Gardens: Prepare to be inspired at this year’s Gardening Scotland event

As spring turns to summer, the weather forecast is watched by all gardeners – but no-one will be following it more closely than the exhibitors in this year’s Gardening Scotland event.

From primary schools creating miniature pallet gardens to professionals designing show gardens, ensuring their plants look their best for the first weekend in June is a real challenge. This year’s extravaganza is set to feature more than 400 exhibitors, showcasing everything from vegetable seeds to greenhouses. And as the show has grown it has increasingly attracted specialist growers from around the UK, giving gardeners the chance to buy plants that are difficult to source anywhere else.

Brian Young of Holmes Farm Plants near Irvine will be exhibiting at Gardening Scotland for the first time this year. “For the last few weeks I’ve been moving things in and out of the polytunnels to ensure that they are in flower in time for the show,” he says. “The early good spell brought things on too fast, then it got cold again and everything literally stopped growing.” Young hasn’t been forcing plants to bring them on early but will instead be showing plants that ordinarily flower in early June. He says that the plants he’s bringing will also be very hardy as after the last few winters he’s given up growing anything that isn’t tough enough to cope with the weather.

“I’ll be waiting until the last minute to choose which plants will be coming to the show,” says Young. “It all depends on what is in flower, however I am planning to have a large range of really good foliage plants including Trifoliun ‘Dragon’s Blood’ which has cream, green and red foliage, and Acer palmatum ‘Carnival’ which has almost white foliage with a slight pink tinge to the tips of the new leaves. I’ll also have lots of bulbs and at the moment I’m growing literally thousands of alliums and camassias in order to have just half a dozen that are at the perfect stage for the display.”

Brian Young’s companions in the New Hopetoun Gardens Floral Hall will be displaying and selling almost every kind of plant imaginable. As experts in their field, these growers will be able to advise visitors on which plants will work best in their garden and how to look after them. Another first-time exhibitor this year is Alex Reynolds of Pretty Ugly Plants. At his nursery in Newton Stewart, Reynolds grows sarracenias, or North American pitcher plants which survive by trapping and feeding on insects. “Sarracenias grow along the east coast of America, from Florida to Newfoundland and here they are perfect for growing in boggy conditions,” he says. “They thrive on the margins of ponds or in tubs that retain water.” These carnivorous plants would certainly provide a talking point for any water garden, but are they pretty or are they ugly? “I think they are gorgeous and I’m hoping that many of the visitors to Gardening Scotland 2012 will agree with me,” he says.

Other new exhibitors for 2012 include Oska Copperfield who specialise in chrysanthemums and Warmerhoven from the Netherlands whose focus is hippeastrums and alliums. Alongside the new faces there will be nurseries for whom Gardening Scotland has become a fixed date in the diary. Adam Fleming of Binny Plants has been tending his peonies which will be on show at both the Chelsea Flower Show and Gardening Scotland. His other display this year will be a Riverside Garden, which will have a rustic shelter and a small river running under it. “The planting will be based on a more lush jungle type feel at the back coming round the front to a hot planting,” he says. “Around the stream there will be irises and primulas galore with gunnera and rheum giving the height along with some large shrubs.”

It’s these sorts of displays which really inspire visitors to try something new in their own gardens and Helen Knowles of Tinnisburn Plants from Cannonbie has been thinking long and hard about what to include in her display. She’s exhibiting for the second time and has been listening to customer feedback when deciding what to bring. “The nursery sits at 600ft above sea level, so everything we grow is very hardy and the feedback that I’ve been getting from gardeners at recent shows is that they want to be sure that plants are tough,” she says. “They are fed up buying plants then having to replace them because they have died during the winter.”

With this in mind, Knowles’ display of unusual perennials, woodland and bog plants and alpines will include perennials Mertenisia sibirica, which has very intense, blue flowers and Symphandra certica which has silvery blue bells, a bit like a Campanula. “Many of the bigger nurseries don’t grow anything that isn’t easy to germinate from seed, but because I am not growing plants in huge quantities I can take stem cuttings which means that I can grow the more unusual perennials,” she explains. “One plant that I’m excited to be selling for the first time this year is Verbascum ‘Jester’ which reaches three or four feet in height and has bi-coloured orange and yellow flowers.” Also look out for the perennial cornflower Centaurea montana “Violetta” which was the best-seller at last year’s show.

Of course the specialist nurseries exhibiting in the Floral Hall are just one part of what’s on show at Gardening Scotland. Other areas to look out for include the Dobbies Pallet Garden Challenge organised by the Scottish Gardeners Forum where schools and gardening clubs let their imaginations run riot in creating miniature gardens. Also keep your eyes peeled for the Country in a Basket challenge where school pupils are filling baskets with plants to represent the competing nations at this year’s Olympic Games. On a larger scale, the Show Gardens this year include a garden with plants from Scottish folklore, a bee garden and a low-maintenance garden. Between all this and the food and craft stalls, Beechgrove Garden Theatre and Earthy Green Garden, by the end of the day you can expect to leave tired, but filled with inspiration and carrying some new favourite plants.

• Gardening Scotland runs from 1-3 June at the Royal Highland Centre, Edinburgh. For more information tel: [phone] or visit www.gardeningscotland.com