Episodes
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Sean Higgs, of Floralive, is the foremost authority on peat-free cultivation of carnivorous plants.
In this HortWeek Podcast he discusses his path growing peat-free plants which grow in peat in the wild,and the future of the houseplant market.
After the bounce delived by the John Lewis 2023 Christmas venus flytrap advert he relates how that has continued to make the plant dominant in the market, the challenges of fulfilling demand with UK one-stop houseplant shop HortiHouse and how CITES rules have affected imports.
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New HTA president Will Armitage started his career at The Barton Grange Group at Woodford Garden Centre before joining family business Armitage & Sons (Seeds) where he eventually became joint managing director.
He was chair of the Garden Centre Association from 2014 to 2016 and says the big difference between now and then are the costs of employing people, which have risen 10% again he believes thanks to the Autumn Budget's changes to National Living Wage and employers' National Insurance Contributions. This means the industry will struggle to grow and could mean price rises, he says.
Armitage has been on both sides of the fence, with supplier Mulch and running garden centres. His former Pennine centre has since been owned by Wyevale and now Dobbies has it for sale and Armitage says the private equity sale and leaseback model is proving to be unsustainable.
He looks forward to a better weather year, with high hopes for 2025 helped by more industry Business Improvement Schemes and increased lobbying at Westminster.
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Episodes manquant?
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Chris Hull, one of the stars of BBC One's Garden Rescue, is a rising gardening star, working with Charlie Dimmock and Alan Titchmarsh as the new face of garden makeovers.
He got his first gardening job was when he was 15 at a country house hotel in Devon, and studied at Duchy College and for a garden design degree at Sparsholt College.
Hull believes schools' thinking about horticulture as a trade is moving on from being somewhere where students are funnelled when they're "not doing so well" into being seen as a worthwhile career which generates billions of pounds for the country. He sees clear pathways through diploma or a degree or RHS courses for everyone.
The Garden Rescue job came about through an advert at the Society of Garden Designers "and I thought why not?" He's just finished filming season 10 for broadcast in May 2025.
He says long-time presenter Charlie Dimmock is "really, really amazing because she's just really fun and just knows everything". He's also been filming with her former Groundforce co-star Alan Titchmarsh on Love Your Weekend but can't choose who he prefers, joking: "I'll have one of them hitting me over the head with a shovel!"
His inspiration for TV designs comes from the strong briefs he is given, for instance for someone with a disability who has not got great access into the garden: "We're making gardens on a real budget, and you've got to be creative with a way that you use very cheap materials to still deliver like quite interesting and bespoke design. So it's hard, but it's good fun, and hopefully it teaches people at home different ideas and how they can use materials."
Hull recognises the show "can get a bit of hate from the landscapers in the industry because they believe it's misleading, which I understand. But the client's budget paid for by the BBC is £6,000 for materials only, with labour not included. There's a disclaimer, which he recognises is sometimes missed.
He worked with Sid Hill and won a gold at Chelsea in 2024 on a garden, having been friends since they were about 14. Managing budgets with London logistics was tough but the experience was "really, really fun overall".
Hull has no plans for another show garden but if he does another he'd like to make a mental health-themed garden because his father is a paranoid schizophrenic and an ambassador for the Rethink Mental Illness charity which works to break down the stigma around mental illness.
Other industry experience includes working with JPL Landscape Architects and also Agrumi, on the nursery, and helping at 2021 Chelsea Flower Show when the Hampshire business exhibited with a New Forest theme.
Looking ahead, with primetime garden makeover shows such as Love Your Garden no longer on, "there's probably a gap in the market. Garden Rescue remains well liked because everybody adores Charlie and it shows people how to do projects on a budget...and also it's quite lighthearted.
"What's really good about garden makeover shows generally, like a lot of the home 'reno' shows, is that they're quite repeatable. So I think they're always going to be picked up and kept on TV. I think there should be more to come. Any newer ones might move in more of a direction of maybe they're recycled gardens or upcycling or more sustainability-focused."
