Matthew Applebys gardening blog

Blog april

1. Spotted Boris Becker and family in Wimbledon. There was an Easter thing on with Shetland ponies being ridden by people dressed as bunnies. Boris looked bemused, as did everyone else.

2. Titchmarsh at Ideal Home Show. He was blaming water ‘boards’ for drought.

3. David Domoney and Prince Charles at Ideal Home Show.

4. Antonio Carluccio, not eating at the Umbria a land of culture event at the Italian ambassador Alain Giorgio’s house in Grosvenor Square. There were no Ferrero Rocher’s on offer but some mushroom gnocchi was quickly snapped up as was the dessert wine. Contemporary art, Luca Signorelli’s exhibition and music and dance by UmbriAEnsemble was the entertainment.

5. Garden hacks calendar: where writers exchange gossip-ie no work, newspaper has cut payments, isn’t so and so wonderful?
The calendar used to involve Yellow Book launch in Feb at South Bank Centre in London as a first meeting after New Year. Now YB launch is so late that fewer people go. My record is nine YBs. The hacks go to Garden Press Day instead in Feb (when it doesn’t snow). That was moving to Alexandra Palace in north London from Hort Halls (RHS is selling Lawrence Hall for £18m). Will the hacks trek that far? No, so its moving to Barbican.

6. Thompson & Morgan’s popular July open day is going too. Hacks grand (Robin Lane-Fox) and humble (me) gorged on seeds and food at the Hintlesham Hall (once owned by Robert carrier and then Ruth Watson) near Ipswich. But that’s off this year because of the Olympics. More might go to Mr Fothergills trials, which are the last of their kind with this sort of open day. Unwins sweet pea open day ended a few years ago –last special guest was Mary Archer, who everyone described as ‘fragrant’.

7. Then there is the Garden Media Guild event in November. Been rather hijacked by an undesirable clique. Oh, and garden blogger get togethers. Maybe we need less knowledge sharing for a more diverse garden media.

8. B&Q has been selling 39 per cent peat top soil. Maybe I’m cynical but I think this didn’t become a newspaper story because B&Q has such a big spring ad spend. Ditto the story in 30 March HW about the Scabious ‘Kingfisher Blue’. The Telegraph eventually ran a bowderlised version of the peat story– but they did have a four page B&Q ad in the same issue. The next day the ‘Independent’ ran a not very Independent even lamer version of the tale. http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/for-peats-sake-bq-runs-into-trouble-with-new-topsoil-7609048.html. Oddly, the hack who wrote it, Josephine Forster, who has a first from Cambridge, tweeted Tim Briercliffe for comment. Why not ring him up? Or find the original story rather than relying on the Telegraph’s? They all used the headline ‘for peat’s sake’.
They all made a lame job of rehashing my/each others’ articles but at least it’s out there…

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2124422/For-peats-sake-B-Q-criticised-environmentalists-unsustainable-resource-topsoil-product.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9176167/BandQ-criticised-for-continuing-to-use-peat.html

9. Is Guy Hands only sleeping 4 hours a night and working the rest of the time a Thatcher/Churchill-style myth? I rang his office the other day at 7.30am and a bod said he wasn’t there yet.

10. At the GIMA meeting at Barton Grange, Pippa Greenwood: “I’m not sure what I’m meant to be talking about.” You can cruise to the Baltic with PG in cruise.co.uk’s latest series of trips, which also see David Hurrion manning the forecastle to Cuba, with Matt Biggs on the bridge for the Norwegian fjords.

11. Top 100 garden centre people list in latest Garden Retail mag that I edit: 26 emails/calls so far. Three in favour of, 23 against their placings. One accusation of misogyny
one of wrong title, several requests for extra copies. All good fun.

12. Some great feedback on Tim Penrose (Bowden Hostas) interview in HW 23 March. He upset Harrogate show people by saying he makes less there-they all do well. Others liked his style-sell and don’t moan. Ex GB’s youngest funeral director TP liked the piece as it “ruffled feathers”.

13. Martyn Cox is now a TV star on BID TV doing an OB from lottery hq is Bucks.

14. Hosepipe bans.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2116558/Garden-centres-expect-rush-irrigation-systems-gardeners-way-beat-hosepipe-ban.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

15. Alys Fowler on the curiously humourless Our Food, eating samphire. Nice 2c AF bk on TV. Bit prissy that she wouldn’t pick it herself and had to get a local to do it – PC BBC. Lots of goshes too. No-one has said gosh since about 1950.
Why do so many garden hacks want to be food hacks? Guess they get more work and a bigger audience. Also they have made garden media so dull, including with their blogs and tweets, that can’t blame them for wanting to get out. Also good on the programme is Historic Royal Palaces curator Lucy Worsley, who is known for having a rhotacism. Quite common in the countryside/home/garden TV sector Joe Swift, Mike Dilger, Phil Spencer, Packham etc. Guess its cute. No stuttering allowed on TV though. I’ve only interviews three no.1 pop artiss and two had stutters-Tony Hawks and Paul Hardcastle. Kim Wilde didn’t.

16. Amusing spat between Independent environment hack Mike McCarthy and Defra. MM is one of the few enviro hacks left on the papers, who have got rid of specialists and replaced them with cheap staffers. MM is upset after talking to Dr Bob Watson, the Defra chief scientific advisor. After several paragraphs lauding Dr Bob, MM gets to the point. Dr Bob has told MM he is going to review neonictinoid new evidence that the chemical buggers up bees.
But Defra has written one of its rather odd ‘myth busters’ saying it isn’t reviewing anything. MM in Indie 5 April gets v upset about Defra ‘peddling’ its line. Turns out the ‘mythbuster’ is a year old and Defra is investigating the research. So all fine then.

17. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17597370#asset
What can go wrong with the big fella’s backing?

18. Saw two red squirrels in Lake District last weekend.
19. I may be involved in a charity tandem ride pulling a wheelbarrow from Fermoys garden centre in Devon to Chelsea.
20. PTES has highlighted a number of Urban myths –quoted by Steve Head of the Wildlife Gardening Forum.
Urban myth
Rats are as numerous as people –
You are never more than six feet
from a rat
In fact:
There are fewer than ten million brown rats in Britain. In 20076,
The English House Condition Survey found that rats occupied
four of every thousand urban properties and were present in the
gardens of just three per cent.
Rats leap at people’s throats Rats jump to escape, not to attack
Rats spread disease – inhaling
rat droppings or coming into
contact with their urine can be
fatal
Rats are fastidiously clean unless overcrowded, spending a
considerable proportion of their time grooming themselves and
others. They do carry some human diseases, particularly
leptospirosis, but the risk of infection is low and is smaller from
urban rats than those in rural areas.
Fox numbers are increasing
Fox populations are stable in the long-term. Mange has had a big
impact in many areas and populations are slow to recover.
Numbers in Bristol five years ago were only a fifth of those in
1994, before an outbreak of mange. The findings of Living with
Mammals are that numbers in urban areas nationally have
changed little in the last decade.
The pre-breeding (adult) population in urban areas is estimated at
about 35,000; within the M25 there are fewer than10,000.
Foxes raid bins and are
dangerous to people and pets
Very few raid bins – better food is often left out for them by
people – and heavy-duty wheelie bins are completely fox-proof.
There is no evidence that the parasites and diseases foxes might
carry pose any significant risk to people or domestic pets – in
fact, the risk to people is much greater from their pets, which
carry most of the same parasites. Confirmed attacks on people are
6 Given the average adult biomass of each of the 62.3m humans in the UK is about 240x greater than that of a
rat, it’s pretty clear which mammal species is above carrying capacity.
almost unknown – compared to the many thousands of injuries,
and several deaths, caused by dogs each year.
The mole population has rocketed
since the ban on strychnine use in
2006
The latest data (to 2007) assessed by the Tracking Mammal
Partnership, of which PTES is a member, suggest a decline in
numbers since 2000. Nothing is known yet about numbers after
the ban. The indication from Living with Mammals is that mole
activity has changed little in urban areas over the past decade.
Bats fly into your hair7
Bats are superbly adapted to navigating in the dark and skilful
enough flyers to catch airborne insect prey – they have to desire
to get caught (accidentally or deliberately) in a person’s hair.
Bat roosts cause damage to
buildings
Bats rarely cause any damage to buildings: unlike birds, they
don’t bring in nesting materials and, unlike rodents, they won’t
gnaw electric cables or wood. Their droppings carry no disease
and are generally odourless. Large colonies of pipistrelles can
number several hundred individuals in summer and can be noisy
tenants, but so important are buildings to bats that managing and
renovating them appropriately is a big part of bat conservation.
Grey squirrels have caused
declines in British bird numbers
over the past 40 years
The British Trust for Ornithology found that grey squirrels had
no impact on many of England’s woodland bird species. Grey
squirrels do occasionally eat eggs and fledglings but so do red
squirrels, and birds probably compensate for the loss.
Grey squirrels are responsible for
the decline of red squirrels
While grey squirrels have a competitive advantage over reds and
have displaced them from much of England, red squirrel numbers
declined drastically between 1900 and 1925, before grey squirrels
had become established. In southern Scotland and Ireland, red
squirrels were extinct by the 18th century due to deforestation and
habitat loss – those there today are the result of reintroductions.
In England, red squirrels were viewed as a pest and almost wiped
out.

18.

