SPEAKER_01 0:00

BBC Gardeners World Live at the NEC in Birmingham, coming towards the end of day one. It has been busy because the sun has been out, it's been really nice, all the gardens and borders look fantastic. Kevin, good to see you. Hello. It doesn't seem that long since we were talking about Gardeners World Live last year, does it? I know, it's crazy. Where does the time go?

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Bonkers.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Now I know you've been incredibly busy in your role as content editor for uh the magazine, uh, which uh I've just been going through the May edition. If you haven't read it and you're listening and you're a gardener, you should, I think, which is really good. Um, lots to talk about. Uh, some amazing borders and gardens again. Let's cover those off first. Uh, I mean, it's just stunning. One thing I have I have noticed is how much salvia is being used this year.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Yeah, but you you kind of get that. I mean, lots of people, when they're shopping for plants, they they often they flower at the same time. So, you know, bringing a show garden together when people are going out and thinking, okay, well, what am I going to put in the garden? They obviously have a pre-prescribed plant list that they might be working to, but plants are unpredictable, weather is unpredictable. So, actually, you do find that often many of the show gardens include similar plants because actually that's the things that are looking good right now. So, so yes, lots of salvias, but that's great because they're brilliant plants.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

So one of one of my favourites, and I noticed just at the the back of our studio here that hostas, there is a massive amount of those about.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Yeah, absolutely. And the thing is they come in literally all shapes and sizes. I mean, obviously, they're grown for their beautiful leaves, but there are little tiny miniature ones, there are ones that are you know whopping dinner plate-sized leaves, and actually they're really, really versatile plants. I mean, I think everybody thinks that they um you know have to grow in a really wet spot, but actually they can cope with a bit of dry, um, and they're great in a container as well. So, yeah, hostas are excellent. And with a hosta, you need a beer trap for the slugs, don't you?

SPEAKER_01 1:54

That's everybody tells when I first got my face, you need a beer trap. So, sorry. And and of course that's what catches the slugs because they do like a hosta.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

They they do, and I mean the great thing is that you've got the excuse to open a can of beer, haven't you? Because you only need a little bit, so what happens to the rest of the can, I wonder.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

That's another discussion which we'll glaze over. Um what has caught your eye so far uh at the show this year?

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Oh, well, um you mentioned the show gardens at the beginning, um, and I can't not talk about the garden of evolution, the headline show garden here. I mean, it's utterly incredible. It's designed by Professor David Stevens and Professor Alice Roberts, and it shows the journey of 450 million years of evolution. I mean, how do you get that into a show garden? It's utterly incredible, but they have managed it. So um it literally goes back to almost the very, very first life forms when there was nothing on the planet other than rock and water, all the way through to the modern day when Hus humans came around and how we're interacting with plants now. So they've done an utterly incredible job. Um, it's a walkthrough garden, so you can get up close and see and really really look at the plants and everything that's been put together. So an amazing feat, but um, it's not all about the headline garden, there are other wonderful ones, and the thing that I think that has struck me is the use of colour this year. Um, there are you know really beautiful colour combinations about there's a wonderful garden that is all blue and yellow, that is sorry, purple and yellow, which is um all to do with um the senses, so for those that are slightly visually impaired or um have loss of hearing, and then there's a bright pink garden which is just unashamedly pink. Yeah, I mean utterly brilliant, and it just goes to show that the role colour can play in gardens and how you can put plants together if you're if you're unsure and would like them to look really considered in a colourful way. So, yeah, colour has been a big thing for me this year.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

The beautiful borders, I always think are they designed to be uh lovely and to tell a story, but they're to me they're genuinely inspiring because they are a demonstration of of what you can do with a small space. But there's something for everybody in the beautiful borders, isn't there?

SPEAKER_00 4:08

They're they're fantastic. I think they're possibly one of my favourite things at the show, and I remember when we we first had them, and they were literally um just a border, and the concept was to show how to put plants together, so they were nothing more than that, other than you know, combinations of plants, which in itself was very useful. But over the years they have morphed into well, mini show gardens, really. You know, there's little bits of landscaping in there, people are putting in little ponds and trees, and as you say, it really does show what you can do in a small space. This year, I've particularly drawn to the Make a Metre Matter beautiful border. It's it's a campaign that's very close to my heart, um, all about doing something with just one metre for the good of the planet, and uh de Graf Mensa and Lucy Chamberlain, who've done the border this year, really have demonstrated what you can do in just a square metre. It's utterly, utterly astonishing. And the great thing is, you know, we're here at the NEC, it's it's quite an industrial place, but actually, those borders and the gardens, the wildlife that's coming into them that's attracted, you know, if you grow plants, the wildlife will come. So it's fantastic to see all the bees and butterflies that are knocking about.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Absolutely. Uh you mentioned the uh maker, meeter, matter, Lucy Chamberling, very well known for her podcast with Saul Walker, but de Graf Mensa, really interesting because he fronts uh newsround. And I was chatting to him, and and he because of that, and because he's now a he's got an allotment, and he's got it's drawing in all of those news round fans, the young people. Yeah, um, and and isn't that fantastic? And you know, you we you've got schools here today as well. You and I walk round, and it's great to see how many young people are here.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

