How To Buy At Flower Shows

In the week that sees the opening of the RHS Hampton Court Garden Festival, Graham Rice offers sage advice on how and what to buy at flower shows

- Graham Rice

Where do shoppers have the sharpest elbows – at mother-and-baby stores or at plant fairs? I think it has to be plant fairs: I’ve been jostled away from picking up a treasure more often than I can remember. And with all that pent-up plant passion burning for a release after months of frustration, plant fairs and garden shows are getting lively. Nowhere else does, “Oh, I’m sorry,” really mean, “Get out of my way.”

As I write this, it’s impossible to be sure which covid rules will be in place for this summer and autumn’s fairs and shows – perhaps we’ll be able to elbow each other freely! But we’re all plant lovers, so let’s show a little generosity.

The big shows, including RHS Flower Show Tatton Park and Gardeners’ World Live, are a mix of show gardens, plants and sometimes too many ‘sundries’. Plant fairs focus on plants. It’s up to you.

Plant fairs are a relatively recent phenomenon in which a large nursery, or a public garden or plant society, invites a wide range of other nurseries along to take pitches and sell plants. At some, nurseries build an attractive display of plants to show off what they have, while at others there’s little more than sales tables packed with goodies.

That one special plant

Often the participating nurseries are specialists, in bulbs, perennials or alpines, for example. Often they’re mail-order nurseries that don’t open to callers, so fairs provide an opportunity to pick up that one special plant you wouldn’t otherwise be able to find.

But then what? How do we fit them all in the car? How do we get them home? Do they need any special care? And, when we get them home, do they need any special care? Feeding? Watering?