What do the Mastermind quiz on the BBC Radio 2 OJ Borg show, the Glee show in Birmingham and a flower festival in a little gothic mansion - all have in common? Well in one sense not a lot and I think the audiences for them are a little different. But for the Our Plant Stories podcast there was a common link of plants!

I think I might return to Glee, as there is still a lot to process and share from that visit to the Birmingham NEC on Wednesday. There is clearly a lot of history to it - it was celebrating its 50th anniversary, though a confession I had never heard of it before moving into this plant space. The NEC is a slight trigger for me. Many years ago when I was working as a researcher on a drivetime show on the old Radio 5 live, I was sent to the Motor Show at Birmingham NEC. My mission was to spend the day finding ‘5 stories/interviewees’ that I could line up and return to during the drivetime show - for 5 live inserts into the programme. This was problematic for a couple of reasons. Firstly I could write what I know about cars on the back of a postcard but also anyone who knows me well, will attest that I have no sense of direction. So finding my way back to those 5 stories at the end of the day under the pressure of a live show was a challenge to put it mildly! It’s an ENORMOUS place. I can honestly still remember the feeling of adrenalin mixed with pure exhaustion when I finally found my way back onto a train at the end of the day. Plants are much more relaxing.

The story of the Strawberry Hill flower festival goes back, only a year. Two friends contacted me on the festival weekend encouraging me to try to get there as they were both certain I would find amazing plant stories. Sadly I couldn’t make it but yesterday I spent an inspiring afternoon wandering around rooms full of flowers and floral designers, privileged to see the chicken wire and string and vases that will by now be hidden beneath the stunning floral installations. I was there when Philippa arrived, lucky enough to hear the audible gasp of joy from Leigh as Philippa opened the boot to reveal her beautiful dahlia flowers and a couple of bees who had joined for the journey.

I recorded a behind the scenes episode with Leigh Chappell and Janne Ford who are the co-creators of this sustainable flower festival, bumping into and chatting to some of the growers and designers along the way. Originally I had thought I would edit this episode for Tuesday but then I thought really it should go out today as the festival starts. Even if you can’t get a ticket and it is almost sold out, you could follow along some of the Instagram accounts or just enjoy the pictures on the episode page - do take a look. Then I would suggest that if this is anywhere within striking range of where you live - put it in your diary for next year, like I did! It will come around and you will be amazed and inspired. It’s a while since I have recorded and edited swiftly to turn something around - so that is why this newsletter is a little later than normal.

However as often happens, a little bit of serendipity helped along the way…I had to stay awake till 12.30am this morning in order to appear on the OJ Borg show on BBC Radio 2 and that greatly helped the editing process. I had received an email out of the blue a couple of weeks ago from a BBC producer called Will, asking me if I would be interested in taking part in OJ’s regular ‘Mastermind” quiz and could I do 3 questions about gardening? Gardening seemed to me a rather vast subject, so I thought maybe it would be easier to narrow it down and I fixed on Monkey Puzzle trees instead. Having now made 3 episodes about Monkey Puzzle trees it didn’t take too much research to come up with 3 questions. If you weren’t awake and listening to Radio 2 at 12.30am last night - I’ll share the audio with you here so if you want to test yourself you can do so. As a regular Our Plant Stories listener, I would vouch you have, above average knowledge, of Monkey Puzzle trees!

Believe it or not we are heading towards the 100th blog post, which I cannot quite believe. We have very high open rates which I find incredibly encouraging so thank you for reading. I met a lovely florist called Charlotte at the Flower festival who turned out to be a listener. She said that growers and designers often spend time working alone and it was so encouraging to hear that this podcast is one to which she listens.

I chatted to a very friendly lady at Birmingham station on my way home from Glee, she had been working there and told me about the big and beautifully scented Lily of the Valley that her mother grew, that she is still searching to find. Then there was Mary on my train journey to the flower festival, she was crocheting and we shared crochet stories and I gave her a postcard about the podcast. I think this is called acquiring listeners one by one! If you feel able to share the podcast or the blog with one friend or possibly a stranger that would be amazing…

Have a lovely weekend.

Sally

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