HortWeek Podcast

This week Adrian Bloom makes a welcome return to the HortWeek Podcast to talk about his new book and discuss the ongoing state of horticulture, garden industry and his own Norfolk garden, Foggy Bottom.

In February, Bloom was still reeling from some significant plant losses after a long wet winter. His recommendation is Taxodium distichum (Swamp Cypress) from America which "will survive with its roots in water".

"Every 10 years or roughly you have to redo the garden. It's all very well planting a garden for the future but the future is about 10 years". 

Being situated in East Anglia, the climate trend is generally getting drier, however, and Bloom says they are struggling to keep Astilbes alive and have given up on Meconopsis "because we don't have the right humidity to grow them". 

He discusses the plant breeding market, lamenting some launches: "There's so much breeding going on now, people are throwing out plants almost with a minor change and I think there's not enough of a difference between some of them...but they're for a bedding market really and we are losing some really good plants."

But there are good new plants coming in too and he names a few of his personal highlights.

The discussion touches on the US garden market where Bloom spent some time living and working - he is still a member of "a thriving" American Conifer Society but he admits in the UK conifers, and heathers are going out of fashion: "I think they have a place, but I think largely they won't be in fashion...Leylandii didn't help."

Bloom reflects on his live in horticulture, much of it spent overseas, the USA, Norway and Denmark and Switzerland: "I wanted to do something different to my father, I wanted to go into things that offered a longer term aspect".

His latest book Garden Odyssey is published this spring and is "an attempt to encourage everybody into gardening", a topic he returns to during the podcast. Bloom is also planning a children's book, part of a campaign he has embarked on to try and encourage children to appreciate plants and gardening. 

One of the topics of discussion in HortWeek's Parks & Gardens Week was about income sources and ways parks and gardens managers and owners can generate funding. Bloom, who runs a railway attraction at Bressingham Gardens, discusses how it is done in his garden and how challenging it can be. 

"One of the answers is, promoting plants and gardens, promoting many garden centres have almost forgotten about; they react to things, they're not proactive on the plants.

"There was a time when we were more interested in plants. Now, with wages going up, with no training, it's rather a depressing picture."

HortWeek editor Matthew Appleby raises whether the idea of an autumn planting season might be revived and Bloom says he thinks it is unlikely but adds: "There are so many mistakes made, people planting something that is not suitable [for their own garden] ... people often plant what is looking good rather than what is right for their own garden.

"We need to try and promote more reality, and more success through gardens, and that's something that only the nurserymen, the garden centre and the trade can do."

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