Gardeners’ World 2022 episode 9

Gardeners’ World 2022 episode 9: Gardeners’ World comes from the RHS Malvern Spring Festival. Adam Frost and Arit Anderson reveal the highlights of the show gardens and this year’s must-have flowers and plants on display in the Floral Marquee.

We meet a pond plant specialist in Lincolnshire who is exhibiting at the festival for the first time, and in the run-up to the show, we visit a family nursery with a passion for the jewel-like auricula. Carol Klein celebrates the range of blossom on show at this time of year at Batsford Arboretum in the Cotswolds, and in Worcestershire Nick Bailey revels in one of the stars of the early summer garden – the peony.

Gardeners’ World 2022 episode 9

The Malvern Fringe Festival was an arts festival (founded 1977) which took place in Great Malvern, England. The main events of the Malvern Fringe Festival were the annual Malvern May Day and parade, and the annual three-day festival held in June as a fringe to the Elgar Festival. These were often accompanied by musical and other live events throughout the year.

Malvern Fringe Festival was founded in 1977 by Adrian Mealing, a teacher in Malvern, in collaboration with Andrew Sleigh, Ian Fearnside and Phil Webb. It originated as a reaction to the Malvern Festival which was perceived to be biased towards classical music and appealing towards a national and international audience rather than a local one. A further concern was the continued requirement for the local Council to underwrite the main festival and the feeling that the public expenditure could be more wisely spent.

The founding aims of the Fringe were to produce a popular, varied programme of events for the local people of Malvern, to bridge the gap between the “us” and “them” in the arts and to “shake it up a bit in Malvern”.

The first year featured 60 events consisting of poetry, world music, folk, jazz, adult and children’s theatre performed under the banner of “Associated Events” due to the main Festival’s objections to the term ‘Fringe’, which they considered to be “outside” of the Festival. In 1978, to avoid confusion between the programmes for the two festivals, printed with similar designs at the main festival’s insistence, Adrian Mealing hand wrote “Fringe” on over 3000 programmes. As the 1980s approached, the festival grew into a four-week event and the Fringe had established its own identity. Being centrally located between Hereford, Worcester, Gloucester and Cheltenham the Fringe drew a wide audiences from over a 20-mile radius.

During the 1980s, the festival attracted hundreds of visitors with a programme of 120 events over a two-week period.  In 1982, Malvern Fringe Arts Ltd became a registered charity. By the 1990s, the Fringe programme had grown to a six-week event and was attracting comedy and cabaret acts that were beginning to establish their reputations, including Eddie Izzard, Lee Evans, Jerry Sadowitz, Jim Tavare, Chris Lynam and a double act featuring Linda Smith and Mark Thomas, plus musical acts as varied as Gong, Juicy Lucy, Voodoo Queens and Loop Guru.

Pond plants

Plants give visual interest to a pond, encourage wildlife and can help keep water clear. Choosing the right plants greatly adds to your enjoyment of the pond as well as that of visiting or resident wildlife. With the extensive range of pond plants available in nurseries and garden centres, selecting the right plants can be daunting. The vigour of the plants and avoidance of unwanted invasive types as well as the suitability in varying depths needs to be taken into consideration.

Choose plants that give contrasts in foliage as well as variation in flowering times to give as long a display as possible. The following list gives a selection of plants that garden centres, nurseries and pond plant specialists are likely to stock.

These plants are ornamental in flower and foliage and soften the harsh outlines of pools. They are also valuable for shading pool margins where algae may otherwise multiply in the warm, shallow water. For small pools, plant separately in 15cm (6in) containers and re-pot when overcrowded. Heights given indicate length of leaves or flowers above the water surface.