ADVICE & TALKS
EVERYDAY
ADVICE
Paul Slater, Garden Designer and Landscape Consultant
We are delighted that Paul Slater has joined the Garden Show Team and will be on hand daily to answer all those tricky gardening issues you may have.
Paul has created hundreds of gardens from small courtyards to grounds of several acres. He has constructed the majority of those himself, giving a unique insight into the realities of creating a garden.
His holistic approach to design ensures a garden has a sense of place, a sense of purpose and meets the clients’ individual needs and style. He combines natural proven materials with contemporary styling to achieve a timeless architectural quality that that sits comfortably in its surroundings and is not constrained by the labels of ‘traditional’ or ‘modern’….. and there is always room nature! Drawing on extensive experience Paul now offers an independent landscaping consultation service to compliment his garden design commissions. Aimed to help clients make the most of their garden or to offer guidance with a project that may have run into difficulties.
Paul is an accredited member of the following professional organisations:
- Member of Chartered Institute of Horticulture
- Member of the Professional Garden Consultants Association.
- Member of the Association of Professional Landscapers (APL)
Some of Paul’s work is featured in industry books and publications and is also used to showcase products on suppliers websites. Recently some work has been shortlisted for the ‘Small Project, Big Impact Awards’.
Paul retrained to follow his passion for garden design after a 23 year military career. Born in Kent, now based on the south coast of Hampshire in his spare time Paul likes to keep active and is a keen motorcyclist. He helps raise funds and awareness of veterans charities and organises the annual Southsea Remembrance Service, the souths largest ‘ride in’ remembrance service on Remembrance Sunday.
Paul can be contacted via his business website:
EVERY DAY AT 12PM
TALK
Life changing small gardens - how to make the most of any space
Paul is frequently approached by individuals who believe their small gardens wouldn’t interest a professional garden designer. However, some designers thrive on the challenge of a compact space including Paul! Several previous clients have described their new garden as ‘Life changing’ whether its about creating safe access, or just having somewhere calming, relaxing to sit and benefit from time with nature.
In the UK, the average garden size is a mere 188 square metres, with many urban or coastal gardens even smaller at less than 16 square meters. Yet, in our hectic lives, small can be good offering the perfect opportunity for low-maintenance indoor/outdoor living. With thoughtful planning and a touch of creativity, even the tiniest gardens can become relaxing retreats.
With nearly two decades of experience in designing and creating gardens of every dimension, including expansive 5-acre estates, Paul’s true passion lies in transforming small spaces. His expertise was recognized when he became a finalist in the ‘small project’ category at the Pro-Landscaper awards in 2021 and 2023, a testament to his skill from the UK’s premier landscaping trade magazine.
Paul’s presentations at The Garden Shows will bring practical advice, engaging stories, and inspiring showcases of small but mighty garden designs. He’ll guide you through:
- Small space planning and design.
- Generating ideas for layouts and choosing materials.
- Using vertical surfaces for dramatic effect.
- Selecting high-impact plants.
- Creating an indoor/outdoor ambience.
- Picking the right outdoor furniture.
Catch Paul Slater’s daily midday sessions in the Talk Tent for an energizing dose of green inspiration!
EVERYDAY AT 2:30PM
TALK
How to Save the Planet Without Leaving Your Garden!
What if the biggest difference you could make for wildlife was right outside your door? What if you could actually save a species from extinction or bring back the magical experiences you had with wild plants and animals when you were young?
In this inspiring talk, garden rewilding expert Dylan Walker takes us on a journey from our flower borders to our international borders, showing us how small changes in our own backyards can fuel a powerful movement for nature’s recovery. Should you dig a pond, let the lawn go wild, or put up another bird box? And what happens when the creatures you’ve welcomed, bees, butterflies, and birds, move on? How many more gardens need to join in to ensure they return next year?
Discover how to turn your garden into a thriving wildlife haven and connect with a growing network of local gardeners.
About Dylan Walker:
Dylan is an ecologist, author, and passionate advocate for rewilding smaller spaces. As a Director of the People’s Park for Nature, he is working with local communities across the lower Ouse Valley to create a network of wild spaces, restoring nature and deepening our connection with the wild.
Meet them at their stand all weekend to learn more.
FRIDAY AT 1:30PM
TALK
From Banged Up to Bangers'
Tracy Mackness has always had a flair for business – if not all of it legal. She started work as a youngster on her dad’s fruit and veg stall in Romford Market in the 1970s, preferring grafting to going to school, but by the time she was a teenager she’d fallen in with a fast crowd and spent much of the next 15 years ducking and diving, and partying. The 1980s was a time of conspicuous excess, and Tracy took bigger and bigger risks – whilst sporting bigger and bigger hair – fraternising with gangsters, gypsies and the Essex criminal underworld. From Essex country clubs to Magaluf, Tracy was there, living it large. It was only when she was sent down for 10 years for conspiracy to supply cannabis, after being caught with ‘a lorry load of puff’ at a motorway service station off the M25, that she was able to turn her life around. Despite being banged up with some of the UK’s toughest female prisoners, she proved to be a model inmate, and found her forte working on the prison farm. Never shy of hard work, Tracy left prison with numerous qualifications in pig husbandry and set up her own business, The Giggly Pig, which has become a huge success selling sausages at farmers’ markets and festivals up and down the country. With her shrewd business acumen and bubbly personality, Tracy has come through the bad times with a hugely entertaining story to tell and a new life to live.
Tracy’s book ‘Jail Bird’ The Life & Crimes of an Essex Bad Girl continues to be a hit and she tours the country giving Inspirational talks to many and varied groups.
