Trends at the Garden Press Event

I had a trip to London last week for the annual Garden Press Event where the industry’s firms and garden media meet up to discuss what’s new in the world of gardening.

Compost and indoor gardening seemed to be twin themes of this year’s Garden Press Event. The drive to go peat-free seems to be growing and there were plenty of ideas for gardening inside.

This post includes references to products that I was given free to trial in return for an review.

Dalefoot Composts were launching their new tomato wool compost. It’s been developed with input from tomato expert Terry Marshall and Pennard Plants, well-known for their vegetable growing.

The compost is made from sheep wool and bracken and is designed to give tomatoes all the nutrients they need for the entire growing season – no need to feed. I’m going to be trialling this with my tomatoes this year.

Also offering a peat-free compost were Gloucestershire-based Melcourt, which produces the SylvaGrow range.

They were launching their new organic growbags, which have just received a Royal Warrant. They are deeper than the average growbag, giving more room for root growth.

The Bloomin Amazing range of soil enricher, which I trailed last year, is now in more garden centres ( you can read about my trial here). I really liked it: the cabbages grew really well and it seemed to suppress the weeds.

Fertile Fibre produce a range of peat-free products that are based on coir, including multipurpose, potting and seed compost and these coir planting discs. As coir has no nutritional value, a simple tip they gave me was to wet them using liquid feed before planting them with seeds.

Twool were also launching a new product – tree and shrub ties made of their Dartmoor wool. I really like this idea: no plastic, it’s made in Britain so hasn’t travelled far and they look better. Each tie comes with instructions on how to use it.

Growing indoors, both veg on windowsills and houseplants is still really popular. I loved these cute houseplant tools on the Burgon and Ball stand.

This is one of their most popular hanging pots – the ‘Baby Dotty’. Evidently, macrame hanging baskets are going to be the next big thing!

If you fancy growing salad on your windowsill, this was an interesting idea. The Dipz & Grow is a moss ball that has seed for six different lettuce varieties in it. You simply water it and watch it grow. The kit has a wick watering system and the lettuce is said to be ready to harvest in as little as six weeks.

Seedball tins of seed pellets have been around for a few years now but new this year are these wildflower single mixes. Each pellet has seed in a mix of clay, peat-free compost and chilli powder – the latter to deter predators who might eat the seed. The firm’s wedding favours – tiny boxes of seeds – were voted best product by visitors to the Garden Press Event.

Naturally, there were flowers. These bright garvinea (garden gerbera) were promoting the BBC Gardeners’ World Live show. There was a huge pyramid display of 1,300 pots of garvinea in the floral marquee last year and another huge exhibit is planned for this year.

I rather liked this dainty new Pulmonaria ‘Spring Awakening’ from Claire Austin. It was found in her garden at White Hopton Farm and will be available this autumn.

Thompson & Morgan were telling us about a new upright buddleia, ‘Butterfly Towers’ and a new purple clematis, ‘Kokonoe’. It was the Rudbeckia ‘Savannah Mixed’ (picture top of post) that caught my eye. The flowers are said to gradually take on autumn tints as they age.

Floral crowns were much in evidence, supplied by new gardening app Candide and publicising their Garden Day on May 12 when they are encouraging gardeners to share their plots with neighbours, friends and family.

Among the veg, I liked the story behind Dobies’ new Tomato ‘Sutton’. It’s a heritage variety that the firm grew for Garden Organic, which runs the Heritage Seed Library, in order to ‘bulk up’ the stock of seed. Some of this has been grown into plants and they will be available from Dobies and The Organic Gardening Catalogue this year.

Unlike most white tomatoes, ‘Sutton’ is said to have a really good flavour and produces beefsteak type fruit.

Dobies is planning to grow more threatened Heritage varieties in the next few years.

However, the star of the Garden Press Event was definitely the cakes on the Suttons and Dobies stand. Cute bees and butterflies caught the eye of many of the assembled press. It was just a shame they weren’t being given away as samples.

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