CAN YOU DIG IT?
THE VEGETABLE CULTIVATION-BASED MUSICAL COMEDY SHOW EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT DOWN THE ALLOTMENT – NOW ON TOUR!!!
**** “Highly entertaining” Daily Telegraph **** “A riot” What’s On Stage **** “Inspired wordsmiths…laugh out loud funny” ThreeWeeks
If you hate slugs then you’ll love this – a musical comedy show all about the ups and downs of growing your own. Sprouting from the fertile brains of comedy songwriters and real-life allotment gardeners Jo Stephenson and Dan Woods, Can You Dig It? features a wheelbarrow-load of songs covering topics including compost, vegetable theft, annoying allotment neighbours and digging (of course).
Having earned rave reviews with a successful run at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, the show is now touring the country. Highlights include a rap battle between an angry gardener and a slug, a 1980s-style power ballad to cuddly gardening guru Alan Titchmarsh, a virtuoso performance on the cucumber trumpet and popular radio show Gardeners’ Question Time as you have never seen it before – Eurovision-style.
Can You Dig It? will appeal to both vegetable-growing novices and seasoned cultivators, as Jo and Dan delve into the mysterious and competitive world of vegetable shows, launch a campaign to give sprouts the recognition they deserve, and ask: John Innes – who is he?
With more and more people in the UK growing their own, Can You Dig It? is both timely and topical. There’s even a song for people who don’t like vegetables, poor things.
What’s more, Jo and Dan, are inviting gardeners across the land to join in the fun and take part in their Greenfingers Challenge designed to identify the best allotmenteering talent in Britain (and weed out the gardening dunces). At each show they’ll be inviting audience members to plant seeds, charting progress on their website at www.can-you-dig-it.co.uk
Jo Stephenson and Dan Woods are familiar faces on the UK comedy and cabaret scene and keen amateur gardeners. Both have allotments where they strive to grow a vast array of vegetables with mixed success.
Dan has performed his accordion-based comedy shows to critical acclaim across the UK both solo and with his band Pig With The Face Of A Boy. His song A Complete History of the Soviet Union, arranged to the melody of Tetris has become an internet sensation with more than two million hits on YouTube. Jo plays the ukulele and her music has featured on BBC Radio 4. She recently launched her first album and was Highly Commended in the 2011 Funny’s Funny Female Comedian of the Year competition.
Can You Dig It? is touring the UK in 2012/13 after premiering at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in August 2011 – tour dates attached. The Can You Dig It? CD, which features 16 original songs about growing vegetables, can be bought from the show’s website or is available to download from iTunes and all other good MP3 stores.
Web: www.can-you-dig-it.co.uk Twitter: twitter.com/canyoudigitshow Facebook: facebook.com/canyoudigitshow
Jo Stephenson and Dan Woods are available for interview. Media enquiries: Jo Stephenson on 07980 854097 or email jo@jostephenson.com
Photos (more images available): http://can-you-dig-it.co.uk/pr/canyoudigitpress1.jpg http://can-you-dig-it.co.uk/pr/canyoudigitpress2.jpg
TOUR DATES

20 April 2012
Royal Spa Centre, Leamington Spa
01926 334418, www.warwickdc.gov.uk/WDC/RoyalSpaCentre

5 May 2012
Cornerstone Arts Centre, Didcot
01235 515144, www.cornerstone-arts.org

18 May 2012
Bleasdale Parish Hall, Bleasdale
01995 61343, www.spotonlancashire.co.uk/bleasdale-parish-hall

19 May 2012
The Arts Centre, Burscough Wharf, Ormskirk
01695 576844, www.spotonlancashire.co.uk/the-arts-centre-burscough-wharf

26 May 2012
Square Chapel, Halifax
01422 349422, www.squarechapel.co.uk

11 July 2012
The Carriageworks, Leeds
0113 224 3801, www.carriageworkstheatre.org.uk

30 September 2012
The Kirkgate, Cockermouth
www.thekirkgate.com

MORE DATES TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON!

Matthew Appleby
Horticulture Week deputy editor
Garden Retail editor
020 8267 4660
www.hortweek.com

1. Garden writer Martyn Cox is organising a trip to see Garden News hack Rebecca Jane perform as Venus Raygun in her sub-Cramps band Empress of Fur.

2. Living legend Dr David Hessayon was speaker at the Garden Centre Association conference recently. I’m told he employed an ex SAS man as his press officer at one time, who was the only person who could deal with him. Now mellower, I talked to Dave after the speech. He says he has three more books left in him. Hessayon is 84.

3. A garden writer correspondent is “joining the allotment gang next month, three years of waiting and suddenly the local parish council have offered me the choice of three plots – has the bubble burst?,” he asks. At my allotment they’re creating 16 new plots from wasteland. Maybe councils are just realising they have spare plots they didn’t know they had. If I was a proper garden blogger/tweeter I’d say ‘welcome to the (ie my) world of allotments. I got a call from a TV producer called Kevin Hull about appearing on an allotment documentary the other day. After a conversation he decided that I didn’t know my allotment neighbours well enough. Read latest allotment piece in Amatuer Gardening’s Get Into Fruit and Veg one shot, out now, £3.99 from all good newsagents. Hull read my old pieces in the Telegraph and thought them entertaining. Of course, the Telegraph fired me for being too interesting, which says something about their remaining hacks.

4. Most eligible in the garden centre business-Becki, daughter of Warren Haskins, who is going to do a day a week at the West End garden centre. WH sold Hobbycraft for £100m in 2010 to Bridgepoint.

5. Garden designer Andrew Fisher Tomlin, writing at Horticulture Week.com is suffering from ennui. . “So often it’s the same tired old phrases that come up time and time again,” he says. “Not wanting to sound like Mr Appleby and have a go at all those writers who are surprised every year by the emergence of snowdrops and feel a need to write an article (again) I came across this particularly good blog.

The mischievous author, Black Walnut, dislikes terms such as the Outdoor Room, Bringing the Garden Indoors, Sustainable lifestyles, Outdoor “spaces” and ‘Scape’.

The most over-used phrases I see are: ‘plantaholic’. Ok, so you’re keen. ‘I love to grow – but I love to eat more!’ (and variants). You like growing veg. Also, ‘passionate about plants’.  That’s a given really.

AFT also writes at Hugo Bugg’s blog about garden hacks who say other garden hacks are influential. I disagree with his stuff about fruit and veg though. Joy Larkcom did this 40 years ago. See the latest Gardens Illustrated for more examples of garden hacks being dull about garden hacks.

6. Ex Class War campaigner Ian Bone says the way to annoy bankers is to visit their country piles for “fun and games” during charity open days. He suggests Broughton Grange, owned by Stephen Hester on 29 April.

7. Me and my job -in Peterborough

8. Telegraph says tallest tree in GB is 118ft Norway Maple at Prior Park in Bath. Half as big as some others, in fact.

9. New research from The Flower Council of Holland has shown that Brits prefer the company of a houseplant more stimulating and enjoyable than the site of some of the UK’s most well known faces including Amy Childs, Ed Miliband and Gavin Henson.

