Tim Matcham Garden Design

I timed my arrival at Malvern to absolute perfection – well it would have been perfect if I had been a short sighted duck! The heavens opened and I could have been in any muddy car park – there was certainly little to suggest that I had arrived at the Spring Show!

This arrival was stranger still when one of my clients called across to me, having arrived moments before – had I really been driving for 2 hours to a wet field to talk to a client (and friend!) who is barely 5 minutes drive from home? We could have saved ourselves the trouble and had tea at home! It was great to see them and catch up on their garden, which is coming on – and I was reminded that I still owed them some plants that had been unavailable last season! That will be a great opportunity to go and see the garden again so really looking forward to that.

Tea seeemd the only sensible choice and a chance to ponder the catalogue before setting off to find others that I had promised to try and find. I am sure I could have bought an entire tea plantation for the sum I was asked for for my steaming brew - but needs must… The decision to wear warm clothes and a waterproof jacket was now totally justified and tea consumed I set off on my search.

First stop was the Garden Organic stand manned by the delightful Verity Thompson. It was good to catch up and sparked an idea for further collaboration at The Garden Network.

One of my main reasons for visiting as a Garden Designer is to look at the Show Gardens. Malvern isn’t known as a hotbed for innovation particularly but it can provide some neat glimpses at how other designers approach a garden or planting and I particularly enjoyed chatting with Deb Bird about her garden The Nature of Nurture which particularly struck a chord as I learned much of my gardening from my parents and grandparents. Perhaps one of the most interesting ideas though came in the Schools Section, where  two gardens featured greenhouses made from recycled plastic bottles.

Malvern Spring Show this year also played host the the Bloggers Meet at Malvern and it was great to meet so many people that I had only read articles by.

Huge thanks to Michelle Chapman (Veg Plotting) and Helen Johnstone (The Patient Gardener) for organising it all – great job. Biscuits were sponsored by James Alexander Sinclair (Encounters with Remarkable Biscuits)

with contributions from Yolanda (Bliss) amongst others!

It was also great to chat with Cleve West and Joe Swift who were both very generous with their time – always appreciated.

I did make it round to some of the other stands notably the Wiggly Wigglers stand in the Eco Tent where – as a blogger – we received a copy of a rather wonderful book called Bringing a Garden to Life. The day ended with a meeting with Claudia de Yong who shared some tips on sourcing products for the garden as well as agreeing to contribute content to The Garden Network on this topic, for which she is well known!

The Chris Beardshaw Scholarship was won by Maria Luisa Medina who starts an amazing journey designing gardens at both Malvern Autumn Show and culmintaing in a Chelsea Garden for 2011

The title for the gardens the seven prospective scholars was The Circus and I’ll leave you with this interesting picture of some amazing acrobats who added their performance to the proceedings!

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