Garden Festival an exhibitor sell-out
A total of 150 exhibitors have snapped up the available space Toby Buckland’s Garden Festival at Powderham Castle, four months before the event, which takes place on Friday 1st and Saturday 2nd May.
The annual two-day Garden Festival was launched last year by horticulturalist, nursery owner and TV presenter Toby Buckland, and was an immediate success, drawing around 8000 visitors, with several exhibitors having to restock several times during the event to keep up with demand.
The new festival showcases many local nurseries from the Westcountry who otherwise are overshadowed by larger national organisations and allows keen gardeners the opportunity to share their passion with a huge variety of growers in a fabulous location.
Festival Co-Director Alan Lewis says of the event “Some garden shows have struggled but not Toby’s Garden Festival because Toby and the team know and care about plants and are keen to bring gardeners and passionate plants-people together. We have been inundated with requests to show elsewhere and the concept has been so enthusiastically received that we’ve launched a second festival at Bowood House and Gardens in Wiltshire to satisfy the keen demand for this kind of event in the South and West.”
We love gardening in Britain. The Office of National Statistics classes nearly 50% of all UK adults as gardeners, with gardening listed as one of the most popular leisure activities, coming in just below sport and above going to the pub.
Whether we’re cheering up a doorway with a hanging basket or creating a tropical paradise in our back yard we are passionate about our plants. According to the Horticultural Trades Association, our gardening addiction is worth 5 billion a year to the economy, and is enjoying a healthy growth spurt with over six out of ten British adults purchasing garden products throughout the year.
Gardening is so popular that private equity firms are buying up garden businesses in bulk and supermarkets are jumping on the bandwagon, but choice is limited and in some, scant advice gives little benefit to the buyer. Shrivelling plants are also an unwanted complication for these non-specialist retailers when every item has to earn its keep.
Toby Buckland, a trained horticulturalist, champions making gardening accessible to all. The festival idea came from a sincere conviction to support small nurseries and give the public the chance to meet and buy plants from the people that grow them, meet them and tap into their specialist knowledge.
“Independent nurseries have so much to offer - passion, plantsman-ship and the widest choice,” explains Toby. “What they lack is accessibility and that's why bringing the best together in front of an audience of thousands works so well. Spreading the word about why gardeners should support small nurseries is fantastic but I wanted to give practical help and that's why I've created the Garden Festivals to showcase their work and, of course, their wonderful plants.”
Exhibitor Carolyn Bourne of Whetmen Pinks enthused "I am sure they must feel rightly very rewarded with the tremendous success. It was fantastic and I have heard nothing but positive and appreciative comments about those two days. The quality and variety of the stands was excellent. We had to re-stock three times!”
Small independent nurseries are the knowledge-bank of horticulture in Britain. It's their know-how that feeds into all of the gardening magazines, books and gardening programs on TV. The plants that nurseries bring to the festivals are not just the most popular but more interesting and unusual particularly as many have been specially bred by them. The public also get personal advice so often lacking in major retailers, about where to place their plants and how to how to treat them.
Exhibitor Chris Smith of Pennard Plants, a Somerset nursery which houses one of the most remarkable collections of beautiful and productive plants in the region is coming back this year, “As a grower, it’s marvelous to meet people genuinely interested in plants, we get to talk to people at Powderham, we find out their problems. So much shopping is done on the internet now, and people don’t necessarily buy the plants that are actually best for them. But they can find out at Toby’s festivals. That’s why I like going to this show – it's the conversation.”
The success and growth of the shows is a testament to the enthusiasm and hard work of a team that want to create an all-round day out, full of information, fun and entertainment for the public. Gardening clubs are already booking coach-loads in advance.