Top five least stimulating celebrities:
(Average)
1.    Amy Childs (19 seconds)
2.    Ed Miliband (28 seconds)
3.    Christine Bleakley (59 seconds)
4.    Gavin Henson (1 minute 12 seconds)
5.    Natalie Cassidy (1 minute 36 seconds)

10. Some influential garden influencers list

Smit

Seabrook

Fowler

Brookes

Gavin

Spelman

Hansord

Marshall

Guy

Calnan

Hfw

Price

Mr Bloom

Larkcom

Chatto

Amy Whidburn

Rosemary Edwards

Flowerdew

Hopper

McColl

Rosie Hardy

Mcvicar

Jim Gardiner

Ken Thompson

11. Spotted:

Helen Skelton at Downing St talking Cumbria

Michael Gambon at Petersham Nurseries in X reg Saab

Sophie Raworth at River Café on bike

Julia Mackenzie in Selfridges

Brian Moore at Wimbledon station shoe lace undone

12. Some news-Skye Gyngell jacks in Petersham-picked up in Australia

13. Titchmarsh at Ideal Home Show

14. Jamie and schools gardening

15. Chris Cairns twitter libel

16. Charlie Sale in Mail ran a bit on Mark Schwartzer‘s plan to modernise Christina Stead’s hosue in Oz/ and how he has now put the house on the market for $12m. He’s staying overseas and the house ad does not mention the plans for renovations, so the place looks like it will be saved from footballer philistinism.

17. We did this story on Blue Peter garden last year.

18. Indie best garden centre list: Trouble with these lists the choosers pick the centre near them and then lots of places they buy from mail order in the sticks. Oddly, the best sticks centres do ok, because the choosers have to select ones they’ve heard are popular.

19. Lastly, a digest of those thousands of gardening tweets you’ve missed. Tweeter ‘iloveplants’. I’ve just blogged. Sorry it’s been so long. It’s not very good!. Tweeter ‘iloveplants2′. I’ve just read it and it isn’t! Only joking babes! Love you really!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/8993038/Meet-Britains-most-influential-gardeners.html

Garden writer Tim Richardson has chosen his top 30 influential gardeners.

I’ve written loads of these lists. This one is way too narrow – it’s a garden designer/highbrow journalism clique. Given that, I wonder why Sarah Price isn’t in? And Cleve West. And what about Chris Young? Also no mention of the most talked about garden designer Diarmuid Gavin.

Where are the people who pick the plants most people buy?

1 Alan Titchmarsh A good choice.

2 RHS’s Sue Biggs. Piece says she started the job two months away from when she did. Adds that RHS membership is going down. It’s going up.

3&4 B&Q’s Martyn Phillips and Home Retail Group’s Terry Duddy TR thinks Duddy is Homebase chief executive. Paul Loft is.

5 Monty Don

6 Crocus’s Mark Fane Too high. A Telegraph contributor.

7 BBC’s Alison Kirkham

8 National Trust chairman Simon Jenkins Should be Fiona Reynolds or Mike Calnan but media figure chosen.

9 Garden Museum’s Christopher Woodward

10 Christine Walkden

11 HRH Prince of Wales

12 Garden designer Piet Oudolf

13 Landscape architect Dominic Cole

14 Garden designer/writer Penelope Hobhouse

15 Carol Klein

16 Gardens Illustrated editor Juliet Roberts should be Adam Pasco of Gardeners’ World magazine-has x10 the coverage

17 FT gardening writer Robin Lane-Fox -another journalist. Peter Seabrook is read by 100x as many on Saturdays in The Sun.

18 English Heritage gardens head John Watkins If JW chosen why is NT’s Jenkins?

19 Sir Roy Strong

20 DG Hessayon

21 Mark Diacono -should be Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall

22 Garden designer Tom Stuart-Smith

23 Jamie Oliver Should be higher as introduced grow your own to TV

24 Guerrilla gardener Richard Reynolds

25 Roy Lancaster

26 George Plumptre media type now runs National Gardens Scheme.

27 Crüg Farm Plants – Bleddyn and Sue Wynn-Jones -a token grower. Perhaps Paul Hansord of T&M who sources far more plants and sells to many more gardeners.

28 Anne Wareham much loved by the gardening media in 2011

29 The ‘Sheffield School’ – James Hitchmough and Nigel Dunnett

30 Tim Richardson

1. Wrote a piece for the Guardian on 18 November on garden centres. Rare to see a piece on this in garden media. Usually its about things people don’t want to do, like divide bulbs, or things they don’t need an article about, like cleaning your shed.

2. Gareth Gates is appearing at Frosts Garden centre on 3 December. His PRs told me NOT to suggest that he might sing. Maybe people who go should demand a rendition of ‘Say it Isn’t so’ his no.4 2003 hit.

3. Met Zia Allaway at RHS Chelsea launch at M&G last week. She does Garden Design Journal news now. She says she gets a lot more than the £150 I used to but garden designers won’t send me news. A recent GDJ news piece was a piece about Copella garden design competition. Or to put it another way, a Pepsi press release. I blame consumer garden mag editors, many of whom don’t really understand news journalism. Unfortunately, they are often the people who judge the GMG awards.

4. Here is a video –see 1.57-of a bread event at the Savoy. Susy Aitkens and Dr Dom Lane talk about tea and toast matching in a scientific way. I met publisher Seamus Geoghan and PR James Rich there and got a goody bag of…a loaf of Vogel’s bread.

