TALKS AT GROW LONDON
Learn how to bring out the best in your plants and pick up pots of wisdom from some of the country’s best growers in our programme of free and informal talks. Our expert speakers will cover everything from how to get the most from your garden to designing you perfect space, as well as showing you how easily you can grow your own produce, wherever you live.
Taking place in the Talks Theatre, all our talks are free and spaces are available on a first-come basis - arrive early!
2016 TALKS
FRIDAY 24 JUNE
THE NEW ENGLISH GARDEN
11.30 - 12.30pm
Renowned garden writer and founder of the Chelsea Fringe Festival Tim Richardson looks at trends in planting over the past decade, using several key gardens as examples. Tracing how influences from abroad have encouraged more of a naturalistic approach to planting style among British gardeners, whilst making predictions about future movements.
STAR PLANTS FOR SMALL GARDENS
12.45 - 1.45pm
Award winning garden designer Matthew Wilson from Clifton Nurseries gives his top tips on the best performing plants that will provide year round value, producing spring flowers and autumn colour.
KEEP THE ASPIDISTRA FLYING
2 - 3pm
The Guardian’s Jane Perrone and Alys Fowler in conversation about indoor plants: their first, their favourites, the ones that died, the ones that took over the living room. From spider plants to pitcher plants, houseplants are enormous fun: they can liven up barren indoor spaces, help to clean the air and lift the spirits. Jane and Alys pick their favourites and discuss the best ways to display and care for houseplants.
GARDENING UNDER GLASS
3.15 - 4.15pm
Having lived in the city and having access to little or no garden, London Terrariums believe that gardening under glass is a solution for bringing the outside in. Whether this be using a greenhouse or creating a Terrarium, gardening under glass allows you to protect plants from the changes in the environment around them. Join Emma Sibley from London Terrariums to discuss the history of terrariums and how we can learn from these Victorian glass houses, during a time when homes and green spaces are shrinking.
THE CITY GROWER
4.30 - 5.30pm
Matt Franks, founder of Connected Roots, talks about how to create a sustainable, eco-friendly plot in the smallest of spaces, from a shared garden to a window ledge, giving tricks and tips on how to equip any space to grow your own food, upcycling discarded materials, and transforming your space into a small harvest of abundance and delicious food.
SATURDAY 25 JUNE
SAVING OUR BUMBLEBEES
11.30 - 12.30pm
Bumblebees are amongst the most fascinating and endearing of insects, their familiar buzz a quintessential part of the English summer. Sadly, some bumblebees and other pollinators are in decline, threatening pollination of crops and wildflowers. Dave Goulson has been studying the lives of bumblebees for the last 20 years. Dave joins us to talk about the causes of their decline, and what we can all do to help ensure a future for the humble bumblebee.
OTTER FARM: THE NEW WAVE OF BRITISH FRUITS
12.45 - 1.45pm
Mark Diacono’s Otter Farm has become known as the ‘Climate Change Farm’. Peaches, apricots, pecans, almonds, and pears ripen their fruit in young orchards, whilst their young forest garden is filled with everything from white cherries to Asian pears, Chilean guava to Szechuan pepper. The idea is beautifully sustainable, if we can take advantage of climate change to grow delicious food usually sourced from overseas, we will be helping arrest the acceleration of climate change. Mark shows you how to achieve this in any size space, because life is too short to grow unremarkable food!
HOW TO GET THE WOW INTO YOUR GARDEN
2-3pm
As gardening editor of the Evening Standard’s Homes & Property, Pattie Barron has interviewed a galaxy of award-winning garden designers, and has gathered together many of the professionals’ tricks and techniques on giving a garden, large or small, that desirable wow factor. In her talk, Pattie spills the beans on the experts’ ways of giving your garden, large or small, great impact through clever planting, eye-catching features and thoughtful design.
TIPS AND SNIPPETS FROM THE GARDEN
3.15 - 4.15pm
Join the Telegraph’s Helen Yemm as she tackles your gardening queries and conundrums!
CREATING NEW HISTORY AT KEW
4.30 - -5.30pm
The Royal Botanic Gardens Kew continues to develop new and exciting features within its heritage landscape. Join Richard Barley, Kew Gardens, Director of Horticulture as he provides some context to the history of the site, and talks specifically about The Hive at Kew, and The Great Broad Walk Borders projects.
SUNDAY 26 JUNE
GRAVETYE MANOR: THE RENOVATION OF A HISTORIC GARDEN
11.30 - 12.30pm
William Robinson was one of the most revolutionary gardeners and writers of his day, and created his masterpiece garden at Gravetye Manor, where he lived most of his life. In 2010, Mr and Mrs Hoskins became custodians of the manor, and Tom Coward appointed as Head Gardener, investing heavily in progressing the garden’s design in homage to Robinson’s experimental style of gardening. Join Tom as he talks about his unique planting style and his constantly changing garden palette.
TALES OF A MODERN DAY PLANT HUNTER
12.45 - 1.45pm
Lullingstone Castle’s Head Gardener Tom Hart Dyke talks about plant hunting & building his dream castle ‘jungle’ garden. After surviving being kidnapped in the Colombian jungle on a plant hunting expedition, Tom has been busy building the ‘World’ in his back garden at Lullingstone Castle. Under the watchful eye of KEO Films/BBC, the man, known locally as ‘The Plant Nut’, has been filmed commandeering his Granny’s 18th Century Walled Garden, within the grounds of the Castle, to create his jungle dream.
HOW TO GET INTO GUERRILLA GARDENING
2 - 3pm
Richard Reynolds has been guerrilla gardening for over a decade around the Elephant and Castle and beyond, adopting neglected flower beds, grassy verges and traffic islands to challenging tree pits. Working solo and sometimes en masse, he has learnt what works and what doesn’t to make the grim glorious and the bleak sociable. He will guide you with examples of his own work and those of others that he’s met on his global propaganda and research missions. Whether it’s your street or your garden you want to make more joyful, Richard will rally you to battle onwards and upwards.
JEKKA’S HERB FARM
3.15 - 4.15pm
Jekka McVicar, dubbed by Jamie Oliver as the ‘Queen of Herbs’, talks about her award winning herb farm and how it started life as a humble herb patch in her back yard over 30 years ago. Discover the 650 herb varieties now flourishing in Jekka’s garden, as she reveals their many uses, from cooking up a storm in the kitchen to healing with their medicinal properties.
DESIGN, LIFE, PLANTS
4.30 - 5.30pm
US based designer Eric Trine talks about how his unique and playful designs are informed by life, plants, colour, and California. Eric says “I design minimalist pieces because furniture is incomplete until people arrive, and with my products for plants, they are simple, with a bit of geometric interest, but it doesn’t overpower what’s important - the plant!”