For 15 years, Graham has organised the Garden Event at West Dean, a small garden show for the public held at the beautiful gardens at West Dean near Chichester, West Sussex. Since 2004, this has been part of the Plants For Europe business.

After careful consideration, Graham and the West Dean team have agreed that the 2010 Garden Event will be the last. This is a sad decision, but reflects that Plants For Europe needs to concentrate on the core business of representing new plants and that the market for garden shows has completely changed (and shrunk) in the last few years. It allows West Dean to redesign their annual events programme, with a new event being launched in 2011 to replace the Garden Event, Wholly Herb show and Totally Tomato show.

It has been nothing but an absolute pleasure to work with West Dean for all these years and we wish them every success with their new shows programme.

UPDATE:

Here are the dates for West Dean events in 2011:

• MedFest: 9-10 July
• Chilli Fiesta: 5-7 August
• The West Dean Festival: 26-29 August
• Apple Affair: 1-2 October

Details will be available soon on the West Dean website.

On Wednesday 10 November, Graham will be visiting the Southern Growers Exhibition at Roundstone Nurseries, near Chichester. This is PFE’s “local” show and is always a good opportunity to meet up with friends old and new, a chance to look forward to the coming year. Last year, the show moved to Roundstone from its old venue at Sandown Park Racecourse and was dramatically improved, with increased participation from both exhibitors and visitors. Overall, it increased in value by a factor of ten and must be a definite fixture in the calendar of any horticulturalist in the south and south-east of England – perhaps even for a few of our continental friends.

As usual, if you want to meet Graham at the exhibition, please contact us to arrange an appointment.

Plants managed in Europe by Plants For Europe Limited scooped two awards in the new plants competition at Plantarium last month.

Euphorbia martinii Ascot Rainbow, bred by David Glenn in Australia, won a bronze medal. This superb variegated Euphorbia is set to become the benchmark variety by which others are judged. The leaves are have a generous yellow margin on rich green and the stems and young foliage are tinted red. The variegation even continues into the flowers. It has a compact and bushy habit and exhibits a very high degree of stability – far better than any previous variegated Euphorbia.

Cistus x hybridus Little Miss Sunshine (DUNNECIS), bred by Kieran Dunne in Ireland, was award a silver medal. This is an excellent new variegated form of Cistus x hybridus (formerly known as Cistus corbariensis) with leaves of rich green with a broad butter yellow margin. The plant produces a mass of white flowers in summer and is compact and bushy – but more vigorous than competing varieties. It also withstands transport well, particularly if grown hard, whereas competing varieties have been observed to turn black after a period without light in a lorry.

Young plants of the Euphorbia are currently available from Florensis. Young plants of the Cistus are available from New Place Nurseries.

Please contact us if you require further information.

Graham will be at the Four Oaks Trade Show in Cheshire on Wednesday 8th September only. If you wish to meet him there, please contact us in the usual way.

We wish that this event was a week later – it falls too close to the first days of the school term, clashes with the Flormart event in Padua, Italy, and also coincides with the Jewish holidays so that many of our Israeli friends will not be attending.

Graham will be at Plantarium next week, on Tuesday evening, Wednesday and Thursday.

If you wish to meet Graham at the event, then please contact us in the usual way.

That’s quite a job!

The full job specification can be found by clicking here.

We shall watch this closely to see who is appointed and will then speculate wildly to try and second guess what the appointment will mean for the future of the CPVO and European PVRs.