Plant Fairs

Plant fairs are becoming more popular among gardeners, they are usually held in glorious gardens, and have a huge range of plants for sale at very reasonable prices from up to 25 different nurseries, run by experts in growing healthy plants. They can give advice on growing plants successfully, and suggest best plants for particular sites and soils. I was pleased to see a piece by Alys Fowler in the Guardian colour supplement last weekend listed 8 plant fairs, 3 of which were those organised by Ian and Teresa Moss, called Rare Plant Fairs. Being in the catchment area for these, they are the ones I attend most often, the full list of fairs can be found here. Also great to see Paul Green name checked under the Birmingham Rare Plant Fair, I thoroughly enjoyed his talk a couple of weeks ago.
The first one of the year at Bishop's Palace, Wells, is always a good one, but I missed it because of holidays, however the Evenley Wood one was fantastic, it's always held at the end of March each year when the weather can be unpredictable, but this year was very good.
Here are a few photos taken on the day

I only took one photo of the sale area, and a few of the garden. Everything seemed a bit late, the daffodils and narcissi weren't quite out, there were remnants of snowdrops and some lovely banks of primroses.

 and these Leucojums growing in greet profusion

and some huge clusters of cyclamen

 I love these Narcissi cyclamineus

 This one above is Narcissus Englander, and an even larger group of Narcissi cyclamineus

 The Magnolias weren't quite out, but these Camellias were, and below Ali, my daughter who had kindly driven me to Evenley Wood for the fourth year in a row and bought me some great plants for my birthday

 And here are the plants I bought, I've also included the grass and Cornus I bought from Paul Green at the SALGA evening.

The next rare plant fair after Evenley was Quenington Rare Plant Fair on 8 April, it was a brilliant fair, I bought a young Tree fern, Dicksonia antarctica and Magnolia stellata and a few other lovely plants.

 Above the tree ferns and below a queue at a popular stall

and the Edulis stall where I bought the Magnolia:

The next Rare Plant Fair is on Sunday 27 May at Kingston Bagpuize House and Garden