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Crop technician Ross Dyke has a new project called Get Children Growing. He's a Plant Pod host and works at Bonterre CIC alternative education establishment near Worcester, teaching horticulture skills. An unassuming networker, he is also studying at Pershore College and is a Colegrave Seabrook and IPPS scholar.
He left school at 14 and worked in various jobs before moving to Webbs Garden Centres and becoming a horticulture industry lover.
To get Get Children Growing off the ground, to bring sunflower grow kits to children in schools across the UK, Dyke has worked with Amy Stubbs from British Garden Centres and Skinny Jean gardener Lee Connolly and with help from Mr Fothergill's, Westland, New Leaf Plants and Webbs Garden Centres.
He said: "I believe every school should have a garden and it should teach children where food comes from and even where cut flowers come from. Because you go into these garden centres, you see the flowers in the pots and if you're a child, you don't know where they've come from, you don't know how they've been grown, you don't know how they've been nurtured. So I just want to educate the younger generation and you never know, it might inspire some to say, do know what, I want to do that for a living."
For more Get Children Growing details, see www.theplantpod.co.uk
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In the hot summer of 2022, RBG Kew lost more than 400 trees. By July 2024, Kew announced that it believed over 50% of its trees could be at risk by 2090 due to environmental changes due to climate change.
This week's guest is Kevin Martin, head of tree collections at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and he joined the HortWeek Podcast to relate the research Kew has done that led it to such a stark conclusion.
"What we started to look at first was mortality data, but we soon realized that that's a really unstable data set. can't always know why a tree or a plant has died in the landscape. It's not always due to environmental factors.
"We then started looking at climate modeling...and using species observation data to start building a better picture of the impact of climate change on the living landscape here at Kew.
Perhaps surprisingly, the focus was not on identifying vulnerable species, but "the provenance of the seed".
Kew studied its own environment, located as it is in "an urban heat island" on the edge of Greater London with relatively thin and poor soil, "so the effect of climate change is always exaggerated".
To understand the plants that suited this environment, they found themselves in the Romanian steppe which proved a good match.
His next trip will take him to Georgia to find more species that might thrive at Kew.
Rather than building more and more glasshouses to create the right condition for plant collections, with their huge energy bills, botanic gardens must play to their strengths and grow the plants that fit their ecosystem and climate profile.
"And the native, the English native one is a really interesting question.
"You've got Quercus robur, they all have a large distribution range. So we're now looking at their dryest range to understand how those trees have adapted...they will grow right up to the edge of Azerbaijan, right on the dryest edge of their range. So we're selecting seed from those areas to bring them back to Kew to understand how they've adapted."
And the change needs to translate to all green spaces and gardens, large and public as well as domestic and small.
"A lot of the plants that we all go to the garden centre to put in our own private gardens, those trees have been selected for us realistically by the Victorians. A lot of those plants are available in commercial nurseries, they're all from the original plant collectors from the Victorian era especially, and they're the same cloned material that's just passed round.
"So it's really not just changing the planting palette within Botanic Gardens...This is a change of planting palette... and that does need support and investment in further research from government in order to support the commercial nurseries as well.
"I do think it's going to be the biggest shift we've seen since the start of the organisation back in the 1840s".
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Kate Ashbrook is an author and has been the general secretary of the Open Spaces Society for 40 years and counting, but she is first and foremost, a campaigner.
On this week's HortWeek Podcast she recounts some of the best changes she has seen during her tenure - "the greater awareness of the importance of open spaces for the public and the greater awareness among the public of the importance to them of open spaces, paths, getting out there, enjoying the countryside and green spaces in towns.
And the worst... "After 40 years, open spaces, commons and paths are still very much under threat. We haven't made that step change, which means that governments, local authorities recognise that actually open spaces and paths are so important that we need to invest in them fully. They may say they're important, but they don't actually put the money and the resources in."
Current focuses include closing the "green space gap" in the current National Planning Policy Framework:
"We don't see in the consultation, governments giving prime importance to green spaces. We think they should be at the core of all planning policies, thinking about the wider public and what people need and then framing the development around that... we shall be making suggestions of how government can give greater priority to green spaces."
Rachael and Kate also discuss biodiversity net gain and how that interacts with the society's goals and wider issues.