5. I’ve suggested to some food writers/editors that they might write about how there is no vegetarian chef on TV. No joy.But even on Points of View, this is becoming an issue. The two leading food writers, Giles Coren and Jay Rayner are often funny about vegetarians. Coren says vegetarian is ‘an eating disorder’. Their gags:  Q: Why does vegan cheese taste bad? A: It hasn’t been tested on mice. I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants. My first thought, after taking the call from my editor was: what did I ever do to hurt her? Try veggievision. Rayner recently had an amusing pop at an 80-year-old who said the fat foodie was not as great as he thought he was.

6. I got the late Peter Roebuck’s autograph at a cricket match in Weston Super Mare in 1980. Police say Roebuck jumped to his death from his sixth floor window last week and ruled out him maybe getting pushed. Just an idea.  Roebuck had an original voice among cricket writers. Who else, in an Australian paper while working among hacks who generally want to remain pretty cosy with the players, would accuse a winning Australian team of bad sportsmanship. Not that Roebuck was just a contrarian. How is this relevant for gardening? Well, writers could learn a bit from Roebuck’s use of interesting angles rather than just listing what they did or whether their plants are growing or not.

7. RIP Ken Russell. He jazzed up Keswick in my teens by saying the professional classes were wife swappers. Was nice to meet his ex wife Vivian last year at Hampton Court.

8. I see Apax are interested in buying Garden Centre group. I’ve called Apax’s guy who is a director of the private equity firm’s Plantasjen Nordic garden centre operation. Maybe he’ll call back.

9. At the recent GIMA meeting Matthew Bent told me a private equity firm had emailed him asking if he wanted to take over running GCG if the equitarians won with their bid. He ignored the email.

10. Merton Council have called me twice today asking for three different amounts for my allotment rent. No wonder they want the allotment committee to take over. This is happening next April.

11. Went to allotment bonfire/halloween night the other day. The pumpkin competition got very involved with some people using the…internet…to source designs from…America. The police came once because the fire was too big and someone living nearby thought Merton was ablaze. Nothing remarkable happened this year.

12. Talking of allotments I’ve popularised the allotment story getting into the national press. Cleve West helped me with an Olympic allotment story once. I went to a book launch of his at Petersham Nurseries on Nov 26. Michael Gambon was there with his toddlers. He was driven in an X reg Saab. He’ll had a moustache as most of the writer/designer types have for Movember. http://uk.movember.com/mospace/1340754

13. CW will be presenting the Garden Media Guild awards with James Alexander Sinclair and Joe Swift. Cue much hilarity regarding moustaches etc.  I might take headphones. Or more likely drink a lot. I’m on Westland’s table but, as ever, if in-the-cold garden hacks want one of my spare invites then gis a shout.

My list of likely winners (and who should win):

News: Rosenberg Amateur Gardening BBC Gardeners’ World leaves Greenacres to rot. What it should be: The Sun Mr Bloom leaves Mumsnet mothers aquiver.

TV show: Carol Klein’s cottage: What it should be: Chris Beardshaw’s apples.

Book: Anne Wareham Bad Tempered Gardener. What it should be: Michelle Obama.

I could go on.

14. Bunny Guinness was a special guest at the All Party Gardening and Horticulture group annual reception next week. Lord Taylor (bulbs) is also speaking. Tommy Walsh went too. Found a Groundforce jigsaw at a jumble sale last week. over priced at £1.25.

15. Off to see David Cameron’s Xmas tree go up next week too. Greenfield Farm in Oxon has grown it. Welford Xmas Tree Farm has done the wreath.

16. The National Trust Xmas soiree is on at the George Inn in London soon too. Missed an invite last year. And indeed this.

17. Honey reached the Daily Telegraph front page last week. Also the Mail. I mention this to introduce the idea of why communications professionals are so bad at communicating. Unless they really want something, of course.

18. Cath Kidston is cousin of Kirstie Allsopp and her husband is McFly producer Hugh Padgham. McFly’s Dougie is in I’m a Celebrity at the mo. Kirstie is still on TV. Don’t know how.

19. Derbyshire Cricket Club’ batsman Wes Durston is second son of Steve Durston of Durston Garden Products.

20. If you email BBC press office anytime, including in the day, you get an out of office saying: “We are open from 8.00am to midnight, weekdays, and from 10.00am to 11.00pm on Saturdays, Sundays and UK public holidays. We will respond to press enquiries as soon as we can within these hours.” If thye do reply it is always between 5.37pm and 5.53pm. They shut their office at 5.30pm so when you ask a question about the nonsene line they send, they don’t answer until midway through the next day (or after the weekend if it’s a Friday).

Email sent at 4.33pm.

21. The Moody Blues drummer lives on my street.

22. Cotswold food review.

23. I’m up to 489 Linked in contacts in my recent quest to get 500. Maybe more significant is the 70-odd unanswered request I have out there.

24. Went to launch of Loire Valley Gardens tourist oush at RHS. Among those enjoying the French wines and cheeses were Anne Marie Powell, Dawn Isaacs and Liz Dobbs.

