Mystery Solved & Gold
If you want to share these blogs with your friends so they can follow and receive the weekly email and podcast just send them this link and they’ll be able to sign up at the top of the page.
Vicki Meads with her Gold.
First some very exciting news - this week I caught up again with Vicky Meads of New Forest Hostas. This time she and her crew of Hostas were at the RHS Chelsea Flower show and she has won another GOLD! Huge congratulations to her and her husband - he had been constructing the stand between the Malvern show the other week and Chelsea this week. The bird statues come from her mother’s garden! I hope in an Offshoot programme to bring you a little of the challenge and joy of being a Hosta grower at these shows.
And the mystery solved? I mentioned at the end of last week’s blog that we had had a sudden influx of downloads and visits to the website. It turns out we featured in the Guardian’s weekly podcast newsletter under the ‘Why not try’ section. So if that is how you found this new podcast series - welcome!
It has been a week of contrasts. On Tuesday I was lucky enough to spend the day at Chelsea. As ever it is wonderful to gaze on the show gardens which are the most incredible feats of creativity, engineering and above all horticultural skill. I loved Horatio’s Garden, both for what it was and what it will become when it heads to Sheffield for the charity. I also loved, as did everyone, Sarah Price’s garden with the beautiful Iris. But I think the more I work on this podcast the more I admire the growers. Their passion and knowledge about their particular collection and the work and effort, sometimes from just one person; to grow, transport and display those plants.
It did feel a little surreal to go from a peaceful day of green at Chelsea to a noisy two day podcasting conference. Yet alongside the discussions about microphones and marketing I met some plant parents. The guy from the States who has a plant that belonged to his grandfather that he takes wherever he goes, sharing cuttings along the way. The lady on a marketing stand with her daughter, where we discussed Hydrangeas.
I cannot believe that we are already at episode 9. The hope/plan was always for 12 plant stories in this first series followed by some Offshoots that have come from those stories. Today’s episode is a case in point. Hannah and Maya who today discuss plant tattoos and floriography also talked so brilliantly about being florists that they will be back for an Offshoot and there is a plan for a 4am visit to the flower market!
Thank you as always for your support along the way. If you can share this podcast today with another fellow gardener that would be amazing. And if you can, do encourage them to sign up to the website so even when this first series comes to an end they will keep in touch with what happens next.