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NEWS EXTRA


“We want to make people aware of how important growing is. So, if they could just do a little bit at home, there’s a chance we could actually save the planet. We always want to do what customers want but also want to educate.” James Futcher


and stacking to enable them to go vertical – lots of different ways to bring a little bit of their own garden inside and start growing. We always want to do what customers want but we also want to educate.”


He said feedback at the show was good, adding: “It’s a little bit brave that we’ve done it - it’s not about the beauty but it’s about sustainability and it’s done in a nice, simple way. We were worried about saying gardening can save the world because other growers have been trying to do that for years but we’ve done it in quite a simple, Ikea way and we’ve not tried to take space from someone else and be competing.”


Looking to the future Encouragingly, there was still a big push on getting younger people involved in horticulture – from budding


apprentices grower or Bloms young


children starting their first journey in gardening. Tulip


Bulbs


celebrated the younger generation in its own family business, with five-year old Ethan, who is now at the age where he has been able to help the family grow and pick the tulips for the display at this year’s show. The family business began in 1860 and is currently run by the fifth generation – brothers Christopher and Paul Blom – and has members of the sixth generation also working within the company. This season, the seventh generation, Ethan joined his grandparents, uncle and mother


10 DIY WEEK 28 JUNE 2019


in the field every morning over his Easter school holidays, helping to pick the tulips for Blom’s display. He was also learning the names of the tulips, how they are picked and how Bloms stores them. The company said: “He may not be a celebrity but he played a huge part in the making of our stand. We think that this unique situation, which not many exhibitors can lay claim to, is worth recognition.” Whilst the famous gardening show has strict rules that mean no children under the age of five are able to attend, special permission was sought on a number of gardens, which meant little ones were permitted to enjoy gardens for photocalls. The most widely covered, of course, were the Royals, with princes George and Louie and princess Charlotte, all taking time to visit the show and enjoy the RHS Back to Nature Garden , which had been designed by their mother, the Duchess of Cambridge. In the Artisan section, the Family Monsters Garden, designed and built by Idverde, welcomed 17-month old twins, Summer and Willow, on to play in the space with their mother and grandmother. Idverde enlisted the help of 22


apprentices to build the garden, including young people involved in Family Action’s Escape project in Norfolk, which uses gardening to help support people with mental health issue and disability. Speaking to DIY Week about the importance of this, Idverde’s Alistair


Bayford said: “Horticulture is still seen as the best result for people that can’t achieve and the unskilled. The reality is, it is seen as a lifestyle rather than a career but you need to be skilled to do this! [The industry is] still trying to solve a massive gap in skills and volume of people to help deliver the services that clients want us to deliver now. It’s about making that career path attractive and rewarding. “Unfortunately, we are competing with digital age and social media now, with people wanting


to


make things digitally rather than physically, so we need to work to make this appeal to people who are tech savvy…We’re keen to get more people into horticulture and support learning.” Greenfingers Charity welcomed


four-year-old Myles onto the garden with Richard House Children’s Hospice patrons Jim Carter and Imelda Staunton. Myles and his family are regular visitors to the hospice and were invited to enjoy the lush green garden created at the show, which was designed to provide a peaceful, interactive and uplifting space where life-limited children with complex needs, their families, friends and carers can come together for play, relaxation or peaceful reflection.


Celebrity chef Raymond Blanc also popped onto the garden to meet Myles and was delighted he was able to be at the show, suggesting more children should be allowed to attend and enjoy the horticultural delights.


“We don’t see kids around here,” he said. “It’s a shame. You know, 35 years ago the first thing I did in my [restaurant] was to actively welcome children. And they behave – if you give them two desserts!” Other gardens and initiatives at


the show designed to get young people taking up their trowels and forks were the Horticulture Trade Association’s (HTA) ‘Helping Children Grow’ exhibit, which promoted National Children’s Gardening Week, and the Montessori Centenary Children’s Garden, which featured a propagating greenhouse, wildlife pond, wormery, and picking stations to allow children to snip, tear and taste what is growing. The theme behind the Montessori garden was to be both child-led and future-driven, providing an engaging space to nurture children, teaching them about the natural world alongside the modern technology – including cutting-edge hydroponics - that represents the future of the horticulture industry. The RHS also invited visitors to


share their gardening memories on a wall next to its Back to Nature Garden – many of which involved treasured reminiscences from childhood. So, with so much emphasis on starting children’s gardening journeys as young as possible and an abundance of things to engage and inspire little ones, could we see a change to the rules at Chelsea in the future? After all, garden gnomes were welcomed back into the fold in recent years.


www.diyweek.net


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