Six of the best from #glee17

For those of you on Twitter I’m sure you will have seen a lot of this #glee17 hashtag but for those of you not perhaps I ought to explain. GLEE is and has been for over 20 years the “must go to” show for the horticultural trade. It’s where the suppliers to the retail industry launch new products and as a buyer it’s where you get to make the interesting contacts, see the tools & of course meet friends, eat cake & listen to seminars from the likes of Nick Bailey (heart flutters) & James Wong etc.

I had wanted to go last year but it clashed with the Landscape Show, which was awkward, so sadly I didn’t get the chance but this year I had myself fully booked from as early as March! Then myself & others were invited as VIP guests of Hornby Whitefoot PR, it seems the blogging community is really being welcomed with open arms now which is wonderful for all concerned.

I haven’t been to GLEE since I was a student. My tutor at Pershore pushed all of us to go & see & make contacts. I was young and wasnt as ballsey as I am now so spoke to very few exhibitors and frankly was a bit overwhelmed as the show was and still is HUGE! This year I had a game plan of people I really wanted to see, things that could be of benefit in particular to Ulting Wick & our work there … but best laid plans etc… it’s always easy to get distracted by shiny things and cake!

Anyway, here are some of the lovelies I saw and in some cases will be trialling over the next year to see how they stand up to constant use (& maybe a bit of abuse) from a full time gardener. After all if I can’t break them you might not be able to either…. maybe?

Haws Watering Cans

These guys have been going since time began & have become a byword for quality in the hort trade. I honestly can’t think of a place I’ve worked that hasn’t had a Haws, or several! Wonderfully balanced for ease of lifting and watering, they have a range of brass roses (The bit the water comes out of) for seedlings to a direct jet for hard to reach pots.

Weird fact! I lived opposite the factory for just over a year when I was studying to become a Jeweller. It’s a small little world.

I’ve also had one of their beautiful mini watering cans which was a pressie for around 15 years, it’s still in absolutely perfect nick.

They have a funky range of powder coated rustproof watering cans now to run alongside their classic plastic range. I totally fell in love with their copper watering can on their stand this year. I honestly don’t think I’d ever use it, its way too nice, just keep it highly polished and look lovingly at it.

The lovely chaps also answered a question that’s been bugging me forever about their products. Have you ever noticed that you sometimes come across the odd watering can with a broken handle, predominantly in red, apparently this was a fault in the manufacturing which has since been sorted and the nice people at Haws will happily send you out a replacement handle! Easy to fit too!

Spear & Jackson

Spear & Jackson are a well known name in gardening, constantly updating their range & looking for new solutions for us gardeners

In the next few months I’ll be trialling a couple of their products out, firstly their range of professional quality secateurs…. well, actually it will be my dad, only don’t tell him as he doesn’t know it yet. He has some lovely apple trees which he has grown from maidens that he regularly updates me on but frankly his secateurs are a mess.

I will be giving their most recent introduction a run for its money!

The dinosaur headed zombie killer range!

Jokes!

This is the Allotment Hoe… but wait it’s so much more than just a Hoe. The arrow head shape is designed with creating furrows for sowing your seeds in and the serrated flat head for pulling the dirt back over. How cool is that! why take 3 tools to the allotment when you could just have the allotment hoe!…. I’m so excited to give this one a go and will be reporting back soon!

Burgon & Ball

If you only buy one tool this year make it a Burgon & Ball tool!

It genuinely doesn’t matter which one but if you have heavy clay soil or borders where plants are crowded on top of each other I would recommend this weird looking implement! A genius idea, it’s basically a cut down border fork. Two main prongs which are designed to slip between plants for lifting or aerating the soil but it has a full support for your foot!

Another tool which I look forward to trying out are these wonderful, shaped, stainless steel spades. We have a lot of planting to be done at Ulting Wick so I can see it being very useful and I’d like to see how it holds up against my old favourite spade.

The last genius idea I saw on their stand was a range of flourescent tools! Amazing! I can’t count the times people have told me they’ve lost secateurs, hand forks etc, only to have them turn up in the compost 6 months later!

Fito “Drip by Drip” feeders

Now we all know how incredibly precious I am about my Orchids, right? …. Well I am!

I currently use feeds that have been recommended by other Orchid growers but the lovely people at the Blument stand assured me I would be delighted with the results of their Drip by Drip feeders. The idea being the plant receives a constant, gentle supply of the nutrients it needs (which honestly in the case of Orchids is very little).

I’m still waiting on the technical data, eg NPK ratio’s, but I am going to give these lovelies a go and I’ve chosen one of my most awkward buggers to trial it on. A rescue Orchid which despite being repotted and given various locations in the house has stubbornly refused to thrive…. or die! It just sits there looking at me sadly…

Fingers crossed this may be what it needs to jolt it into action!

Next up…

World Botanics range Johnsons seeds

Johnsons seeds were established in 1820 & are now part of the Fothergills range which also includes DT Brown.

Their World Botanics range though steps a bit outside the norm for what you would expect from a larger company which is nice.

It gives your average gardener a chance to try something a bit more exotic or unusual, I hesitate to say rare as obviously the seeds offered are easily produced in their millions but they can definitely be a bit different from your normal urban gardens fodder.

We have about 10 different varieties which we will be trialling here at Ulting Wick next year & I’ll be giving you the full run down on these nearer christmas!

Thompson & Morgan

The people on the Thompson and Morgan stand were incredibly helpful and were happy to talk about some of their garden favourites as well as some of their newer exciting introductions, like these Radishes! How cool are they! I cant wait to try them out in a salad next summer. They also had an amazing Breadseed poppy, something unusual for your Kitchen garden & the Tagetes that actually does repel whitefly, Tagetes minuta. I’ll go through the others in more detail in a later post.

Last but by no means least!

Goldleaf Gloves

A lot of you will have seen a lot of us bloggers raving about Goldleaf on social media recently, there’s a reason for that, they’re AMAZING!!

It’s not just that the products are exceptionally high quality, it’s not just the thought and care that goes into every single detail, the thing that makes Goldleaf so different is that it’s a real old fashioned family business!

Started by Peters father as a hobby after he retired in the early 70’s it supplied gloves to the engineering trade from his fathers garage. When Peter & Kelly took over just before the birth of their first child Peter realised there was a gap in the market for a well made high quality glove in the gardening market. Their gloves are made from deerskin leather and are incredibly soft and supple, giving you the dexterity normal gloves just don’t. Their history of making gloves tough enough to withstand the rigours of engineering has also allowed them to produce gloves which are tough enough to allow you to grip a rose stem, hard, and not feel a single scratch. I tried it, I actually broke the thorns on the rose and they didn’t come close to even puncturing the leather! Awesome!

Goldleaf have just launched their new range, the RHS Collection, for which the won the GLEE exhibitors Award. Kelly regaled me with stories of sitting crosslegged on the sitting room floor prior to launching it going over samples with a fine tooth comb. As a family they REALLY care about what they’re doing.

The RHS Collection has a choice of 3 lovely designs to choose from which makes them a perfect gift. Named after 3 famous RHS shows & on the back is also an explanation for the language of flowers!

Rose, symbolises friendship

Iris, symbolises wisdom

Poppy, symbolises remembrance… a lovely way of telling someone they’re in your thoughts!

For those of you who read this far I wonder if you can spot the deliberate mistake I made on the title of this blog…. 😉