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 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.