Rosy Hardy
Plantswoman
Rosy and her husband Robert run Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants in Hampshire, one of the country’s foremost nurseries for herbaceous perennials. Chelsea is one of 22 shows they are exhibiting at between March and October this year. We caught up with her to find out what makes Chelsea so special.
Royal Horticultural Show 22 shows – that sounds like a pretty full schedule?
Rosy Hardy One year we did 60, which was mayhem. Shows are just part of our business – putting on a good display at the shows is such good advertising to get people to visit the nursery. But yes, we are pretty full on, in addition to all the shows we fit in local farmers’ markets and talks to gardening clubs - we’ve got six of those next week alone!
RHS You’ll be going for your 15th Chelsea Gold Medal this year. How important is getting Gold?
RS Very important – it’s something we strive for every single year. I’m tied with Jekka McVicar at the moment for most successful female exhibitor – it used to be Beth Chatto, but she retired and we both managed to beat her record. There’s more pressure because Gold makes a huge difference to our business.
A Gold Medal at Chelsea will get you through many doors.
RHS More than the other shows?
Yes, Chelsea is definitely the peak. It’s lovely to get gold medals at other shows, which is what we try and do, but at Chelsea we pull out all the stops to make sure everything is looking absolutely perfect. A Gold Medal at Chelsea will get you through many doors. It’s such a high profile show, that even when we’re abroad and we mention that we do Chelsea, everybody knows what we’re talking about.
RHS What’s the ‘Home Grown’ logo that you display all about?
RS Exhibitors that show the logo are stating that all their plants have been grown at their nursery, that they have either propagated them themselves or brought them in bare-root and grown them on. Stock isn’t bought in from abroad in a sale-ready state. We think it’s important to keep things as local as possible and we try and propagate as much of our material ourselves as we can.
RHS Your stand this year is going to be a bit different from previous years’ – can you tell us a bit more?
RS It’s going to be huge - 12m x 9m. We’ve got sponsorship for the first time, from Fenchurch Advisory Partners, so we’ve decided to have a walk-through display, something we’ve not done before. People will be able to get really close up to the plants.