With a new Government in place she talks about her hopes for policy change and support for offering greater access to land and protection of common land that has always been at the core of the OSS's mission.
She outlines the Open Spaces Society's long history - from its foundation in 1965 - which is bound up with the creation of the National Trust. And she recounts some of her own, fascinating career path and what motivates her.
"I really want to help people to campaign. 50 years ago, I got into campaigning because I met a wonderful person called Sylvia Sayre on Dartmoor and she was 50 years [older than me] and ]encouraged me and helped me and gave me opportunities. And I am thinking, well, I'm now the age that she was when I met her and it's my turn to kind of pass the baton to the younger generation. And I'm out there looking for people to talk to and to learn from and to help."
Find out more at https://www.oss.org.uk/
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HortWeek presents The End of Peat, a new four-part podcast series that will hear from leading horticulturists and garden retailers as they navigate a transition to peat-free that is piling pressure on a sector facing stresses on all sides.
Over the four episodes, Christina Taylor explores the story of the UK peat ban, how the horticulture industry is facing up to the challenge, and how it might shape the future of the sector.
In Episode 4 we hear from growers who have successfully made the leap to peat-free. Christina asks whether growers are ready for legislation and industry figures voice how it could work without destroying the horticulture industry in the process.
Written, produced and presented by Christina Taylor
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HortWeek presents The End of Peat, a new four-part podcast series that will hear from leading horticulturists and garden retailers as they navigate a transition to peat-free that is piling pressure on a sector facing stresses on all sides.
Over the four episodes, Christina Taylor explores the story of the UK peat ban, how the horticulture industry is facing up to the challenge, and how it might shape the future of the sector.
In Episode 3: The cost of trial and error, Christina explores the two particular challenges faced by UK horticultural growers.
Where peat-free might cause an amateur gardener to lose a batch of lettuce seedlings, professional growers face the loss of entire crops as many attempt to trial new, and quite alien, growing media mixes.
Professional growers tell us their stories of trial and error, what they have learned in the process and discuss the fears that some plants and specialist nurseries will be lost to the UK for good.
Series writer, producer and presenter is Christina Taylor
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HortWeek presents The End of Peat, a new four-part podcast series that will hear from leading horticulturists and garden retailers as they navigate a transition to peat-free that is piling pressure on a sector facing stresses on all sides.
Peat is one of the most popular and reliable types of growing media for plants, but peatlands are also a valuable store for carbon and as the UK Government tries to meet net zero targets, a peat ban is on the agenda.
Over the four episodes, Christina Taylor explores the story of the UK peat ban, how the horticulture industry is facing up to the challenge, and how it might shape the future of the sector.
Christina asks:
Do we need a peat ban?Why is the transition to peat-free causing so much division and proving so difficult?And as the sector navigates the numerous challenges, she asks what is needed for the sector to survive, if and when peat ban legislation actually comes into effect.In Episode 2: From multi-purpose to pick 'n' mix, Christina explores the two particular challenges faced by garden centres.
The first is the transition from selling peat-based compost to peat-free mixes. Challenges here include the variable quality of peat-free compost mixes, fears over supply of new ingredients, the higher price of these mixes and how they can help educate amateur gardeners learn to grow their plants.
Many have found difficulties in germinating seeds prompting fears that thousands of customers, particularly those trying to Grow-Your-Own fruit and veg, may give up, costing garden centres valuable customers in the process.
We hear about the initiatives from thought leaders in the industry on how these challenges can and should be addressed.
The second challenge relates to the sourcing of plants that have been grown in peat-free compost. This is where the interests of retailers intersect with the growers as peat-free adds to cost pressures. Ways to grow so-called tricky plants continue to be elusive prompting fears that we may lose the ability to buy whole categories of plants in the UK.
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HortWeek presents The End of Peat, a new four-part podcast series that will hear from leading horticulturists and garden retailers as they navigate a transition to peat-free that is piling pressure on a sector facing stresses on all sides.
Peat is one of the most popular and reliable types of growing media for plants, but peatlands are also a valuable store for carbon and as the UK Government tries to meet net zero targets, a peat ban is on the agenda.
