Gardening: our favourite London Plant Fair

A great plantswoman friend of ours swears by this plant fair and we’ve had it booked in our diary for weeks now. Of course Chelsea is the ultimate garden show, and we love going there – though it’s a nightmare getting tickets – but the bit we love most about Chelsea is the giant pavilion where the nurseries display their plants and flowers to spectacular effect. Whenever we’ve been there, this is where we’ve spent most of our time – talking to the growers, getting advice, buying seeds and taking home catalogues to then order plants or bulbs that are hard to find anywhere else. So this plant fair, in Victoria’s St. Vincent’s Square, sounds like a perfect scenario to us. i.e. loads of nurseries exhibiting their finest plants, imparting advice, and selling everything on the spot too. OK, so there won’t be the same kind of displays you see at Chelsea, but nor will there be the same kinds of crowds. And we want to take actual plants home with us, which we can do at this fair, rather than just bundles of tempting catalogues, so for us, it’s win win.