It's utterly brilliant, and I mean I obviously remember Newsround from from when I was a kid. It's an institution, isn't it? Much like Gardner's World, you know, it's one of the BBC programmes that's just been seems like it's been going forever. Um, and yeah, fantastic that De Graft has found gardening. He's got an allotment which he absolutely loves, and he's really connecting with different and new audiences, younger audiences, and we're all over that. I mean, the minute that we knew that he was interested in gardening and could take us to a newer audience, we were like, right, great, let's let's get him on board and and come and join us. So, yeah, he's been doing a fantastic job with Lucy, he really has, and um yeah, chap cracking chap as well.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Yes, he is, he's a jolly nice man. Uh, and of course, it's not just the plants and and uh the borders and the gardens. You can probably just hear in the background, we're very close to the uh the main stage uh here at the NEC. We've got the people from the television programme. I think Adam Frost has just been on, hasn't he? Monty Don is on. There's lots of people here, and that's a big draw.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

It is. I mean, I've just been outside um and the television program are filming for tomorrow night's programme, which is fantastic, and it's just the buzz, you know, there's something exciting about television cameras and big cranes moving around, and you know, seeing all of those lovely garden as well presenters that we we know and enjoy watching on TV in real life, it's fantastic. And I I host the theatre here for for some of the sessions, and I was on with Monty earlier, and it's just a great opportunity to have a bit of fun, catch up with these people in real life, and yeah, you you don't get it anywhere else.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

No, absolutely. The only people who who aren't overly keen on the outside filming are the sound engineers because of the trolleys that people bought. I was talking to Ron and he said, Oh, it's I love the show, he said. But as soon as those trolleys that are full of all the things that people have bought go trundling past, the sound engineers start to cringe, don't they? Yeah, you can't well you can't come to Gardener's World Live without a trolley.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

It's utterly impossible. How are you going to get your balls?

SPEAKER_01 7:49

There's a lady queuing up to get into the main theatre in front of our studio here and to go and see Adam. And she had a a uh a container that she had to have both hands round, and and this huge sort of thing coming out, you couldn't see it. It was like a Rowan and Martin's sketch, you know, where she was peering through it to go into. And when she put it down, she had to just peek over the top to be able to see the stage.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Right, right. Well, you know, us gardeners, we're slightly mad, and if there's a plant involved, it doesn't matter how difficult it is, we'll get it home.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

What's you see gardens year in, year out, and and as we've talked about before, you see them out of sync a little bit, don't you? Because you have to plan months ahead for uh for the the uh for the magazine. What uh in the past 12 months have been the the the new popular things or or the the new trends that have come through, Kevin?

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Well, the one thing that's come up again and again is um planting for weather extremes and climate resilience. So I think we've always been saying, you know, plant the right plant in the right place in the right conditions and and it will do well. But actually, everything has become much more challenging now. We're you know, depending on where you're living in the country, you're having to deal with periods of quite severe flood at times, and then equally a few months later, quite severe drought. So it's that's what I'm I'm finding. People are really experimenting and thinking, well, what can I grow that will cope with these weather challenges and this sort of climate extremes that we're experiencing? So that's one thing. Um, and I think the other thing is that um people really are now understanding the role our gardens play in you know the countryside in in terms of um wildlife and you know, supporting all of those beneficial creatures and pollinators and invertebrates that we need and keep our planet alive and healthy. So I think people are realising now that gardens actually are just a bridge to um so much more, so much more natural life, you know. Um, and I think lots of gardeners have perhaps always known that, but I think it's becoming a much more commonplace sort of recognition now.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Absolutely. Uh just going back to the the number of young people that are interested in gardening, there is a level at at which their interest peaks because they're going through, you know, so many different social changes. Uh are you surprised at the low level of numbers of people wanting to go into horticulture professionally?

