It seems like ages ago that we were standing in very hot June sunshine on our show garden at the NEC Birmingham talking to huge volumes of visitors. This was our first venture into the show garden world with a garden about the importance of green space for us, wildlife and the environment. Not a new topic but one that we all have to keep talking about if we are to change mindsets now and in the future.
For our first show garden to win a Silver merit was a great achievement but the real highlight for us was the amount of people that came and told how they already had a bug box or insect friendly plants in their garden or were going away from the show packed with ideas to keep a green space instead of paving over it and making it work for them and the wildlife.
This was so encouraging and now as we enter August we are about to re site many of the elements of the show garden to a small day nursery in East London. The day nursery has a small garden in a urbanised area so adding new hedging, plants and bug boxes will add to the garden and inspire young minds to keep connecting with wildlife. Its hoped that eventually the nursery school could open up their garden to other local schools to help support the science curriculum and make some money.
So would we do another show garden in the future? yes is the answer it was a great experience of working as a team, thinking detail all the time, having some fun and engaging with the public. Plus now elements of our show garden will live on and have a purpose.
