BCSS Macclesfield & East Cheshire Branch

Newsletter September 2007 - Tatton 2007

The exhibit (Photo: Anthony Morris)

I write this fresh from our successes at the RHS Tatton Show. Well! We got a gold medal for our display! That is, Alasdair, David and Judith, Harold, Julia and myself Elizabeth got it. We were incredibly pleased and proud to have achieved this. We came away last year knowing we could do better. So we met, to begin with, in March, and planned and discussed and did a lot of smartening up of our proposed plants. Then we got pictures and writings to make a clear and educational display and we obviously did. We already have ideas for next year but let us not be hasty.

The exhibit (Photo: Elizabeth Maddock)

The conditions at the show reflect the awfulness of our summer weather this year, wet! It is a miracle the show ever got put on, so many other shows were cancelled due to the wet conditions. The Wilmslow Show that we have attended for many years, and which incorporates our Branch Show, was cancelled, due to the soggy ground. We lost income from the sale of plants that we normally hold and no one got to see our wonderful plants. They had their chance at the Tatton show but at a price of torrential showers, boggy ground and muddy ruts. Fortunately there were some days of sunshine and plenty of people did brave the weather, although attendances were down. The organisation did their best and pulled it off, thanks to 1300 cubic metres of wood chippings laid over the worst of the boggy bits.

Five go to Tatton
(Not forgetting to bring along a photographer, too)

The displays were as good as ever, with some splendid outdoor displays from council parks departments, which did their owners proud by staying in one piece and looking good the entire week. There were numerous back-to back gardens and some interesting and odd show gardens. In the Floral Marquee there were the three cactus and succulent nurseries, Southfield, Craig House and Croston Cactus. Their stands were excellent, as ever, Southfield got a gold medal and the other two got silver gilt, well deserved results! There was also an interesting display, with the appearance of ancient trees dripping in Spanish Moss and an assortment of bromeliads. It got a bronze, which was encouraging for a start and with a bit more imagination I am sure they could do better next year.

Bonsai perfection (Photos: left - Elizabeth, right - Alasdair)

There were some spectacular Bonsai trees, always a favourite of mine, with several nurseries in the Floral Marquee and two more displays in our National Plant Societies Marquee. Fernwood Nurseries had a stand again this year, with some exquisite Sempervivums, a passion of mine, and they were also present on several other stands. Plenty of exotics, insectivorous plants, jungle plants, not so many ferns though.

Outside all the usual equipment stalls, with everything from plant ties to diggers. Books, food, fancy welly stalls (must have made a mint), as did the umbrella stalls, bird food, wood carving, stone carving, metal birds and animals, sheds, greenhouses and cold frames and not to mention the plant mall. Always worth a browse and what were people buying this year? A very nice purple leaved foliage plant, which sold out fast, agapanthus, Japanese maples, lots of perennials.

Alasdair made regular trips to the Country Living Marquee, sampling sausages, cheese and various other delicacies, as did several other of us on the BCSS stand. Some were looking at clothes(not all jeans, boots and gardening wear either), jewellery and dozens and dozens of paintings. We all visited the Fetzer wine stand, well it was next door to us, which kindly gave a lot of empty cardboard wine boxes to put behind and in front of our display to soak up the wet. At times the water was seeping under the benches and trickling away the other side.

Education display (Photo: Alasdair Glen)

It was all worthwhile, even the clearing away on the final day and the delights of trying to get your vehicle near to the marquee, to load up, without getting it bogged down in the field. Julia did particularly well by going to get her car and ending up doing a 12 mile tour of Tatton Park, on the outside. I was convinced she had got stuck in the ruts and we were just about to put out a search when she turned up looking, not unreasonably, somewhat flustered, having been missing for about one and a half hours.

The Gold medal card (Photo: Alasdair Glen)

So then, home to reactivate your plants, they are really not happy sitting in a tent for nearly a week, particularly when it is dull for so much of the time. We did not get so many flowering this year, possibly there were less in bud due to the dullness of the months leading up to the show. Thank you to everyone who helped, in what ever way and it was nice to see so many BCSS members from all over the country, from Dublin, to Aberdeen and the Isle of Wight.

Elizabeth Maddock