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IanH

Hello, the below is direct from Adrian at Gardeners World Live!

You only really learn about something by doing it, and I can now say I’m that much wiser about what it takes to build a wildlife garden for a public show. I’m at BBC Gardeners World Live, the garden I designed last autumn has finally turned into reality, and I’m glad to say it actually looks exactly like what I had planned.

Already several hundred people have wandered through the garden, and the signs are that they’re loving what they see.

The whole premise of the garden is to give people a flavour of the huge variety, beauty and value of RSPB nature reserves where we create amazing homes for nature. They get to see a condensed version of flowering heathers at Arne, the Springwatch woodland at Ynis Hir, irises flowering at Middleton Lakes, Bempton Cliffs complete with sounds and bird-filled cliffs, and a humid evocation of the RSPB’s Sumatran jungle project.

But they also get to see a much more familiar garden as epitomised by our Flatford Wildlife Garden, with the aim that visitors are inspired to make their own home for nature in their own garden.

I need to thank to a whole host of people, as it took fifteen of us – nine staff and six volunteers – two long days to set up the stand.

  • Claire Hoskins-Blount from The Lodge masterminded the logistics.
  • A wonderful team of volunteers – Chris, Ken, Graham and Alan – turned all my vague drawings of structures into three dimensional reality (including a 3-metre high tardis), and Malcolm and Pam came to help them set it up.
  • And Shirley Boyle and her team of volunteers at Flatford grew most of the hundreds of flowers for her section of the stand, with Shirley designing the planting layout.

The toadpoles survived the journey from my pond; the plants are all labelled, watered and looking surprisingly happy still under the artificial lights; and I’m just off for a lie-down on the gorgeous Flatford timber bench. Just give me a shake when you pop by...

Gardeners World Live at the NEC in Birmingham is open until Sunday 16 June.