Over the four episodes, Christina Taylor explores the story of the UK peat ban, how the horticulture industry is facing up to the challenge, and how it might shape the future of the sector.
Christina asks:
Do we need a peat ban?Why is the transition to peat-free causing so much division and proving so difficult?And as the sector navigates the numerous challenges, she asks what is needed for the sector to survive, if and when peat ban legislation actually comes into effect.In Episode 1: Do we need a peat ban? Christina unearths why a peat ban is being proposed and outlines some of the arguments for and against.
It examines the history of peat use in the UK, the properties of peat and peat-free growing media, and begins to unearth why the topic has so bitterly divided the horticulture industry.
The End of Peat was written, produced and presented by HortWeek digital content manager Christina Taylor
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Bob Askew was Garden Media Guild award winner a year ago for his new writer work for Hortweek. He works for Kernock Park Plants as production director and was previously at Darby Nursery Stock and Brinkmans.
Here he names his top three tree genera for gardens, three underused tree genera and top five skinny trees for small gardens.
He believes the reliance of nurseries and garden centres on too few ornamental tree cultivars is a bad thing and is critical of overuse of Betula utilis var. jacquemontii and Crataegus Paul's Scarlet, and offers alternatives to them.
Askew also names three awful crab apple cultivars and five brilliant ones for gardens, as well as five brilliant but below-the-radar flowering cherries.
He delves into the pros and cons of growing trees in solid pots, versus airpots, or slotted pots.
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This week the HortWeek Podcast meets Imogen Bell, supervisor at Thomson's Garden Centre and a YPHA Southeast regional coordinator
In her article for HortWeek 'Despite CITES, not all doom and gloom for houseplant sales' Imogen reflects on how the reinterpretation of CITES "meant practically a third of my stock became unavailable overnight".
One of the "Brexit benefits" often quoted was the possibility that more friction across the borders would encourage clients to buy British and boost British-grown plants. As tightening border controls cause unprecedented chaos at BCPs Imogen might be feeling a degree of relief that she took the decision to switch to British houseplant nurseries months ago.
"Cacti, carnivorous plants, the majority of orchids... it's almost impossible to import, which is obviously quite a large part of most houseplant departments.
"Luckily, I was already having looking into UK growers after Brexit - just in case anything got super difficult to import. And at the same time a lot of UK nurseries then opened up to garden centres - Oppenman's plants, Double H, Hills Brothers all opened up to garden centres about the same time.I was already ordering from them so I just got to order in much higher volume.
The only plants she's struggled with are more unusual orchids, she says, but initiatives such as Horti House which allows nurseries to trade as one unit is helping.
"You get some great nurseries in there like Dibley's who do Streptocarpus and Begonia.. and where before you would have to order either half a trolley or a whole trolley, you can now just order by the tray which means you can get a good range of more unusual things without having to kind of put all your eggs in one basket with a specific supplier."
She talks about the challenge of competing with supermarkets with their economies of scale, "but on the other hand, I think if you look at any supermarket at their house plant department, it is all half-dead... where garden centers and other plant shops really stand out is the level of knowledge and customer service they can offer".
At Thomson's she has added labels showing the air miles for plants on sale: "I'd like to introduce UK suppliers and just extend that so you can say this orchid or Monstera or whatever has come from 40 miles away and it's come from this nursery and it's a family -run business. I think it just adds to the value of the plant to be able to give it that origin."
It surprises her that, given the huge rise in popularity of houseplants in recent years, many garden centres fail to put on a good display.
New trends she is seeing include Marimo moss balls. They grow like a couple of millimetres a year. But for some reason they were flying off the shelves." The appeal for many customers she says, are plants that "thrive off neglect".
On peat-free, Imogen says customers are asking for it and garden centres are moving in that direction, ban or no ban. "Horti House is peat-free and again out of necessity I guess the other ones will come into line" she says.
On peat-free composts, she says: "I've noticed more and more people are mixing their own soils. So instead of just getting a packet off the shelf, they're buying a base and then they're buying perlite or coir or coco husk and then blending it for the specific plant".
