Shrewsbury Flower Show Gearing Up For Their 2024 Opening

Transcript

00:00I'm Paul Dibley, I'm from Dibley's Nurseries from Ruffin in North Wales.

00:04I think the first time we came as a nursery was back in 1976 or so.

00:09So I used to come round and when I was a toddler I used to toddle down to the playground down there,

00:13on my own back in those days, and just go and play down there while my parents were setting up the stand back then.

00:18We are a houseplant nursery, we specialise in streptocarpus, which is this,

00:22plus begonias, trascantias, lots of other houseplants basically.

00:25Unusual and rare houseplants.

00:28So this is the first time we've come back since before Covid actually,

00:33so we're really pleased to be back here.

00:35And we do lots of flower shows, so we do Chelsea and all the big ones as well,

00:39and yeah, hoping to do well here.

00:41My name is Mike King, I'm the owner of a company called Shropshire Saracenias.

00:46Saracenias is a genus of pitcher plants, which are carnivorous plants, like the Venus flytrap.

00:51Since 2002 without any breaks, apart from one year with Covid,

00:56when it was not happening that year, so ever since.

00:59So this is, got to get my maths right 20 seconds time in a row.

01:02Yeah, so basically it started as a 14 year old lad being fascinated by plants for eating animals for food.

01:10So all of them have got these adapted leaves to trap and catch and eat insects.

01:15But obviously moving on from that as you get older,

01:18the schoolboy's fascination of things being killed goes into things of beauty.

01:23And some of these plants here are actually my own creations.

01:27You know, it's a hobby within a hobby when you've got a cotton bud moving pollen from one flower to another

01:34and you see what comes out.

01:36So hybridising is the thing, anyone with a serious collection.

01:40You know, all of us who are growing carnivorous plants in any shape or form,

01:45actually using our plants to create new plants.

01:49It's worse than fuchsias, it's without end.

01:51It's infinite amounts of possibilities.

01:53I'm hoping so.

01:54There's twice as many, if not three times as many exhibitors in this marquee as there was last two years.

02:00So it's bouncing back.

02:02I believe there's 192 traders outside as well in the horticulture show.

02:08But inside, you know, this is like the old days.

02:13Going back to that, so we have 40 exhibitors in here compared to 11 or 13 as it was.

02:18It's a big difference, you know, and it's worthwhile to see.