Customer Trial Panel

Customer trial panel member Bijal has been testing plants for Thompson & Morgan for a few years. He has just joined the blogging team and will be giving updates on his garden throughout the year.

Bijal Mistry

I started gardening as a child helping my mum planting baskets and tubs. I clearly remember going to the garden centre on Sundays every week without fail!

Having studied design through college and university and also working with home furnishings as my career, I feel that I am a fashion and design conscious person. However my garden is where I can go completely mad and experiment with all types of colours, shapes and forms without batting an eyelid at rules!

I love over the top, in your face bedding plant displays and the front garden and majority of the back garden is where I go wild with containers and baskets of all shapes and sizes.

The garden itself is a typical front and back that you would find with a semi-detached house.The front faces due south, so bedding plants love it here and I can even grow a few exotic things too, even on the outskirts of Manchester!

Over the years I have won many prizes for the garden in local Britain in Bloom competitions. My biggest win to date was in 2011 when I won 1st prize in the Front Garden Category of the Garden News magazine’s annual competition.

I have been trialing plants for T&M now for about 4 years and it has allowed me to try things which I would not normally grow, especially veg.

In an ideal world I would love to have an allotment and also an area where I can grow my own cut flowers. I would also like to be the holder of national collections of tuberous begonias and poinsettias, as these are my favourite plants. I probably wouldn’t have a social life or any friends, but I would be happy being surrounded by plants!

Rebecca Tute

Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.

The latest Thompson & Morgan customer trial panel member to join the blogging team is Shirley Reynolds.

Shirley Reynolds

Gardening is my every day pleasure. I just love to see the daily changes of bare soil being hidden by wonderful coloured flowers.

I tend my small garden like a mother does her baby! Up early, out early in the garden just to see what has grown overnight – it is amazing what grows in the dark. I talk about my garden and plants like a mum does her baby too! And yes, I am like Prince Charles… I do talk to them.

My garden is 27′ wide 20′ deep – small, but every bit of space is used. It is facing S.S.E and enclosed by high wall and high fencing, so it can get the sun all day long. It’s also sheltered, except when very windy – it just whips around. I live on an estate, but pretty close to the country – in fact just a few doors away.

My favorite plant has to be the lily. A plant that from a small bulb, a stem up to 6′  will grow, then shows off a beautiful flower head with an amazing perfume. The amazing colours and details portrayed on each large flower are spellbinding.

All my flowers are planted in containers. I do this so I can change them around as they bloom or die off. I also find them more manageable. I can put the ones that need overwintering at the bottom of the garden and cover them. I also grew my vegetables also in containers, but now I have dug up my lawn…less work than mowing lawns, plus fresh veg and salad as I want it.

Hanging baskets are also a favourite – from just 8 plug plants in a container  they can grow to 3′ across and sometimes 4′ hanging.

I am passionate about my garden. Gardening is therapeutic and very calming. It’s full of surprises too.

What inspired me to garden? Nature and watching something grow and blossom daily. Butterflies and bees, flitting from flower to flower. Ladybirds wandering over the leaves, seeming to go around in circles. Also Michael Perry and Thompson & Morgan inspired me for producing wonderful plants and the best lilies.

Also knowing I have given my time and care to help the growing of plants that are amazing. It’s simply a worthwhile adventure, something different every day. It makes me feel worthwhile too – they need me to tend them!

It is nice talking about the plants to people and also nice to be asked how do I do this etc, so giving advice that is appreciated. That’s also my inspiration and my love for gardening.

Rebecca Tute

Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.

Corinne Brown

I’m Corinne Brown, a 61year old retired geography teacher. I have been fortunate to have had a garden to play in all my childhood and a garden to tend all my married life (ruby wedding this summer). My husband is the grass cutter, hedge trimmer and maintenance man whilst I am the sower, planter, weeder and harvester.

