Publicity counts!

Yesterday I met up on site with members of the team from Alzheimer's Society as well as the sponsor for the ‘Remember to Reflect’ show garden, Mills & Reeve Solicitors. The PR team need photos for publicity purposes and I’m more than happy to help out.  After all, the main objective of this wonderful show garden is to create as much as awareness as possible of the good work of Alzheimer’s Society. We must grab every opportunity that comes our way! Did you see the piece about the garden and me in July’s Cheshire Life? We’re hoping for more opportunities like this in local and regional press over the next few weeks.

Hazel and Jo are sporting T-shirts with the Society logo on and Kirsty is armed with the camera. Stephen McCann represents the generous sponsors of the garden and dons his best suit to look very official for the occasion.  We arrive at the garden in the middle of a technical crisis – the cement mixer is bust but Elliott has managed to get hold of another one without too much trouble or much of a set back in the schedule, thank goodness. He’s back on track in no time.

The RHS Health & Safety team are sticklers about everyone wearing steel toe capped boots and high viz vests. The vests we can do but the boots, well, don’t tell the RHS but we manage to fake it in our best walking boots. Thank goodness for Meindl!  The high viz vests have to come off for the duration of the ‘photo shoot’ as they hide the logos on the t-shirts which kind of defeats the object of the exercise really. No-one comes running to tell us off so we think we’ve got way with it…

I also take the opportunity to drop off a pop up gazebo for the guys to use if this baking sunshine gets too much for them. The publicity tent that will stand next to the garden hasn’t been put up by the RHS yet so they have nowhere to hide from the, dare I say it, relentless sunshine! This weather seems almost too good to be true and I’ve heard rumours that it will last until the end of July sshhhh!

So we take the photos and leave the guys to it. It’s certainly been exciting for everyone to have a behind the scenes view of life at the showground before it opens and to see the progress that's been made so far. I can’t wait to go back tomorrow after I’ve been over to Ladybrook Nursery to check on the plants!

A visit to Tatton Park

On a rainy day in June I met up at Tatton Park with Kris Hulewicz, the Show Manager for RHS Tatton. Matt and Eliot from Greenbelt Landscapes and Jo from Alzheimer’s Society came along too to check out the location of the show garden, mainly to see how level the prospective area would be. As we have a large pool we need as flat as an area as possible so that Matt and Eliot don’t have to dig out too much ground to make it level.  At first it would appear that you can’t see anything but on closer inspection there are vague markings on the grass where last year’s tracks were laid for the pathways around the show. Dodging the deer and sheep poo (and sheep) we use these vague markings to work out a rough estimate of where the garden will be sited, and its looking good; relatively flat which is remarkable in such a large show ground in a vast open deer park!

Whilst we have Kris in our clutches (he’s a hard man to get hold of!) we sort out a few knotty details. There are numerous forms that need to be completed over the next few weeks for things such as the ordering of electricity, water to fill the pool, do we want a skip, and emptying the pool after the show. We discover that we won’t need to complete some, which will save time and also money in some instances which all helps to reduce the pressure on our tight budget.

Kris gave me a copy of the plan for the show ground to show our location and the good news is that we are just beside the Escape Zone Champagne Bar!  So you’ll know where to find us if we go missing.

Our meeting is cut short when the heavens open and even the sheep and deer run for cover. Let’s hope it’s not like this in three weeks time when we begin the build!

Only five weeks to go!

After a delightful week away in the Lakes I sat down back at my desk and counted the weeks to the start of the build at Tatton – only five! The butterflies kick in every time I think about it. The show actually doesn’t open to the public until Thursday 25^th July but the key date for Matt the landscaper is Sunday 7^th July, when he can go on site and set out the garden  - basically, he will draw it all out – no digging or building can start until the Monday.

Matt and I are meeting up at Tatton next Friday with Kris Hulewicz, the Show Manager, to take a look at the position of our show garden. We’re hoping for a relatively flat area so that we don’t have to try and compensate for too much of a slope. A slope wouldn’t be very conducive for our lovely reflective pool! Matt and I will also get a chance to discuss timings. I have to ensure that the plants are delivered on the right day, just as the build is coming to an end and the team are ready to plant up. With my first small show garden it took as long to plant up the garden as it did to build! All timings are absolutely critical when you’re working to such a restricted schedule.

I haven’t chosen my Pinus mugo shrubs yet so I’ve also paid a quick visit to Ladybrook to check out their stock. Four little beauties now have my name of them and will be kept to one side for their big day. This good weather is fantastic news for all of the perennials that have had such a slow start this year. The nursery is basking in wonderful sunshine - long may it last!

A slight panic over the paving!

Friday I met up with my landscaper Matt of Greenbelt Landscapes as we’ve had to make a significant change to the hard landscaping. Natural Paving who are supplying the stone for free can no longer get hold of the Purbeck Sands that we’d initially chosen. Such a shame as it is a stunning smooth stone, cool to the touch and a contemporary pale cream, a lovely contrast to the plants.

Matt brought along a few other samples for me to look at. One is a bright light cream, not unlike the Purbeck Sands but with a very textured finish. The other is Oyster Travertine, which has a range of beige and brown tones and although smooth to the touch, has a textured pattern. It’s hard to decide as I hanker after the original choice but end up going with the Oyster, mainly because I realise that the textured stone might blend too well with the rendered walls and end up looking too bland. The Oyster Travertine on the other hand will pick up the warm tones in the grasses and create a lovely contrast with the rendered walls.

Whilst I’m with Matt I let him know that I’ve decided to take the timber arches out of the design altogether after receiving feedback from the RHS when we submitted the design. They thought the arches were too flimsy and I don’t want to make them any more chunky, in fact we probably couldn’t as it would be hard to get the right timber in those dimensions, and any other arch design could start to look too fussy. The design theme is simplicity so I decide that the simplest solution is just to remove them. This leaves me uncertain whether to keep the timber in the design of the bench as it would be the only timber in the whole design. We decide to go with a cantilevered stone seat, keeping lines clean and simple. The materials in the garden are the background to the plants, so keeping them simple and to a minimum number (only stone and render!) will hopefully create the very sophisticated look that I envisage in my head!

A meeting with the team at Alzheimer's Society

There’s a real buzz about my second meeting at Alzheimer’s Society as we’re now all very excited that our garden has been given approval by the RHS and we can get down to planning the detail!

We discuss how logistics will work during the show open days, the main thing being to have enough people to staff the garden to chat to the public and hand out leaflets. There appear to be plenty of volunteers so it’s now a case of checking how many tickets we’ll be given and then dividing the time between everyone. Volunteers could be standing around for a long time in either blazing sunshine (it has been known!) or tropical like downpours or anything in between! Everyone will get a chance to look round the show too, so it won’t just be hard work!

The other major item on the agenda is how to maximise press coverage throughout the show, including press day on Wednesday 24^th July when the medals are dished and Ladies Day on the Friday. Various ideas to create interest around the garden are discussed, one being to use the theme of a garden party and maybe having everyone wearing fancy flowery hats on Ladies Day. Visual themes work well for the visual press! The Forget Me Not flower is a symbol of Alzheimer’s Society and someone is going to check out a seed supplier so that packets can be handed out on another day.

Publicising the efforts everyone is making in the lead up to the show is another important PR opportunity – after all the primary aim is to raise awareness of the good work of Alzheimer’s Society so every opportunity must be exploited.  This very blog can also be put to use. Laura, the PR Manager for Alzheimer’s Society nationally, is given the task of taking all the ideas we discuss to create a promotional strategy to ensure that all avenues are exploited to the full!!