And will the houseplant boom continue?
"I'm not sure we'll quite get the sky high sales we had during the lockdowns...They've plateaued since, but the interest is consistent. I don't think house plants will go away."
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HortWeek is delighted to present the Cultivate Your Future podcast, in partnership with the Colegrave Seabrook Foundation and sponsor Westland Horticulture.
At a time when horticulture needs to encourage a new wave of young people to come into the industry, this podcast is designed to highlight the multiple and varied career opportunities available.
Hear from people who have found their way into their chosen career through different paths, what their job involves and what it means to them.
In this episode Neville Stein catches up with students from Sparsholt College to discuss their recent experience of exhibiting at RHS Chelsea Flower Show and how they felt about it.
As the Colegave Seabrook Foundation supports students studying horticulture, we were very proud to be sponsors of their exhibit and are thrilled at their success.
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This week's guests are James Cairncross and Angela Lewis from the Midlands Parks Forum which has its annual conference on the 17th of October at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. Highlights include keynote speaker Dr. William Bird, a GP who contributed to a select committee report on access to green space who will speak on health benefits of physical activity and green spaces.
"Other speakers include people from MHCLG, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Heritage Lottery Fund, and also some experience from out in the real world, such as Islington Borough Council" Angela explains and she outlines workshops also to be run at the event.
James addresses the "perennial problem" of parks budget cuts. "Despite there being quite a clear return on any investment in parks, local authority officers are still struggling to protect what they've got, let alone improve the funding for green spaces.
"Our chair of trustees Liz Stuffins attended the previous Government's DEFRA inquiry into urban parks, and they found that both the quality and the quantity of urban parks are in quite serious decline.
This exacerbates the skills shortages suffered by the parks sector but The Midlands Park Forum aims to help overcome this by offering learning events, the conference and webinars "focused on the skills and competencies in a framework that aligns with the Landscape Institute's framework on competencies identifying over 60 skills in six categories, which we've identified as being important for a good park manager. And it's not just about cutting grass. This is people skills, environmental stewardship, income and finance, future visioning and planning, and all the competencies that go with being a professional."
The lack and loss of expertise in the sector combined with budget cuts means some parks "are already losing their green flag awards because the authorities can just no longer attain the quality that's needed to keep those award...some councils now can't even afford the cost of the application, let alone the quality".
With a new Government installed, James acknowledges parks will have to "join the queue" when asking for more state funding but top of his list of asks is "a national urban parks strategy and it needs to be integrated into public health because the benefits of that are both obvious." Close behind is a wish that the Green Jobs Task Force be expanded to include the green spaces sector.
They discuss best practice in the sector and for Angela it means "local spaces that can become the hub of the local community and making sure that people do look at different collaborations locally, whether that's with local charities providing physical activity and exercise or local charities that provide volunteers to look after the green spaces and just making sure that all those things are considered in terms of local people having that space that they've got within 15 minutes of home".
For the future, the Forum wants to "continue to deliver quality service to members" including CPD offerings, via learning events and knowledge sharing.
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Both our guests on the HortWeek Podcast broadly agree with the reasons for a peat ban and agree there is a need to reduce carbon emissions to help fight climate change. But they are not equally convinced a peat ban is the way to do it.
In the 'for' corner is cosmos and hollyhocks national collection holder and lobbyist Jonathan Sheppard.
Sheppard says: "You only have to look at places like Hampton Court where they have the peat-free garden where the plant list was massive. I've never seen a plant list as long which showed people that you can grow without peat. So I'm just wholly not convinced that you can't be a successful grower. But then I guess it depends on what do we mean by a successful grower. I just don't want to see rewards being given when there's an RHS sustainability strategy when using peat...It must be the wrong thing to do, given the science that we know about how much CO2 digging this cheap product up emits."
And in the 'not so sure' corner we have dahlia and sweet pea grower Darren Everest.