Our garden is a larger than average suburban garden surrounded by hedges and fences. Its many features have changed throughout the 28 years we have lived here. But we have always had a large lawn for the children and now grandchildren to play on with their ball games, play equipment, tents etc. When the children were teenagers we had a large fish pond with beautiful water lilies and surrounded by bog plants. But that was soon filled in once grandchildren arrived. This area is now the strawberry patch full of raised beds and containers. As a working parent the flower beds were usually easy to look after perennials with self seeding annuals. Vegetables and fruit have been grown most years but as teachers we were often away for most of August just when the runner beans or strawberries should have been harvested.  Now we are retired we can go away once the crops have been picked and we have more time to tend to a wider range of crops. Vegetables are grown along one side of the plot along with fruit bushes and trees. As a vegetarian for over 30 years I try to grow a range of fruits, vegetables and herbs. There is an old greenhouse that has been patched up with some new glass panes after a very windy night last January and a newer cold frame which is handy for growing salad crops and hardening off plants from the greenhouse. The patio is away from the house just next to the green house. It is a quiet sheltered spot for relaxing in, eating alfresco and looking out on to the garden and planning what to do next. The garden gives hours of pleasure.

Borders and lawn

I live in Chester-le-Street, a town in Co Durham. Here in the north-east of England most gardening challenges have come from the weather. The growing season is shorter compared with towns further south. I have learned not to plant out too soon and to wait for the soil to feel warm. However more recently we have had extremes of weather. Three winters ago the snow was very deep and slow to go and unfortunately rabbits from the nearby railway embankment came into the garden searching for food. They ate the bark around most of the apple, pear and plum trees causing the trees to die. We have since replaced the trees and added tree protectors.

One lucky aspect of our location is that we have not been affected by water shortages. Last year we had terrific floods and saw the lawn transform into a pond of water. Many people said the extra rain was damaging their crops but we found our flowers, lawn, runner beans, cabbages and strawberries thrived on the extra water. The garden is fortunate to have very fertile loamy soil. Apart from adding compost from two compost bins and rich leaf mould from the beech hedge we do not have to add fertiliser to our borders and beds. This helps us to garden in a sustainable way and provides us with organic fruit and vegetables.

Runner beans

Most of my inspiration for gardening ideas comes from looking at other people’s gardens when out walking. For example when exploring the Pennines last Summer I saw beautiful delicate red astrantia flowers in a cottage garden and now I have them growing in mine. At the moment I am growing tall purple Verbena from seed because it looked stunning in the flower beds at Alnwick Gardens.

Since joining the Thompson & Morgan customer trial panel I have been introduced to new challenges and ideas. Previously I have always grown flowers from seed but since trialling the plug plants I have discovered another way to overcome our shorter growing season. I have been amazed how quickly the tiniest plugs can grow into strong plants with flower buds in such a short time. Also containers and hanging baskets have seldom been on my gardening to do list because they usually were dead when we returned from our August holiday. But now my aim this summer is to make over my patio with a range of containers and hanging baskets.

Rebecca Tute

Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.

Here is customer trial panel member Stephen Hackett’s profile – we’ll feature updates from his garden in the coming months.

Stephen Hackett

Inspirations
My earliest gardening memories are of helping my dad in his big gumboots, of running wild in my great aunt’s huge (or so it seemed to a small boy) garden in Hertfordshire, full of horseradish and apple trees, and of eating fresh redcurrants at my grandparents’ home in Yorkshire. The smell of warm, damp compost in the greenhouse takes me back to my Grandad Dickinson’s garden every time I slide open the door.

The thing that gets me most excited is a really good, big old-fashioned kitchen garden – Felbrigg Hall in Norfolk is my favourite.

Of people gardening today, Monty Don is the one who inspires me most: an excellent gardener, a fine writer, and organic to his fingertips. Dan Pearson is another gardener whose work I follow closely and Joy Larkcom is hard to beat on the vegetable side.

Experience
In my 20s I got interested in wildlife gardening (Chris Baines was my inspiration there) and in herbs. Since then I have gardened as a hobby for about 25 years, the last 17 of them here at our home in Salisbury.

In 2010 I retired from my career in education and took up gardening as a part-time job – alongside looking after my two small children and cooking good food for my hard-working wife – and I did an RHS Certificate at Sparsholt College in Hampshire. The gardens I work in are all private houses, along with a school, and they give me even more scope to develop new skills and experiment a bit.

My garden
The garden here is a typical Victorian terraced plot – over 100’ long and 20’ wide at the back. The layout has ‘evolved’ over the years, with lawns getting ever smaller and borders expanding to accommodate more plants. The orientation is east-west, so the north-facing side is in more or less permanent shade. Over the past couple of years I have replanted the front garden (50’ x 20’) – initially as a dry-shade garden, but since the loss of a 70 year old apple tree, it has acquired a lot more sun, and the options for planting have opened up considerably. I have an unheated greenhouse, and a very small pond. The planting is a mixture of herbaceous perennials, specimen shrubs, and year-round bulbs: if I have particular passions, they would have to include clematis, herbs and heucheras.