25. Footballer Charlie George has a missing finger.  But this is worse. http://www.mysinchew.com/node/65031

26. Expect more of this tedious backslapping at GMG awards.

27. GMG awards lookalikes special.

1. A pig, a bear, a herring, a squirrel and a wood nymph were highlights of the Royal Parks half marathon last weekend. The pig was promoting Percy Pig sweets and my two year old shook hands with it. The bear scared the little boy, while the idea of the herring-portly comedian Richard Herring-trying to complete the 13 miles scared St John’s Ambulance volunteers. Dressed as wood nymph was model Nell McAndrew, who ran the race in one hour 25 minutes. There were 12,500 runners and 40,000 spectators. The child and I walked some of the course. He liked the London Eye best, thinking it was a waterwheel. Other celebs I saw included swimmer Adrian Moorhouse as well as 70 Daily Telegraph staff. Apparently Mark Goodier, Jonny Searle and soap star Angela Griffin ran. Former competitors ex Miss GB/”Olympic hopeful” Rachel Christie didn’t, nor did Ben Fogle. I swore I’d retire if Fogle ever beat me, or if Chester the squirrel did either. Ted Appleby (aged 2 weeks) did not take part.

2. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has written River Cottage Veg Every Day! I’m glad he is stopping trying to make vegetarians ‘convert’ to meat, as he has in a previous series. Now HFW says ‘we need to eat more veg and less flesh,’ which is a bit of a u-turn. But he has spent 15 series promoting meat eating. I bet the 17^th does too. The again, I’m glad he is promoting vegetarianism, and as ever, his programmes are nice to watch and are a lot better than gardening programmes in going outside the ‘recipe and how to cook it’ formula (read ‘how to plant it’ in gardening TV/media).

3. I was quite impressed by the Evening Standard Food magazine. Rather than just recipes (in gardening this is the ‘how to plant a plant’ section, the mag covered trends, new openings, organics, art and dining, eco-movements and more, with some in-depth articles. Why don’t gardening mags even try to do more than ‘how to plant a plant’ and ‘what a nice garden’?

4. Green person of the year: Gisele Bündchen- Supermodel;Miguel Bose- Musician/actor;  Sir Paul McCartney- Musician. My vote is for Macca, who has done a lot for vegetarianism, which does more to make the planet green than gardening.

5. We’re banned in China. A contributor tried to blog from China last week but Google blocked HortWeek I’m told.

6. Garden Museum curator Christopher Woodward has completed his swim from Gibraltar to Africa to raise money for the Landscape Institute archive. It took 4hr 11 mins and he beat the times of David Walliams and James Cracknell. CW had to wait a week for the right conditions but spent just five minutes in Africa before getting the boat back to Gib. CW has become a cycling martyr after being arrested for cycling in Trafalgar Square. He took the case to court because he was freewheeling with both feet on one pedal. The bobby took a hard line and also was cruel about CW’s cut glass accent. Free the Trafalgar One!

7. Garden News has done a scare story about a new pest set to invade GB. It’s citrus longhorn beetle.  HW covered this two years ago. 

8. Sun p45 12.10.11 has amusing Alan Titchmarsh iv with ‘Betty Brisk’ who covers ‘celebrity etiquette and daily dilemmas’ in comedy Q and As. AT is promoting new novel The Haunting (£18.99 Hodder) AT: ‘I have now banished the suspenders to the bottom drawer’, ‘I’ve often wondered what an unlikely sex symbol looks like’, the Queen was referring to my appearance at Sandringham WI AGM where the ladies were very welcoming.’

9. Titch’s 31 Oct talk at Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington has only sold 100 of the 500 tickets available for the charity event. The event is being promoted by giveaways at Amateur Gardening, HW etc. It’s quite cheap and AT is the biggest draw in gardening by some distance. I’d go if it wasn’t for the Garden Retail awards on the same night at Grosvenor House (we have held the awards at Royal Garden).

10. I’ve gone Linkedin mad. Want to reach 500 because then says 500+ rather than the exact number. My strategy is only to send invitations to people I’ve spoke to and who I’m likely to talk to again. I’m at 400 so far. 11. Shire Books has sent me a range of their latest gardening titles following a piece I wrote for the Guardian. Thanks Shire.

12.  Geoffrey Smith lived at The Laurels in Barningham, Yorkshire where some of the Applebys lived in the 1700′s.

13. Ted Dexter Appleby was born last month. Here’s a pic.

14. Have a piece on dating in garden centres with Sarah Beeny/My Single Friend in latest Amateur Gardening 22 October. Apparently gardeners who keep orchids are “advernturous in the bedroom”. I took my Lynx, Brut and book of chat-up lines, feeling unchivalrous because Ted was due to be born that day. Find out if I scored in AG. Also a piece on saving Scaleby Castle in Cumbria mag October 2011. A a piece due in Guardian Saturday magazine on November 19 about how to get the best from your garden centre.

15. I’ll be sending out my Garden Media Guild advice to judges and list of likely winners in the next installment. So look out for that. 

16. Freebie of the week. Report/get drunk event.“Loire Valley Gardens Savoir Vivre”
Workshop – presentations & panel discussions – networking lunch,

20 October 2011 – 10.30 to 17.30, RHS Horticultural Conference Centre, London

10.30    Workshop opens, teas & coffees
            NB the workshop will continue throughout the day and will allow for one-to-one discussions with the owners of the             gardens and representatives of the region, there will also be regional specialty tastings.

