Went yesterday with lottie friend, overall a good day!
Highlights...
Saw ACE on the Tena Active Living garden, entered a competition to try and win the mosaic he did for it, fingers crossed... ;D
The show gardens were much better than in previous years IMHO, lots more herbs and veg and less poncy ideas dominated by hard landscaping. The smaller gardens had some really good ideas, recommended.
We met Terry Walton when he tried to nick one of our chairs (The Big Dig and Jeremy Vine radio show veteran and author) and ended up sitting with him, his OH and friends having coffee! Good to hear he has failures too, his pumpkins didn't germinate this year so he is trying to grow a giant marrow instead but says it isn't the same.....He gave my friend Iz (who recognised his voice from the radio show and was quite 'starstruck'!) THE PHONE that he does his radio show from to hold....... ::) Well it impressed her! ;D
Monty Don's celebrity theatre talk......I was quite ambivalent about Monty, but have warmed to him a bit more now. He spoke frankly about the GW programme and his views on the current programme, and his comments on how it is all set up were illuminating. Apparently part of Berryfields is being demolished now, the current owners are struggling to upkeep it all. It was also interesting to hear about the restrictions they had whilst filming there, keeping the long boarders for example that were criticised for not being practical for most peoples gardens, but they had to keep them as the owners wanted them.
The freebies.........always a highlight, not as plentiful as in previous years but still pretty good! Lots of seeds, plenty of food to try in the Good Food part, goody bags at the end with the usual strange assortment of items.... toothpaste, herbal sweets etc.....
A little disappointed in the RHS floral marquee, there seemed to be far fewer exhibitors than previous years but some excellent displays. Carol Klein was filming in there and signing autographs for people, seemed very approachable and chatty, also saw Joe Swift posing at the showgardens.. ::)
We tried to support the National Veg Society, bought a bag from there but there were only a few leaflets on the stall and quite a few people talking amongst themselves so it wasn't easy to approach and engage with them. Similarly the NSALG stand people were more interested in putting together their bags of stuff (they were asking £1 for a bag of leaflets etc. which put most people off!) than talking to folk, I'd be interested to know how well they did at the end of the day... :-\
Anyone else going?