I also have an allotment nearby, where I grow vegetables and soft fruit, and where I am growing more and more flowers for cutting too.

The soil here in South Wiltshire is pretty poor – very alkaline, and full of ‘Wiltshire Potatoes’ (or flints, as they are more commonly known), but free-draining in the main. The allotment is on quite a sharp east-facing slope, so is very exposed to cold winds: raised beds are essential to create decent growing conditions. The weather, however, is generally kind and we suffer relatively few hard frosts.

Rebecca Tute

Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.

We’d like to introduce you to some members of our customer trial panel – our trusty team of gardeners who test Thompson & Morgan’s plants in real gardens. They’ll be writing blog posts for us in the next few months to give you updates on what’s happening in their gardens. Lucas Hatch joined the team at the end of 2012 and is our youngest member at the tender age of 11.

Lucas Hatch

Inspiration
I love all things gardening, and find inspiration from grandparents, parents, and Monty Don on Gardeners World. I love the whole experience of watching vegetables grow, looking after them, and eating them for the first time. I’m always looking out for new plants or vegetables to try, and enjoy planning the garden for the next season’s crop.

Gardening Experience
I started gardening when I was about 6 years old at home as well as at school. We moved to a house that needed a lot of work which inspired me to get involved. When I’m not gardening I spend all my spare time looking through seed & plant catalogues, reading gardening books, watching gardening programmes, or visiting my local garden centre. I like to plant from seed in the greenhouse, as well as taking cuttings to grow on. In 2012 I became the RHS Young Gardener of the Year which has spurred me on even more.

My garden
My garden is just under a quarter of an acre. It is mainly laid to lawn with informal and formal borders. I grow many different fruit and vegetables as well as flowers and shrubs.

Weather conditions
I live in East Anglia in a small riverside town about 8 miles from the North Sea coast. The wind however is mainly westerly and warmer than the occasional east wind. Rainfall is not quite as often as other parts of the country, and we usually have to rely on water butts and hose pipes. We do get quite a lot of sunshine though which is good.

Find out more about our customer trial panel and how to join the team here.

Rebecca Tute

Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.

We’d like to introduce you to some members of our customer trial panel – our trusty team of gardeners who test Thompson & Morgan’s plants in real gardens. They’ll be writing blog posts for us in the next few months to give you updates on what’s happening in their gardens. First up is Caroline Broome, who has been growing plants for our trials for 4 years.

Caroline Broome

I have been gardening since my 30s, for about 20 years, from a very small cottage garden 27ft x 12ft to our current garden 75ft x 30ft. I passed the RHS General Certificate about 15 yrs ago as an enthusiastic amateur and having built on that knowledge developed my garden to the point of opening it annually for the NGS for the last 4 yrs. We have a large patio with an assortment of pots and tubs, a small lawn (getting smaller) with curved herbaceous borders, a circular pond and rill surrounding a border featuring tall perennials and grasses, all leading to a shaded enclave full of ferns and woodland plants, a greenhouse and a summer house at the back. As our garden is surrounded by mature trees over 50% is shady so last year we took on a sun soaked allotment to grow fruits, veg and flowers for cutting. Both our garden & allotment sit on typical London clay which we are constantly improving; while the garden is very sheltered from the elements, the allotment is on the brow of a hill, exposed to strong winds, and floods in one corner, so we always strive to rise to these challenges.

I am the plantsperson and my husband is the hard landscaper. We love to experiment and inject humour and innovation into our garden. David installed a Magic Tap in the pond which is always a major talking point on Open Days, and I love to create unusual planting combinations with perennials that I hunt out at specialist plant fairs and nurseries. The patio in summer is a mass of climbers & trailing plants, colourful hanging baskets and bold exotics and  in winter is more subtle relying on evergreen forms and textures.

Trialling Thompson & Morgan products & plants has encouraged me to be more adventurous and broadened my skill base, and introduced me to vegetable growing, seed sowing and year round bulb planting. I look forward to sending in my progress reports throughout the season, and even after 4 years, am still apt to report on previous year’s trial plants! I also contribute to Garden News as part of their amateur gardening team on a monthly basis.

Find out more about our customer trial panel and how to join the team here.

Rebecca Tute

Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.