17.30    Workshop closes 

17. LoveTheGarden.com will give a £200 restaurant voucher to the blogger who comes up with the most ravishing recipe based on fresh tomatoes. To be in a chance to win this appetizing prize or one of three cookbooks by James Ramsden, people must write a blog post about the Taste for Tomatoes competition including their most cherished tomato recipe and email the URL of the post to entries@lovethegarden.com before 19th October 2011. The judge will be James Ramsden, author of the cookbook Small Adventures in Cooking and the popular food blog www.JamesRamsden.com. He will especially be looking for surprising recipes that bring out the unique flavour of fresh tomatoes.  Fresh tomatoes are extremely versatile – they can be used in salads, salsas, soups, sandwiches and many other dishes. Bloggers are allowed to include all tomato varieties in their recipes, from big beef tomatoes to sweet cherry toms and from the Yellow Roma to the Russian Black. Each type of tomato has its own unique flavour and texture and the aim of the competition is to find a recipe that brings out the best in the tomato of your choice. The Taste for Tomatoes competition is LoveTheGarden’s third culinary contest this year. They are organizing these competitions in order to make vegetables more popular in the British Kitchen. The Creative with Cabbage competition was won by blogger Karolina with her Cabbage & Mushroom Pasties.David Hall won the Potty for Potatoes competition with his Hot potato, bacon and nasturtium salad.  For more details and terms and conditions of entry, visit the vegetable garden competition page at LoveTheGarden.com.

1. Newspaper environmental correspondents are dropping like flies. David Derbyshire has left the Mail. Ben Webster has become media writer at the Times and has not been replaced. Val Elliot was made redundant from the Times last year. Charles Clover left the Telegraph a couple of years ago to concentrate on his wet fish business. None have been replaced by experts. Green is definitely over in media-land. 2. BBC Gardener’s World presenter, Toby Buckland, Blue Peter gardener, Chris Collins and the team at Eden Project are getting together to promote THE BIG BULB PLANT 2011 with The International Flower Bulb Centre at Westfield London Shopping Centre on Saturday 1^st October.  

3. Cbeebies Mr Bloom at Tatton-asked him about suggestive mumsnet types that fancy him.

Spot the difference between Guardian and Telegraph pieces published the next day. Lusting after Mr Bloom, Lusting after Bloom Mr.

What’s interesting is DT and Gdn say the same thing-ie I read the Sun and thought it was quite interesting.

5. We already have support from Peter Andre, Anthea Turner and Paula Radcliffe as well as many other well known celebrities joining us to really try and make a difference. Any guesses what for?

7. Spoke to Keswick Rotary Club recently on my brilliant career. Really. My dad asked me to. Not many laughs. One Rotarian asked about Charlie Dimmock. I said she was now in Calendar Girls on the stage. He said was she May and June.

8. Bob Flowerdew in Daily Telegraph mag

 

11. At spoga+gafa I was their Tv presenter. Ortis Deeley has nothing to worry about. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8b23wU1Z8Q Try you tube spoga+gafa

 

17. George Monbiot two years late with this one: on pesticide in manure.

Most successful gardening hack (ie top earner)

Chris Young

Marc Rosenberg

 

Royal Parks half marathon training has been going well-10 hours in the Lake District in the last week. I’m running Derwentwater trail as a warm up and went round twice last week while on holiday in Keswick.The Royal Parks are, off course, England’s most beautiful kempt gardens, while the Lakes are the most beautiful unkempt ones.The highest English mountain, Scafell Pike, is being tackled by my brother in a white goods challenge-he and his ex-marine mates carry washing machines up it for Help for Heroes. I did my bit last week by running a charity book stall with my mum-raising £500. Unfortunately, due to other commitments, I can’t help carry the washing machines, tumble dryers and dishwaters up 978m Scafell Pike. Though as the big day gets close, I’m keen to get up there. I ran round the 10 in 10 challenge this summer for MS and we made it into a race, even though it should have been a walk. This raised £22,000 a counting.

But after next week, the focus is on the Royal Parks and trying to combat time and go faster than the last three years which have all been within three minutes-though last year was three mins slower than in 2008.

It’s on 9 October. We have a baby due around then so may have get-out clause. Or it could be little Appleby’s first expedition into London.

1. Prince Charles is hosting an event at Highgrove for Garden Organic on 14 July, which is running a peat-free campaign aimed at the industry and held a go pesticide-free conference, aimed at the industry, in May. The event is on at the same time as the Garden Industry Manufacturers Awards in Manchester, where all compost and garden chems and ferts manufacturers that GO is ‘working with’ will be.  

2. We need to talk about Kevin.  Interested in the commissioning process recently. Kevin Smith wrote a piece for Garden Media Guild mag saying you should research the publication, write in their style etc. All very worthy but KS knows few garden editors commission anyone they don’t know well. That’s the main criteria and went unmentioned. I asked Chris Young of RHS The Garden for advice. He said you should sleep with the editor.

Piece in Evening Standard Homes & Property (a London paper) on Nigel Dunnett’s admirable Chelsea garden (albeit on 8 June 3 weeks late) failed to mention ND’s garden is a refined version of one installed last year at Barnes Wetland Centre (in London) though it did say ND’s Chelsea garden is going to be reconstructed at Slimbridge (Glos) wetland centre. ND will be back at Chelsea next year I’m told with a garden on the ‘right’ side of the main avenue.

14. Tabloid gardening. Sun. Titchmarsh. Veg. Rooting. Desperate.

16. Went to basic festival T in the Park last weekend. Highlights Chase and Status and Calvin Harris.  Saw that Alys Fowler and James Wong also did a festival-The Big Feastival at Clapham Common, alongside Soul 11 Soul, The Charlatans and Athlete, as well as Jamie Oliver and Levi Roots. Jarvis Cocker from Pulp slagged News of the World at the festival. Most of NoW’s 3m readers (once 12m) now pretend they never read it.

