Exhibitors
Lifelong Learning
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Association of British Fungus Groups
Fungus is not the bogeyman!
Mycorrhiza is something of a buzzword in horticulture and this exhibit focuses on the positive and beneficial links between certain fungi and green plants. The emphasis in the display is on symbiosis with trees that may readily be grown in the garden. Fungi that in this way are of direct benefit in the garden become the ‘stars’ of the exhibit.
The display includes a new range of life-like models of 25 mycorrhizal fungi species that have established symbiotic links with native trees including beech, English oak, weeping birch, Scot’s pine, European larch and spruce.
British Beekeepers' Association
Urban Beekeping
This exhibit is a roof garden that could belong to a city beekeeper and that shows visitors how bees can be kept safely in an urban environment. The garden shows how bees can thrive in an urban environment as they have the advantage of a massive range of trees and garden plants on the doorstep, far wider than would be found in today’s monoculture countryside. Bees can find nectar everywhere in the city - from street trees to railway embankments.
The roof terrace is filled with fruit and flowers growing in planters and smaller containers. The organisers also hope to include espaliered fruit trees that would benefit from bee pollination, plus a selection of bee-friendly plants such as lavenders and wallflowers. On one side of the exhibit is a beekeeper’s shed with rows of different types of honey, glowing like treasure. On the floor of the shed is beekeeping equipment including bee veils, smokers and hive tools. In the centre of the terrace is a table with partially assembled frames by the beehive. At the front of the display are two hives. One of these is a display hive and the other a complete hive, with frames of honey in the top so that people can look inside and smell the honey.
The display’s organisers, Philippa O’Brien and Melanie Whitlock, took up beekeeping a year ago and have since been entranced by it. Philippa keeps bees in her small town garden in Hammersmith while Melanie keeps hers on a nearly allotment. Both are convinced that the honey made by their bees is the most delicious they have ever tasted.
British Fuchsia Society
Fuschias with a Difference
Fuchsias come in all shapes and sizes, from the minute to the unusual - and this displays features fuchsias that are completely different to the normal range that people are used to seeing.
The exhibit will be a combination of species that originated in either New Zealand or South America plus some interspecific hybrids and cultivars. There will also be plenty of educational sheets to explain what it is all about!
Carol Gubler, who runs a specialist fuchsia nursery in Surrey and who grew all the plants on this stand says: “I got into growing fuchsias through my late father, who first started growing them as a hobby in 1963 when I was five - after having been given four plants by a neighbour. Fuchsias are addictive and so we grew more and more and eventually moved to Ash Green as my Dad hoped to start up a nursery on his early retirement - sadly he died before he could start the nursery - so I took the plunge and started the nursery in 1986. I love fuchsias that are a bit out of the ordinary so I specialise in Encliandras with minute flowers and those that really fit in to no recognisable category of fuchsia.”
British Mycological Society
Dispelling some fallacies about fungi:
All plant diseases are bad.
There are easy ways to recognise edible fungi.
Mushrooms and toadstools are different.
Fungi are a kind of flowerless plant.
Mushrooms are not very nutritious.
Capel Manor College
College gardener and ex-student Julie Phipps has created a multi-faith garden which depicts Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Judaism. Aspects of each of these faiths are represented primarily by roses. The design of the garden is based on the early Persian style of four quarters with a central water feature which in this case will be in the shape of a rose.
Capel Manor College attracts students from a wide range of faiths and ethnic communities. The College Chaplain, Revd Canon Chris Bard (who is also BBC Essex Faith and Ethics Presenter) along with Susan Bowden-Pickstock (BBC Cambridgeshire Faith and Ethics Producer) encouraged the College to sponsor a multi-faith garden at The Chelsea Flower Show in order to inspire others to consider the unifying effect of an interest in plants.
In the Christianity garden, Rosa sericea subsp. omeiensis f. pteracantha has been chosen to represent Jesus’ Crown of Thorns as it has particularly large thorns. In the Hindu garden Tulsi (Indian basil), the Holy Power Plant (Ocimum tenuiflorum) is used. Rosa 'Omar Khayyam' is used in the Islamic garden to depict the eponymous famous Muslim poet who wrote The Rubaiyat which is itself all about roses. A white rose in the Judaism garden represents the White Rose - a student movement, who in 1941-1943 exposed the Nazi Holocaust.