Sparrow and Finch

Our Raised Kitchen Garden continues to be a firm favourite. This planter is perfect for growing herbs, vegetables and even flowers right outside the back door. It makes snipping those herbs for the meal you are preparing, or collecting a few veggies, a breeze. Here is a lovely feature in Real Homes Magazine, May issue.

Our Dig For Victory Posters add a real splash of retro chic to any setting. We are glad you love them. Here that are featured in the April edition of LandLove Magazine.

They say:-"Down To Earth. This eye catching 'Grow Food on an Organic Farm' poster from Sparrow & Finch is a contemporary interpretation of an old war 'dig for victory' poster. The eco-conscious poster celebrates growing your own and eating fresh, locally produced food, with a bright and dynamic illustration. Printed onto recycled paper."

We have once again gone international!! Our Beehive Planter has been featured in Leben Magazine, a leading publication from Austria.

They say:- "Der Trog its 60cm hooch & 40x40cm breit und hat einige Locher, aus denen Krauter, Erdbeeren & Co.  wachsen konnen. Der Vorteil: Die Anbauflache wird vervierfacht, und die pflanzen sind vor Schnecken fast sicher. Beheize Plantet, Sparrow & Finch"

This year at Chelsea we have much less space on our stand than we have ever had before.  As you know our products are not small and deciding what to take and what to plant has been a challenge.

When it comes to the planting for Chelsea, there is instantly a great deal of pressure.  You are surrounded by Show Gardens that have extraordinary amounts of money available to them in order to have the best plants available, some show gardens are years in the making and plants are brought from all around the world.

Even though we are are not a show garden, and we are a trade stand, visitors to the show see everything on the same level, so your plants need to be able to compete with that gold medal winner.

Added to that, your plants need to withstand some rough handling, firstly they have to be at their best for a whole week, during that week they will be pulled and prodded, if you are outside they will be exposed to all kinds of weather; will it be a heat wave, will it be downpours, maybe this year it will be snow!  If you are inside how will the plants react to the artificial lights, the shade.  The criteria is endless ...

In previous years we have used a variety of methods to source our plants, we have grown them ourselves, we have bought plants and we have had some specially grown for us.

Every year the plants and the planting are far and away the most stressful part of exhibiting, and every year the process has been difficult.  This year we are doing things a little bit differently and we are taking a leaf out of the show garden designers book.

We have teamed up with a fabulous wholesale nursery, right on our doorstep in Hever, Kent.  How Green Nursery have taken up the challenge to grow all of our Chelsea plants for us, hoorah.  Simon Sutcliffe and his team have an invaluable amount of expert knowledge about all things horticultural and Simon’s passion is Herbs, so be prepared to see some unusual plants at Chelsea this year.

We know we are in safe hands, as Simon is also growing plants for Chelsea Gold Medal winner Roger Platts the garden designer of this years M&G Show Garden, called Windows Through Time.

Simon has a brief, to grow plants for our -

Tomato Garden

Living Larder Raised Planter

Kitchen Garden Living Larder Raised Planter Std & Lrg

Beehive Planter

Cold Frame

Chiddingstone Planter Lrg

Hever Planter Std

Groombridge Planter Rectangle

Apple Pickers Ladder

A-Frame

Window Box Herbs

Next time on The road to Chelsea Flower Show - Visiting How Green Nursery.

Samantha x

Getting ready for Chelsea Flower Show is always a little bit stressful, okay a lot stressful.

Although we are a trade stand and not a show garden, there is a lot of pressure to look perfect, it is not enough to just turn up with your products and set them out, you have to be as green and planted as possible.

 

 

 

 

Our last two Chelsea stands have been what are described as ‘open-ground’ which means that you are allocated an agreed amount of space and when you arrive it is bare earth.  You have to turn it into your trade stand, literally from the ground up.  This type of stand requires the most amount of physical work and normally involves being on site for at least a week before the show, building your trade stand, before you can even think about displaying your products.

 

 

This time around we are doing things a little bit differently.  We have applied for and been allocated a ‘shell-scheme’ stand, which is a stand with walls, a floor and a roof (hoorah my own little home away from home).