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Um yeah, it's an interesting one, isn't it? Because I mean I've gardened since I was 15, uh so a few decades ago. Let's leave it, let's leave it at that. And it was um, you know, considered to be quite a strange thing to be interested in as a teenager. Um, and uh I, you know, getting onto a horticultural course was something I considered, um, but it was felt to be quite a strange thing. Um and I don't know why really. I mean uh the one thing that is a real challenge, and there's lots of people that are very, very vocal about it, is being a gardener is not terribly well paid. And um that's a real, real shame because you know the best gardeners out there have done so much training, they have degrees, they're you know, they're really trained to a very high standard and have put a lot of time and money often into their education. Um so you'd hope that there would be some financial reward there when you go out into the workplace, and it's not really up there, it's not they're up there with other really competitive um professional salaries. So it's it's a problem. It's you know, it's something that the industry is really aware of. But I mean, gardening is and horticulture is such a wonderful industry. There really is something for everyone from you know plant sciences and teaching botany to um you know experimenting with plants for medical research to literally being a gardener at one of our fabulous public gardens and keeping everything looking wonderful and amazing. That the the possibilities are endless, even what I do in gardening media. So if I would encourage anyone, if you if you love gardening, there will be a job for you in it, uh for sure.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

And I'm assuming there are uh uh uh apprenticeships available in in various areas within horticulture.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Yeah, absolutely there are, and many of our you know, big, big national organisations that we know and love, so things like the National Trust and English Heritage, all of those sorts of places, um, the RHS, whatever, they've all got schemes that um will help people get onto that career ladder in horticulture if they would like to. So there are pathways that uh make it really accessible, and I mean it's it's a brilliant, brilliant profession. We all know that gardening makes you feel good. So if you can combine you know a hobby that you love with something that makes you feel good and do it for a living and earn a bit of money along the way, that's got to be a winning formula for me.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Summed up your job description.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

I think I might have done. I I do know I still I never ever take for granted what an amazing job I have. I've worked for Gardener's World for more than 22, I think 22, 23 years now. And um that's testament to how much I love gardening, the community of Gardeners World, and you know, all of the people that are at the show today, it's like seeing old friends every year. Um the gardening community is a warm, friendly place, and um I you know I'm not surprised that you know, nearly a quarter of a century later I'm still I'm still in this business. Is it difficult coming up with new feature ideas for the um for the magazine? Um sometimes, yeah. I mean it's it's somebody once said to me that um when you're dealing with the same topics year in, year out, it's baking the same cake differently. Um so the ingredients are the same, but you want a you know a different product at the end of it. And we know um at Gardeners World that every year we're you know we're gonna have to look at lawn care, we're gonna have to look at growing and sewing tomatoes, um, you know, we might do something on putting in a pond every now and then. So there are things that come round that we know routinely people want, but then there are trends that come and go that we try to respond to. So, you know, it would have been unthinkable even 10 years ago for us to dedicate lots of content to houseplants, whereas of course at the moment hugely popular. Um, so we respond we respond to that as best we can. Um, and yeah, we're never we're never short of ideas. In all honesty, there's not enough pages in the magazine for all the things in our head that we would like that we'd like to get out of the way.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Just on it, one thing that caught my eye in the last couple of editions has been Frances Tophill uh using plants to create dyes for for clothes, yeah. Which is that's a bit of sort of off-the-wall thinking. That was that was a good planning session with you and your colleagues.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Yeah, well, a lot of a lot of that comes from Frances herself, of course. So she she inputs hugely into what she wants to do for us. But I mean, France's whole mantra or one of the things that she is most keen on is useful plants. So plants that do something more than just be ornamental or look good. So many of the things she grows can be used to eat or for medicinal purposes, or as you said, for for dye. So um I think you know it's not gonna be for everyone. I do understand that not not everybody that reads the magazine is going to take some plants and dye some fabric and create some bunting. That's probably not gonna happen, but for some it will, it'll really float their boat.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

There is a an old hippie out there somewhere looking for a copy of that magazine now. I can I can encourage you. It's actually really informative. I I thoroughly enjoyed it. Um look into your crystal ball, Kevin. What's coming now? I mean, obviously you know what is coming up next in the magazine, but let's go a little bit further than that in terms of trends within horticulture. What's coming for next year, the year after, and the year after?

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Oh crumbs, it is really crystal ball gazing, isn't it? And and and who knows? Well, one thing is for certain, all of the things, all that staple stuff that I've just mentioned, that will be there. People are still going to want to know how to mow their lawn and how to sow a seed. So that that kind of stuff is never going to go away. Um I think it's we're likely to see more of gardening as in a sustainable way as possible. Um, and I feel like I'm repeating myself a little bit, but of course, you know, things like pots and containers, they're never gonna go away. But are we going to be continuing to fill them with annual bedding plants that last a season and you know uh are one and done and then chopped away at the end of the season? I'm not sure. I think it's much more likely that we'll be looking at planting our containers with perennials or things that can come again, or much more permanent planting. So I think it's going to be about um reducing the impact that gardening has. Um, and and with that I mean impact in many different ways on the environment, from CO2 emissions or whatever. You know, we we we like to think that we are a green hobby or pastime, and of course, many ways we really are, but I think we're going to become even more green in inadverted commas.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Right, we've got that on the record. We'll see what happens next week.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

But I could be completely and utterly wrong. I could be completely wrong.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Always a pleasure to catch up with you, Kevin. Good to see you. Thank you.