17. Also in Scotland, saw Buckingham Palace gardener Mark Lane at Gardening Scotland. He was off to a jazz gig in Linlithgow.

18. Lookalikes Mark Gregory/Sean Bean.

20.

1. Luciano Guibbelei was heard to say it should have been him when Cleve West won best in show at Chelsea this week.I asked LG later and he was most gracious in defeat. RHS is probably changing its judging for next year to end hand-raising and to introduce written feedback. It might even tell the public who the judges are.

Telegraph said Cleve West shies away from presenting TV. Not so. He’s just not that comfortable on it (see Three Men…with J Swift, JA Sinclair). BBC and he’d love to be on. DT gardening hacks not allowed to write this piece I’m told – not up to it.

3. Spotted: Nell McAndrew buying pink gardening gloves from Town & Country’s Barry Page at Chelsea.

4. A listers: Gwyneth Paltrow on B&Q stand, carrying copy of her book. Helen Mirren on Borneo Exotics-cameramen going wild. Also Bill Bailey-cameramen les wild. Saw BB outside my office in Hammersmith with his kid. Rob Brydon drinking tea. Ringo Starr, looking young and skinny. My Colleague Hannah Jordan was mistaken for Sarah Beeney.

5. Met Jeff Morey at Chelsea. He’s Independent Garden Center Show founder and US Nursery retailer publisher. Has Foreigner’s Lou Gramm on at the next show-August 16-18 in Chicago.

6. Loads of garden bloggers for first time at Chelsea looking like they were at home drinking the fizz-Arabella Sock, Michelle Wheeler etc.

7. Johnny Ball-shouted ‘three’ at him. Kirsty Allsopp, looking tentular. Marc Rosenberg asking Will Young and Barbara Windsor what their fave flower is. Sun snapper Arthur Edwards-they wouldn’t let him in he was complaining.

8. At evening event Mon charity gala preview: Lord Heseltine, John and Norma Major, Chris Patten, Mark Thompson, Robert Swannell (M&S), Sir Win Bischoff, Sir Richard Broadbent and Sir Philip Green, with bodyguard. Also lots of ladies in high shoes. One accidently dropped their pass down the drain in the queue to get in. Also Monty Don and Alan Titchmarsh, in bowtie. Loads of industry people: James Barnes, Steve Pitcher, Dennis Espley, Bob Hewitt, Tony Kirkham, Caroline Owen, Carol Paris, Danny Adamson, Bernard Burns. Saw Chelsea judge Andrew Wilson and said it will never be Telegraph that wins. He did not react. Telegraph won.

9. Saw Alys Fowler at CFS. She was with an American war photographer she was training to take pics of plants.

10. FT feature on Nigel Dunnett’s RBC New Wild Garden at Chelsea. In about 1,000 words, inexplicably fails to mention that the garden is a “refined” version of one that opened last year at Barnes Wetland Centre in London. ND is the most quotable designer at Chelsea.  

11. Chelsea artisan gardens-nearly all choc box Hansel and Gretel pastiche. Really needs some avant garde design.

Was at Tamata NZ garden with  Professional Gardeners’ Guild’s Tony Arnold, RHS The Garden mag editor Chris Young, BALI’s Paul Cowell, NZ designer Sam Martin, NZ high commissioner Derek Leask and the designers and owners. CY quickly put me right when I said I could have some influence on The Garden’s September redesign. He asked my wife if I was always like this. She said yes, except with the child, who wee’d in his potty for the first time on Chelsea press day, which was the big news of the day.

12. Entertained by newspaper coverage of Chelsea, which was mostly a mix of follow ups to stories I wrote.

 

13. Alan Titchmarsh’s secretary has email address of mitchtitch. She’s called Caroline Mitchell.

14. Worst Chelsea paper article-Clive Aslet, though close run thing.

Chelsea special.

1. Look out for B&Q garden behind Alan Titchmarsh when he’s on TV.

2. If you’re a punter, crane your neck to see B&Q tower, and the bottom of Diarmuid Gavin’s pod, rather than the plants.

3. And watch out for dust-after two months without rain, you may need a mask. It costs £40,000 a year to fix.

4. Been down three times to the site this week. Only other hacks there were Telegraph and Kensington Times. More than 800 will turn up on Monday. As well as 1,200 other media.

5. Betting on the gardens. Cleve West is favourite. I’d have Sarah Eberle higher, as well as The Times, which I hear cost £400,000 – the most in the show. Also Flemings, which cost $500,000 all in. Ulf won a couple of years ago and I set Hill’s odds. They lost a fair bit I’m told, with Ulf 2/1.

 

7. Chelsea stories.

Mail Queen. The Queen comes to Chelsea. Every year. That’s it. 800 words.

8.  Evening Standard:

THIS year’s Chelsea Flower Show, which starts next Tuesday, will not disappoint. Expect dramatic designs, innovative landscaping and planting ideas by the trugful. Where else would you see, cheek by jowl, a floating glass viewing platform, jungle streams lined with gold tiger pebbles, a nine-metre tower of edibles and curved garden walls of louvred concrete? Continues…guess who by.

9. Telegraph Diarmuid. Not really anything you don’t know already from old articles/internet. Issue is garden writers can’t interview. interviewers don’t know the subject. There is a better one about DG out there…

10. Did a story on high Chelsea ticket prices:

Indie ripped off and then Mail online ripped off Indie, which begs the question why they didn’t run it originally.

11. What the RHS would like you to write…