Square Plastic Pots

[David Nicholson]

You really are very fortunate with the range and selection of plant outlets available to you.

Paddy, welcome to the culture of devil take the hindmost, unshackled self interest and greed. Ireland I believe is a recent recruit – we in the  UK have been there for decades.  All in the UK nursery garden is not rosy. Some of our best and most famous Scottish nurseries – Jack Drakes for example are now shadows of their former selves. Resplendent with tea rooms. Even Glendoick has a restaurant  and has had for years. If they don’t have one the punters don’t come. Fact is that  the vast majority of the public are not gardeners and this is an ever growing majority with more and more gardens front and back being concerted over to make space for anther car or  to  add another room to the house – sorry the "investment".  There was an item on Radio 4 last week about just this!   Lovers of rare plants are a dwindling minority within the older, often tweed and twinset,  middle classes –  I  would bet my bottom dollar  that the average age of SRGC and AGS  members is a good deal higher than it was 20 years ago. This is something that has to be addressed if we are not to go the way of the dinosaur. These associations should be supporting small nurseries in their own long term interest – I bet Jack Drakes  helped recruit more SRCG members than we might care to admit – I was one of them after a chance visit when in Aviemore. These nurseries  struggle to survive – believe me I have been there. Being charged £60 or more for a wee table  at an SRGC show when total takings might only reach a few hundred quid does not help much. Support your  small growers if you have them, they might not be there in a few years if you don't

Fred, I wholeheartedly agree with you. It does seem to me that organisations such as SRGC and AGS should be doing all they can to support and sustain small specialist growers whilst we have them. For me there are two main aspects of Show going; the prospect of seeing well grown plants of a quality I might aspire to, and being able to browse the stalls of small specialist nurseries. At £60 a throw for a stand, and possibly more in some places I wonder that they bother going at all. Why not charge more for Show entrance and give the Nurseries a free run. I always pay a visit to a small nursery in Gloucestershire when I am in the area and on my last visit the proprietor told me he was scaling down his alpine plant range as "very few want them these days"!

[admin]

Mark, wish I had Timpany Nursery on my doorstep!

Me too. Susan has some superb plants!

[Maggi Young]

Why not charge more for Show entrance and give the Nurseries a free run.

Well, for a start, the number of paying visitors to the shows is dropping... remember that Members enter Free.....charges for show halls, table hire etc are escalating.... this is a very tricky situation for show organisers, believe me!

[admin]

Why not charge more for Show entrance and give the Nurseries a free run.

Well, for a start, the number of paying visitors to the shows is dropping... remember that Members enter Free.....charges for show halls, table hire etc are escalating.... this is a very tricky situation for show organisers, believe me!

Absolutely no doubt about that at all  Maggie. You,  Ian and other show secs. have a difficult, unenviable task and  still do a great job for which we are all indebted to you. It seems the pressure is on everyone. Perhaps members would pay a pound or two to get in – surely very few would complain about that? I know it's  kinda like robbing Peter to pay Paul – I certainly would not object anyway – or put it another way – of all the factors that affect my own decisions   to attend a show (and I know I have not been at many shows lately) paying a few quid to get in would not be a big one.  When I used to help out with club plant sales in the pre- 50:50 days at Aberdeen we used to take in  shed loads of cash, perhaps getting more straight plant donations might help?   But this is wandering far from the original thread -   "Square Plastic Pots" and is not really the best place to discuss this. Perhaps it could  be continued on the  "Members only Forum"  if anyone is brave enough? It's a bit like the suggestions for the web site – getting some input from the members might be useful. It might cause some disagreement too of course, but that's democracy for you. 

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Hi all !
My two penny's worth from accross the Channel.

1) I fully agree with the fact that the small specialist alpine nurseries need all the support they can get !
    Here in Belgium we've only got one or two and they do have the same problems as their UK collegues.
    In the Spring, they are attending all the major "shows" and "sales" that take place in Germany, just to
    extend their public so they can keep things going.
2) I've visited only some 3 or 4 (for reasons of distance, AGS) shows over the years (whish I could attend
    more   ) and I wouldn't mind having to pay 1 or 2 £ entrance fee, even as a member, if this benifits
    the small specialist grower.
    After all, we're getting so much already from our memberships in both the SRGC and the AGS for so
    little money !

This definitely has nothing to do with square plastic pots as Mr Admin mentions, but this is a very important subject of discussion I believe.  It all comes down to simple mathematics :

less specialist nurseries = less choice alpines in my garden
less shows = less pleasure in visiting them
We can't miss either !

[mark smyth]

it's not just alpine specialists that are having a hard time

[Joakim B]

Is not the links a good way to support the good growers for free?
I hope that helps the growers. I do not know how much it is used? (or if it will come any buisness out of that but it is a contribution.
Maybe the plant stalls would pay with plants for a huge lottery/raffel as an alternative to cashpayment. This would be for the small plant stalls rather than huge ones if there is any.
Maybe this later part of the thread should be lifted to the members section as has been suggested. Wink wink  

By the way general "garden interest" is growing in Sweden but maybe more the garden center style of gardening.
Take care
Joakim