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Cannington Walled Garden, Cardiff Flower Show, Harlow Carr, National Gardening Week, RHS, Rosemoor, Wisley
RHS Cardiff Flower Show, the culmination of National Garden Week (photo courtesy of Picselect).
For the first time the RHS are hosting a week-long celebration of gardening starting on Monday 16th April and culminating with the first RHS garden show of the year at Cardiff. The aim of National Gardening Week is to bring gardeners across the country together and to encourage more people to be bitten by the horticultural bug.
The RHS have devised a packed week of events taking place at their headquarters at Wisley and their regional centres, Rosemoor in Devon, Hyde Hall in Essex and Harlow Carr in North Yorkshire. From composting clinics to meeting the gardeners and how to plant up an alpine trough to weed identification their should be something that tickles your fancy! It’s not just RHS sites that are taking part, other venues such as Woburn Abbey and Cannington Walled Garden are laying on events, too and the RHS are encouraging people across the country to come up with their own ways to celebrate, such as plant fairs and seed swaps.
Each day throughout the week has a particular theme, so the Wednesday is about careers and encouraging people to think about horticulture as a profession and the environment is the theme for the Thursday. It was Tuesday 17th that caught my eye, entitled Gardens of the Nation. The RHS want garden owners across the country to take photos of their garden on that day and then email their photos to them. The plan is to build a bigger picture of the nation’s domestic gardens, which will become a unique record of social and horticultural history.
The RHS already has an unrivalled collection of horticultural history that spans almost 500 years at the RHS Lindley Library, the world’s most important gardening archive. But gardening continues to evolve, and the RHS want to preserve for history a record of the styles and trends found in our gardens today. I love this idea, especially for those of us who don’t live near the RHS gardens or other venues hosting events for National Gardening Week. It means many more people can still take part in the event and what a great archive of material for future generations wanting to see what our gardens looked like on one day in 2012.
There will also be a daily Facebook gardeners’ question time when problems can be put to RHS members of staff. So any thorny issues troubling you, then why not ask the experts.
For more information on National Gardening Week and a list of events take a look at the dedicated website. This is also where you will find the email address for sending in your garden photos.
I’d love to hear if you have any plans for National Gardening Week and to see photos of your gardens next Tuesday.
wellywoman 
Great post. What a good idea having a Natioanl Gardening week; it is hard to believe that it is not already a regular fixture. Chrisitna
Me again, your link doesn’t work, not sure why. Chrisitna
Hi Christina, It’s a great idea having a whole week celebrating gardening. The link for for me, not sure why it doesn’t work from your end. You can get to the website from the RHS website.
It’s great that the RHS are staging events with the aim of getting more people interested in horticulture. It’s a shame that more children aren’t introduced to gardening at a young age, it seems that many of us used to help parents or grandparents in their garden when we were young, but many children are missing out on this experience these days.
Hi Jo, I completely agree. I think people are so often busy with so many other things. I know hardly anyone of my own age interested in gardening. Partly because some can’t afford houses with gardens, some work long hours and others just aren’t interested. I think it’s a real shame.
I wonder will there be TV programmes to accompany this…Chelsea like?
Hi Bridget, Not sure whether there are going to be any tv programmes which is a shame but not long to Chelsea, now you’ve reminded me.
Good to know that the RHS are spreading their wings into Wales, lovely display of daffs. Really good to hear that the RHS and schools are working together these days, I didn’t really learn about gardening until I was in my late 40s!!
Hi Pauline, I think the RHS are trying to be much more inclusive. They used to have quite a stuffy image but are really working at broadening the appeal of gardening.
Well done on a much more comprehensive post about this than the one I did yesterday .
Like you Tuesday’s Gardens of the Nation also caught my eye.
Enjoy the weekend! xx
Hi Flighty, I’m away at the moment so haven’t had the chance to check other blogs, when I’m away I tend to schedule a few posts to come up. The only problem with this is writing a post that someone else has written!!! Sorry about that. I guess great minds think alike. Have a great weekend, Flighty.
Welly’ there’s certainly no need to be sorry as I’m more than happy to see it mentioned by other bloggers as well.
Thanks, and you too! xx
Just want to congratulate you on your gardening blog – I always find it interesting, which is quite an achievement given the number of blogs out there! I too like the new RHS aims – inclusiveness, especially the schools initiative, and the environment. Gardens can contribute so much to our wildlife.
Jane
I love this idea…would be great if we had something like this here in the US or even state to state…enjoy!
I love this idea…would be great if we had something like this here in the US or even state to state…enjoy!