Darren argues: "Just for example in the National Dahlia Society, you try finding me one of the top elite growersn that don't use peat and I think you'll struggle to find any...growing flowers to national level requires a lot of time and years of knowledge and experience growing and I haven't found anybody online yet, certainly in the dahlia world, that has found a suitable non-peat-based product. "
HortWeek editor Matthew Appleby hosts the discussion which focuses on efforts to end peat use by growers and RHS exhibitors.
The pair reflect on their experience of using peat free and debate how significant the carbon emissions cuts achieved by ending peat use in horticulture will be.
The RHS plans to end peat use from 2026 and they ponder how this ban will affect different growers, awards, whether shows will attract fewer exhibitors and crucially, how it can be policed.
For more information on growers and garden retailers going peat free, see https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/peat
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ICL's Sam Rivers digs down into Integrated Pest Management and speifically IPM planning.
Sam describes what the current situation in the industry is with regards to IPM planning and details the 'hierarchy of control', which includes cultural, biological, physical and chemical methods.
He gives examples of the different types of controls and talks about regulations for biological control.
Sam warns that chemical control is a last option and lists some of the many new restrictions on chemicals that are coming in.
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GroundsFest 2024 took place10 - 11 September at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire. Initial visitor numbers from day 1 (unaudited) of 4,738 were 40% up on last year, the show’s inaugural year.
The podcast was recorded on day 2 of GroundsFest amongst the hustle and bustle of the show. HortWeek senior reporter Rachael Forsyth spoke with Chris Bassett, event director at GroundsFest, Jonathan Snowball head of professional at Husqvarna and David Fisher head of landscape and rural at LANTRA about how the show has been going so far.
Snowball explained that Husqvarna took advantage of the outdoor space making its entire stand a live demo area – one section for chainsaws and another for robotic lawn mowers and ride on machines. Bassett explained that this was a USP when setting up GroundsFest, allowing exhibitors to have that flexibility with their space and offering something different for visitors.
Fisher said conversations at the show centred around the skills shortage with LANTRA facilitating a “well attended” seminar on the challenges and opportunities in the amenity sector. Questions arose around where the next generation is coming from, keeping people in the industry, and how we can best show off what careers and pathways look like.
Bassett said the show has had really good feedback so far, and while you will never get 100% positive feedback the team is ready to make tweaks based on feedback for next year. Overall, though, Bassett said visitors are enjoying being able to get their hands on the kit and test it.
See: www.groundsfest.com
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Alan Down is a gardening broadcaster and writer and current HTA president, shortly to be replaced by Will Armitage after two eventful years.
He studied at Cannington and Pershore College of Horticulture and after a spell working Germany, he developed and managed Hillier Nurseries' container grown and seed propagation nurseries for nine years.
For the following 35 years, Alan built up Cleeve Nursery and Garden Centre, near Bristol and alongside hi wife Felicity, co-presented the long-standing ‘Garden Calendar’ TV programme.
On the podcast Alan talks about his role at the HTA including presiding over changes in structure and strategy.
He discusses his desire to shift the terminology and emphasis of production horticulture from 'ornamental' to 'environmental' horticulture which runs alongside the topics the HTA engages with, including with the Government. These topics include the issues of trade and border checks, "the extra costs [growers] incur... and we continue to apply pressure to try and resolve the issues that are there. We also have huge concern about the few inspections that there are, which means that we are a threat in terms of importing pests and diseases which could be harmful to our industry and indeed to the country as a whole".
He discusses the on-going shift away from peat. In the absence of official figures (since 2022) he estimates garden centre use of peat-based growing media is down to around 10%, but the picture with growers is more complex.
"Some have been growing peat-free for quite some time. Others are still trialling and finding out what medium works for them and how to handle growing plants in peat -free compost and others may not have even started. But we are there to support our members in this transition and we'll continue to do that."
He and HortWeek editor Matt Appleby discuss the Lords Parliamentary horticultural inquiry of 2023 and the impact, if any, it has had since on the sector, which has partly been disrupted by the arrival of a new Government, Alan points out.
But. Alan says, he believes the HTA is well-placed to influence the new administration as an institution which represents growers, landscapers and retailers. He talks about initiatives such as inviting MPs to visit growers on site and the opportunity exhibiting at Chelsea gives the HTA to meet them in a "in a more relaxed mood'.
