Following her Horticultural studies, Val Bradley worked at Challis of York, Cramphorn’s and the RHS garden at Wisley. She has taught at horticultural college and at Adult Education classes, covering topics such as: propagation; pruning; plant nomenclature; use and maintenance; using plants in the home; basic garden design; fruit and vegetable growing. Together with her husband, Steve Bradley, they have written over 50 books and together they join Peter Seabrook as gardening correspondents for The Sun newspaper.
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September 3, 2009
Hello again - I’m sorry for being away so long. It’s been a busy few weeks for us and the time has passed so quickly that the weeks have flown. My son Chris’s fledgling business making web “info-mercials” is going from strength to strength and one website (www.gardeningdirect.co.uk) is already showing 7 of these short films, illustrating their products/plants and how to get the best out of them.
The only problem from my side is that I have to keep all the projects alive and healthy while they are being filmed. Not as easy as it sounds! We’ve had to invest in stands to keep the hanging baskets looking good and I have found myself watching weather forecasts with trepidation in case high winds mean everything has to move inside the already-full greenhouse. The upside is that our garden has looked beautiful all summer and the scent when I walk outside is wonderful!
Steve and I have been to seed company open days through the summer and visited various flower shows around the country. It seems that, in general, it was a good spring and summer for the plant sellers at the shows, tailing off in July. Some are worried that the economic downturn means that sales will be low next year and that it may not be worth their while doing the Shows circuit. It’s quite costly travelling to each of the main shows and unless the sales cover the costs, many can’t afford it. Losing this access to the grower (the person most qualified to help with a specific plant) would be such a shame - not to mention the loss of part of our gardening heritage.
The seed and young plant companies are turning their attention to next spring and trying to anticipate the sales trends. This year was very strong on vegetables for the home grower and they see this as continuing. Seed sales were around 70:30 in favour of vegetables over flowersthis year. It’s only 3 or 4 years since the balance tipped that way, so the change has been rapid.
The breeders are looking at smaller veg that will crop well in containers. The idea is to make it attractive for the novice gardener to have a few plants in containers that will provide a decent crop without too much effort on their part. I stress that this is “proper” breeding, too, not GM. Many plants are being sourced from the old Soviet Union countries that were closed to the West for so long and some exciting new varieties are being brought along for future years. Plants are trialled for as long as 10 years before the breeders are happy to release them onto the market, because the performance has got to be reliable.
Grafted vegetables like tomatoes have been around for a long time, but the range is now being expanded to cover aubergines, peppers, cucumbers and melons. Why? Well, grafted plants (where the desired fruiting variety is grafted onto a really strong rootstock) offer disease resistance, vigour and increased fruiting. They are initially more expensive, but you need less plants to get the same crop and you should be able to keep them cropping for longer. One company is developing plants with 2 tomato varieties on a single rootstock. Definitely something to look out for if you’re tight for space.
Finally, Steve and I were asked along to be judges at the annual Retail Awards recently. No, I can’t give you a sneak preview of the winners, because they will be announced in November and we’ll find out when they do. Various garden retailers enter the many different categories and it’s fascinating to see what initiatives are being devised to attract customers. This is the 3rd consecutive year we’ve been asked and it was actually sad to see how the entries are tailing off. If times are hard, it’s important to make more effort, not less, and good performance needs to be rewarded.
So, it seems that everyone is after the green pound in your pocket. My advice? It’s all common sense:
- don’t go for trendy plants that may not live long
- be selective, do a bit of research before you choose and buy quality plants whenever you can
- don’t buy more than you need unless you can do swaps with family, friends or neighbours - and if you can do this, buy offers that give good discounts for quantity
- if you want a particular plant, go to a specialist who will be able to help you select the right one
- support your local growers (too many plants are brought hundreds of miles from abroad when local growers are struggling).
I hope your plants are looking terrific and I’ll see you again soon!
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