral Marquee

The giant Floral Marquee is one of Malvern's tipitty-top highlights. As it's the show's Silver Jubilee this year, the organisers are ensuring that it'll be the best ever. 104 nurseries will be exhibiting, including Bob Brown's fabulous Cotswold Garden Flowers nursery - Gardens Illustrated readers may recognise him from his monthly plant selection column this year - NB he will not be exhibiting at Chelsea, so his appearance is always a major coup for Malvern.

Of these 104, 25 nurseries have been invited to form the Marquee's centrepiece on the theme of Celebration. David Matthewman, famed for his sweet peas is coming back specially (having retired 2 years ago) to provide the anniversary cake. All nurseries have the chance to contribute their favourite plant for a Best of the Best display: they will also be judged for RHS medals as usual and there will be a new People's Choice award, so we will have the opportunity to vote for our favourite exhibit.

If all that plus my couple of photos from last year doesn't whet your appetite enough, here's Happy Mouffetard's in-depth tour around last year's Floral Marquee (text and photos are her copyright as usual). NB do take her tip about visiting early in the day - it can get rather crowded.

SomeBeans has banned me from buying any more seeds this year. He didn't, however, mention anything about not buying plants. So, it was with itchy fingers that I entered the floral marquee on Saturday.

It's always the first place we go, to try and avoid the huge crowds later in the day. And what a wonderful sight to the plant lover. Such variety, such care taken over the displays. So many great plants that I wanted.

I'm not a huge fan of bonsai, but this hawthorn was eye-catching.


I'm also not a fan of auriculas, but another great display. I can see why people get obsessed with the different flower colours, the doubles, the farina, even if I can't understand it myself.

This peony, on the other hand, is so delicious I could have eaten it.

From peonies to pleiones - I wish I was brave enough to try and grow them.

This angelica looked stunning against the canvas of the marquee.

And finally, to continue my obsession this year with tulips, I loved the light coming through these petals.

I didn't actually buy any of the plants above, though. I bought...

Astrantia 'Hapsden Blood', Geum 'Borissii', and Centaurea montana 'Alba', each of which I've been able to split. Very restrained of me, I think you'll agree.

The Gentle Art of Shop 'Til You Drop

A few days ago Frances realised she and Gail won't be able to take part in the fun that is stuffing-your-car-with-as-many-plants-and-gardening-gadgets-as-you-possibly-can-plus-a-few-more game and was feeling a little disappointed. That very same day, @Malvernmeet Twitter follower Sarah Walker (aka @ArtShades) delivered the guest post she'd kindly agreed to do which shows some of the other shopping opportunities available. There's plenty of quality arts and crafts to be found courtesy of the Worcestershire Guild of Designer Craftsmen and their stalls are in the very same cattle sheds which Edith told us about in her recent guest post.

So without further ado, here's Sarah to tell you a little more about life as an exhibitor...

The Malvern Spring Gardening show is as eagerly awaited by enthusiastic craftsmen from the three counties of Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire as it is by enthusiastic gardeners.

For members of the Worcestershire Guild of Designer Craftsmen it’s the first big show of the year and we all look forward to meeting at Malvern in May. It’s great to get together again after months of toiling away alone in our workshops and many of us haven’t seen each other since our pre-Christmas show.

The show set-up is full of enthusiasm – we are all eager to unpack new stock and reveal our new designs. It’s a cheery and fun atmosphere with everyone helping each other to put on a good display. There’s everything from fine furniture to ceramics, a variety of textiles and many forms of glass, willow baskets and silverware, forged metalwork and jewellery in numerous styles and materials.

Most of us bounce in bright and early on the first morning of the show full of optimism and anticipation. There’s always a discussion about the weather forecast and how many layers we have or haven’t put on. The weather at the show over the years has ranged from four days of cold winds and constant rain to sweltering heat when you can think of far better places to be than a dusty cattle shed.

On the first day the serious RHS gardeners appear once they have scoured the show for the prize plants and visited the floral marquee to see the blooms at there very best. There is a steady flow of visitors and it is a very civilised atmosphere – these visitors know quality when they see it! As exhibitors from the same tribe we share the excitement of the first big sales and wide grins are exchanged as a Guild member leads their first customer to the communal credit card machine. It’s a long day, but everyone is fired up by the positive response to their work and goes home happy.

Friday is busy from the start – it’s usually a good day for sales. Visitors are chatty and interested in our work, often they have taken the day off work to be there and they make serious purchases. It is also the start of the game we play – spotting the ‘must-have’ plant of the year. We start to make predictions as more and more of the same thing comes wafting past. One year it was Acers, another double clematis, then hellebores, hostas, blue Himalayan poppies and ornamental grasses. We go home happy, but in need of that large glass of wine.

Saturday is full of couples and keen families. For me it’s great that husbands and wives are shopping together as my lamps are often a joint purchase. We start to spot the gadget of the year – usually a cumbersome object that is designed to inflict as much damage as possible on the surrounding crowds. Over the years we’ve seen the telescopic window mop, all manner of folding wheelbarrows, the brightly coloured plastic trugs and wire plant supports (often worn elegantly around the husband’s neck). Sales are usually brisk and we are busy chatting to our customers. We start to flag in the afternoon and if some kind soul has baked a cake word soon gets round and you’ll find us deserting our stands and hotfooting it to the tea cubicle for a sugar rush. By the end of the day our bums are numb from perching on a high at-eye-level-with-your-customer stool, our feet ache and we are tiring of being so nice to everyone! We get home and immediately bark at our loved ones for not anticipating just how tired we would be and making sure the dinner is ready and waiting. At this point you wonder if you’ll ever be able to smile at anyone again.

Everyone drags themselves in on Sunday and the show takes a while to get going. We moan a lot on Sundays! Our joviality has run out and we now know why it is we work alone. Having confirmed both the plant and the gadget of the year we are now sick of seeing them. If it’s hot we like to complain about the amount of flesh on show, the dripping ice creams, the sticky fingers and where we’d rather be. If it’s wet we moan about the dripping waterproofs, brollies and contents of the burger buns. Many of the visitors have no interest in what we are selling and plod aimlessly through the hall following the crowd in front, without ever turning their heads. One bonus is that we don’t have to smile as much on a Sunday as so few people make eye contact! We are eternally grateful to those that show a genuine interest in our talents and hand over their hard-earned money on a Sunday. They are the real highlights of our long day.

As 6pm draws near, and word goes round that we can pack up, the lethargy disperses and we dismantle our stands and march our boxes back out to the cars and vans with renewed vigour. The display boards and electrics are whisked away and we all help to load up the trailers. After four days in a darkened shed I lift my eyes to the beauty of the Malvern Hills and am eternally grateful that I live there. I am within just five minutes of that bottle of Pinot Grigio waiting for me in the fridge. Cheers!

We hope you can tear yourself away from all that is gardening and venture into the Wye Hall to say hello.

Sarah Walker

Sarah designs and makes contemporary lampshades and writes a blog about her design ideas which are often inspired by her garden on the Eastern slopes of the Malvern Hills. [She also visited Painswick Rococo Gardens a few days after I did and it's interesting to see how her visit and The Exedra in particular, inspired her - Ed]

She is a member of the Worcestershire Guild of Designer Craftsmen, which exhibits in the Wye Hall at the Malvern Spring Gardening Show and the Malvern Autumn Show.