I was invited to the launch of the Midsummer Garden Life Festival at Malvern to find out what’s planned.
I had a bittersweet trip to the Three Counties Showground last week. Early May has long meant Malvern for me and there was a sense of sadness as I approached the near deserted showground. With the spring festival cancelled for the second year running, there was none of the buzz of growers and gardeners coming together to celebrate a shared love of plants.
The shows team had invited me over to find out about the planned Midsummer Garden Life Festival, which takes place next month. They were all smiling and sporting flower crowns (pictured top) made by Malvern stalwart Jonathan Moseley to mark the festival launch, but the impact of losing a second May show was obvious.
“We are celebrating and reminiscing and having a moment to contemplate the cancellation of our second RHS Malvern Spring Festival,” Di Walton, Head of Shows told me. “It’s devastating for all of us who throw our passions and souls into creating such an amazing spectacle, but it’s out of our hands. We are very grateful that we’ve managed to keep our team together and we can start looking to the future and planning bigger and brighter things.”
Those things include the Midsummer Garden Life Festival, which aims to celebrate not just plants and gardens but everything that’s good about summer.
There will be nurseries, including many Malvern favourites, but Di was keen to stress that this is not a scaled down version of the usual festival or another plant fair. Instead, it will be a mix of plants, food, poetry and art with an overarching theme of happiness.
The plant side of the event will be staged in a similar way to the successful Plant and Garden Fair last autumn with nurseries spaced out outside rather than in the traditional floral marquee.
Among those attending will be Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants, Pheasant Acre Nurseries, Priorswood Clematis, New Forest Hostas and the Kitchen Garden Plant Centre.
Di said the support from regulars at the show had given the team a boost: “It’s so reassuring and so wonderful when people pick the phone up to you and just thank you for organising these events because they want to be here, and they want to support us.”
Having the chance to meet professional growers is, she feels, an important part of the Malvern experience.
“It’s not just about buying the plants. It’s about having the conversations, and learning from the experts and sharing those mishaps you’ve had with your plants in the last 12 months and worrying about the weather that’s been so frosty in April, so that one-to-one comradeship I think is going to shine through.”
With foreign holidays still unlikely for many, the Midsummer Garden Life Festival will have the feel of a ‘staycation’ with themed areas giving a taste of being abroad. Visitors will walk through three zoned spaces, each curated by a different former Malvern Best in Show designer.
Ruth and Rupert Keys have designed ‘Flaming June’, an area conjuring up an English summer in the countryside with strawberries that have been specially grown for the festival, a vintage baker’s cart, a pig arc to represent farming and a quintessential Cotswold tea room.
“They’re bringing everything that’s great about our countryside – Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire,” said Nina Acton, Shows Development Manager.
Malvern favourite Jason Hales of Villaggio Verde is recreating the Mediterranean with olive trees from his nursery, citrus and pomegranate.
The third area will have an exotic feel. Peter Dowle, of Leaf Creative, is planning to transport visitors from Barbados with a Caribbean rum shack and steel band among the features, and onto the forest gardens of Japan with a woodland display of acers.
The three areas are designed as an ‘experience’ with visitors able to walk through, look at the plants and buy appropriately themed food and drink.
Designers and nursery owners will not be the only familiar faces. The open-air theatre will host Carol Klein, Joe Swift and James Alexander Sinclair who will be talking not just about plants but about what has made them happy over the past year. There’s also the promise of some poetry from them.
There will be more art with an exhibition by Worcestershire artist Kate Rees inspired by what makes her happy. Her work was last seen at Malvern when it formed the centrepiece of a garden by Sebastian Conrad that won gold in 2019.
Numbers for the show have been strictly limited with tickets available in advance only. Already they are selling fast, and the original two days have been increased to three. Special ‘early bird’ tickets will give 8am access to just 500 people before the gates open to everyone else at 10am. Once in, visitors will be able to stay for as long as they want until the festival closes at 5pm.
And to add to the celebration, the team are running a competition for the best ‘festival flair’. Visitors are being encouraged to wear something “fabulous, fun and flamboyant” with spot prizes being awarded throughout the event for the best outfits. There’s also the chance to win a pair of early access tickets for the festival by posting a planned outfit on social media and tagging @MalvernShows with hashtag #MidsummerGardenLife. The winner will be chosen on June 16.
“The festival is essentially a midsummer celebration of happiness,” added Nina. “Come to Malvern. Let’s celebrate being free, let’s garden, let’s meet the people we love.”
The Malvern Midsummer Garden Life Festival is at the Three Counties Showground from June 23-25, 2021. More information and tickets are available from the website.
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