I am beyond thrilled to have my own little tented world, however, this is not quite as straight forward as it seems, first of all you do not have any flexibility with a shell-scheme stand, it is what it is and you have to work with it.  Often space is limited, fixings are difficult, and everything from the colour of the walls to the floor coverings is down to you.  What you get is space, empty space, no lights, no electrics, just bare walls and a floor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now I like a challenge, I also like getting creative and this year I can do that without nearly so much help from the workshop (did you hear that collective sigh of relief).  There is even a wonderful man at the company that build the stands, that will help you with securing walls, erecting shelves, building cupboards painting and laying new floors.  So you can pretty much design your stand, approve the quotes (best to close your eyes when you do this) and then turn up on a designated day and set out your products.

Easy, I hear you say?  Oh no, not so fast - that might be the bones sorted but there is still that itsy bitsy teeny weeny issue of planting and being as green as possible.

Before this however, you have to decide what you are going to display on your stand, this involves graph paper, scale rules, sized cut-outs of all of your products and lots and lots of patience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At this point, everyone has an opinion - nobody wanted anything to do with the stand design, but now that it comes to products, we all know best.  What should go at the front, what should go at the back, on the left on the right, what shouldn’t go at all, you get the picture, and just when you think its done, start all over again and then again.  As I said the word here is patience, oh, and the odd sleepless night.

So once the products are decided, and yes there does come a point when the collection is decided.  We move on to the planting.

This year our stand is looking directly at a show garden on main avenue, even though we are not a show garden and we have not been designed by a famous garden designer you still need to look as if you have.  My intention at Chelsea is for the look of a show garden to flow seemlessly into our trade stand.

As well as judging taking place for the show gardens, trade stands are also judged, and although we all pretend it doesn’t matter if we win or not, we secretly want to our hard work to be recognised, after all there is no other show quite like Chelsea Flower Show.

Next time - On the road to Chelsea Flower Show, I will tell you all about the process of growing the plants and of achieving that green and planted stand we’ve been striving for.

Samantha x

The English Garden has our Cold Frame as the Luxury Item in the Spring Shopping section of their May 2013 issue. We have designed this like all of our products, to first and foremost do its job, we then add the beauty. We think we have achieved that.

Once again our Tomato Garden is centre stage. This raised planter has become very successful for us. Not surprising, because not only does it look beautiful. it works perfectly as well.

They say:-" Rooftop Toms- If you're keen to grow your own tomatoes, check out the specially designed living larder from Sparrow & Finch. This raised planter is ideal for patios and balconies and has a built in A frame to support your plants."

Our Window Box Herbs is one of those products that I designed "off the cuff" with Darren in the workshop. I love designing this way, and it really worked well with this beautiful planter. It has a really nice feature here in the May 2013 edition of Listed Heritage magazine

They say:- "Herb Window Box By Sparrow & Finch - You really don't need a garden to enjoy fresh herbs, plant them in our Window Box Herb Planter for a fragrant, functional addition to your kitchen.

Remember the more you pick herbs, the more they grow. Snipping or pinching stems will head off flowering, which can make your herbs bitter, and you will end up with fuller plants, so the Window Box Herbs makes the perfect addition to your kitchen windowsill. Individually handmade using traditional methods in our workshops."

Our Tomato Garden takes centre stage yet again. This time it has a lovely feature in the Garden Essential section of the May 2013 issue of Period Ideas magazine.

They say:-"Garden Essentials - Help your garden blossom with our selection of new designs -  Cultivating Taste - Nothing is as satisfying as home-grown tomatoes, so get planting with this Tomato Garden by Sparrow & Finch."

Another magazine feature of multiple products of ours. This is the other page to our A Frame in Living Etc Magazine. Our Tomato Garden is proving very popular with the magazines, and quite rightly so we think (Well, we would, wouldn't we!!). It is perfect for growing the most fabulous tomatoes, be it vine or bush varieties. I like to grow different varieties on mine, and last year I had a fantastic crop that kept me in fruit for the whole season. My tip:- plant a couple of Marigolds in the middle of the planter, this deters the bugs without the need for horrible pesticides.