SATURDAY - ALL DAY
ADVICE
The Pest Clinic
Come along and meet the Garden Show’s ‘Bug Man’ – Dr Ian Bedford who will be on hand to discuss plant pest problems and to advise on environmentally safe ways of keeping them under control without harming the environment.
The clinic will have specimens of some of the common pests that we find in our gardens which can be looked at under various magnifiers. Ian will be able to examine samples of damaged plants and pest specimens that you might like to bring along and he’ll aim to identify them for you and discuss the environmentally safer options for controlling them. Ian will happily discuss any concerns that you might have with managing plant pests within your gardens or vegetable patches
Something that’s very topical at the moment is encouraging wildlife into our home garden, and many of the well-known environmentalists (and book writers), have been telling gardeners to stop mowing their lawns and leaving borders to grow wild flowers However, many gardeners I speak to don’t want to replicate the countryside in their home gardens and want them to remain tidy and colourful. However, the majority also would like to help our native wildlife and see it visiting their gardens. My advice is that gardens don’t have to be wild and unkempt in order to benefit the wildlife and can be just as effective and beneficial as the countryside in attracting vast numbers of species by just following a few simple steps. I do this in my own garden and it’s teeming with life.
SATURDAY 1:30PM
TALK
The Slimy Truth about Britain’s Slugs
Ask any gardener to name their most troublesome plant pest, and it’s almost certainly going to be SLUGS! But are we right to generalise that slugs are bad for our gardens and that they need to be controlled if we want to grow healthy, damage-free plants?
Well, perhaps surprisingly we’d be wrong, since the vast majority of Britain’s resident slug species (of which there’s around 40), are not primarily plant-eaters, but play an essential role in sustaining the balance of life within ecosystems. Most will be harmless detritovores, feeding on moulds, fungi, and dead organic waste, recycling the nutrients back into the soil. Some will even be predators whilst all will be a vital food source for other wildlife.
In fact, it’s just a small number of slug species that are the plant eaters that cause so many problems for Britain’s gardeners and growers.
However, by knowing which are the good slugs and which are the bad ones, we can devise ways to protect our plants without upsetting the natural balance of wildlife in our gardens. And often the methods for achieving this are quite simple.
Dr Ian’s talk will reveal some of the interesting facts about Britain’s slugs and explain which species are the plant eaters and which are most beneficial for sustaining a healthy garden ecosystem. He’ll explain how plants can be protected safely and also tell us how we can identify the invasive Spanish Slug which has been causing problems across the southern counties since 2012 and the best way to deal with an infestation of them.
SUNDAY 1:30PM
TALK
British Flowers Rock!
Ben is an award winning 4th generation grower at Crosslands Flower Nursery which was established in 1936 in West Sussex and is one of the last flower nurseries in the UK producing cut flowers in a full colour range all year-round.
Ben’s British Alstroemeria is a very sustainable crop. His flowers are not sprayed with any chemicals after being harvested and go into recyclable, reusable boxes and arrive with customers the next day. No soil cooling techniques are used to force production and some flower beds are over 20 years old, still producing premium quality stems. Under 5% of the crop is replanted a year so sterilizing the soil is kept to a minimum.
The British Alstroemeria is known as a ‘Cool Crop’ and a ‘Dry Crop’ so doesn’t take much heat input or watering. Optimum heat at night through the winter is just 13°C via a biomass boiler and the crop is watered for just 20 minutes once a month in the winter and just 20 minutes once every 10 days in the summer unlike flowers grown in warmer countries that use a lot more water resource.
When Ben’s flowers have been picked they don’t go into big freezers, the cooling storage system at Crosslands is usually turned off between November and March. When the flowers need to be stored in warmer weather they’re only chilled at about 6°C instead of 0.5°C like most imported flowers. They are only stored for a couple of days before they are with the customers. They are a lot fresher than flowers that go all around the world. Most importantly all the stems are harvested at a ‘ripe’ big fat bud stage giving a bigger more vibrant flower unlike the imports that are harvested too tight in bud just so that more can be transported in boats and planes.
Ben also only employs local people and more importantly does apprenticeship schemes with local horticultural colleges and goes into floristry colleges to give his ‘British Flowers Rock’ Talks.
Next to being a fulltime grower, Ben is an avid campaigner for British Flowers and takes any opportunity he can to spread the word that British Flowers Rock!
Crosslands Nursery won Gold at Chelsea Flower show in 2024! Ben has also won the Grower Award in 2019 and 2022 and the Gold Sussex Environmental award in 2020.
Ben donated his blooms to St Richards Hospital and West Sussex care homes during the COVID 19 lockdowns.
You can buy Ben’s flowers by contacting him on his social media channels – @crosslandsalstroemeria on X and Instagram and Crosslands Flower Nursery on Facebook.
DAY & TIME - TBC
TALK
The Healing Garden: How Sound and Nature Restore Body, Mind & Soul
Ideal for: garden lovers, wellness seekers, nature-curious minds, and anyone longing to feel more grounded and alive.
Discover how the garden heals through sound, scent, and stillness. In this inspiring and research-backed talk, Sammie Venn explores the powerful connection between plants, sound therapy, and emotional wellbeing. A soulful blend of science and nature, revealing how gardening and sound therapy can ease anxiety, regulate the nervous system, and reconnect us to the rhythm of life.
Discover how plants respond to sound, how soil boosts serotonin, and why the scent of a rose can heal the heart. With gentle science, poetic insight, and practical rituals, this talk is a beautiful bridge between nature and modern wellbeing.
“The Earth has music for those who listen.”
— Shakespeare
