My Garden

I had a really interesting conversation with Stephen Hendry, from Newington Nurseries, the other day. Stephen's growing the plants for the Cayman Islands exhibit in the Great Pavilion, which is going to be an out-of-the-water underwater garden. Stephen was describing some of the more unusual plants that they're using and which really have the appearance of being underwater. Which is interesting because rumour has it that at the other end of the pavilion another exhibitor is going underwater and bringing piranha's to the show...!

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Myself and one or two colleagues were mooching around the Royal Hospital recently admiring the smart, new black tarmac just laid around the Ranelagh Gardens, until we were struck by the challenge of retaining the smart, new look until the show opens on 19 May.  Suffice to say, the new black paint is already on order…!

In contrast, the grass on the football pitches has not had the best winter, but we’re planning to give it a good feed next week, so hopefully by the time the visitors arrive at the show it’ll be looking lush and green. Which reminds me – in 2007 one mysterious exhibitor managed to spread thousands of Portulaca all over the pitches. We were left with a massive crop of the stuff which we spent the rest of the year trying to get rid of! Read More...

Myself and one or two colleagues were mooching around the Royal Hospital recently admiring the smart, new black tarmac just laid around the Ranelagh Gardens, until we were struck by the challenge of retaining the smart, new look until the show opens on 19 May.  Suffice to say, the new black paint is already on order…!

In contrast, the grass on the football pitches has not had the best winter, but we’re planning to give it a good feed next week, so hopefully by the time the visitors arrive at the show it’ll be looking lush and green. Which reminds me – in 2007 one mysterious exhibitor managed to spread thousands of Portulaca all over the pitches. We were left with a massive crop of the stuff which we spent the rest of the year trying to get rid of! Read More...

We decided to opt for wristbands at the 2009 RHS Chelsea Flower Show with the hope that they will make the admissions process run more smoothly than ever.  The wristbands have arrived finally arrived from China, to much excitement in the shows team, but we can’t send them out to exhibitors yet because we must first record each wristband number - a task that has been made much more difficult by the fact that they first need putting into order. So we’re knee deep in boxes of wristbands and an RHS taskforce has been set up to solve this Chinese puzzle!

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I'm Bob Sweet, and this is my first blog. As Head of Shows Development at the RHS, it's my job to make sure my team fills the RHS shows with fabulous gardens and nurseries. It can be a tough job at times, with many long days walking round fields, but when the shows are open and the visitors are enjoying themselves, it's worth it!

For the first RHS Greener Gardening Show tomorrow, we're getting ambitious, and introducing some nice big trees to Lawrence Hall, along with a nice bit of meadow, to bring a bit of the countryside to the show.  The only thing that's missing now is some tweeting birds! We've got the sound system ready, but if anyone has a favourite bird chirp or twitter they'd like to hear at the show, we'd love to have your suggestions

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