Matt and Alan talk about the health of horticulture shows including collaborations with GIMA, Alan's enthusiasm for more regional events and the HTA's own conference taking place on September 25 at the International Conference Centre in Birmingham.
And as he celebrates his 50th wedding anniversary, he contemplates life after the HTA and what it might hold as well as his latest Desert Island plant.
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A Sussex native, Susan Raikes, the new director of Wakehurst, Kew's wild botanic garden in West Sussex (she joined in June) was familier with the garden since childhood.
"We're Kew's younger, bigger and wilder sister and very much a botanic garden with a purpose...a site of horticultural and scientific excellence and a living laboratory where groundbreaking science projects are taking place as well. So lots of beautiful gardens, beautiful spots to come and visit, but some really important science and horticultural work going on as well."
After Kew released a report detailing risks to over half of its 11,000 trees, Wakehurst will carry out a similar exercise next year: "it's a different challenge, but absolutely we're thinking about the resilience of the planting".
She talks about the effects of climate change on the garden, with respect not just to plants, but impacts for visitors and scientists working at the centre.
Related to this, Wakehurst has been "championing meadows" via it's Meadowland feature this summer (until September 10) and has a focus on threatened and rare UK habitats which have been combined with newly commissioned pieces of contemporary art to enhance the ecological and educational aspects.
Wakehurst is home to Kew's Millennium Seed Bank, which houses more than 2.4 billion seeds from around the world and which will celebrate its 25th birthday next year.
Among research programs currently live at the garden Sue highlights Nature Unlocked, "which is helping us to use Wakehurst as a living laboratory, looking at it as an ecosystem observatory. We're looking at pollinators and carbon, but also well-being and the different kinds of landscapes and environments that people get the most benefit from".
The research project will be reflected in features in visitor areas such as the children's garden which will house a bee bank, a rebuilt mud kitchen and edible meadow.
Next year will also see the 60th anniversary of Kew's presence at Wakehurst and the garden plans to bring "to life that story of being a living laboratory so that visitors really know that they are visiting somewhere that is really making a difference in terms of all of the work we need to do around climate change and habitat loss as well."
Previously Sue was director of learning at the Science Museum Group and before that you were head of learning and national partnerships at the British Museum and is familiar with "taking sometimes quite complicated and specialist content and then working with that in a variety of different ways to bring it to as many people as possible" and she plans to bring these skills to bear at Wakehurst.
Wakehurst has enlisted two champions, TV GP Dr. Amir Khan and BBC Springwatch presenter Megan McCubbin to help "amplify our message and spread the word about this incredible wild botanic garden that we have." Local resident and A-list actor Cate Blanchett has made a promotional video for the garden and it is hoped she will have more involvement in the future.
The aim is to build on the 400,000 visitors Wakehurst receives every year and hopes to "reach people who might not know about us" through access schemes and community work.
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GroundsFest 2024 takes place on the 10 and the 11 of September at Stoneleigh Park, in Warwickshire. The free annual event is a must-attend for grounds staff, greenkeepers, landscapers, designers & architects, gardeners, local authorities, estate managers and contractors.
It combines indoor business and education opportunities with outdoor demonstrations and on the evening of the 10 September there is a live music festival for visitors to network and unwind.
HortWeek senior reporter Rachael Forsyth speaks with Chris Bassett, event director at GroundsFest about what to expect from this year's show, as well as exhibitors Wayne Grills chief executive at BALI, and Ian Graham chairman of Amenity Forum about the benefits of attending and exhibiting.
2023 was the show’s inaugural year, but its success has meant additional space has been added both indoor and outdoors. Bassett explains that the success also accelerated the goal of reinvesting profits from GroundsFest back into the industry to support education through the GroundsFest Education Fund.
Grills explains that he attended as a seminal panellist and visitor last year which encouraged him to have a BALI presence at the event this year, with the association hosting its AGM at the show. Graham describes why Complete Weed Control was drawn back to the world of exhibitions through GroundsFest, as well as what visitors can expect from Amenity Forum at the event.
See: www.groundsfest.com
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