Shows & Exhibitions for 2011

Naturally Wild has become one of the most quirky and demanded displays at exhibitions such as The Spring House and Garden Show, Young Scientist (Naturally Wild Bush Tucker Trials), Bloom Garden Festival (AIB Naturally Wild Play Garden). Look out for Dale and the Team at upcoming events.

Coming Up
Dale will be appearing with ERTH Dino Petting Zoo this weekend - July 2011. Check out the RDS website for more details.

Here's a report from one of Dale's shows:

GARDEN SHOW WAS NOT ABOUT GROWING THIINGS.
There is something odd going on in the world of garden design. We view endless gardening programmes on TV and, while some of them give sound sensible advice on growing attractive plants and vegetables, too many now concentrate on paving over every bit of open ground and erecting strange and stark structures which cost a small fortune and appear to owe more to the building industry than to horticulture. After half an hour at the recent Spring House and Garden Show in the RDS, I was wondering what on earth I was doing there as the show seemed solely aimed at the wealthy urban gardener and apartment dweller and was more an example of building expertice than gardening.

Now not everyone is lucky enough to own a farm with access to land and space to play around with garden design, but the word 'garden' seemed out of place at this show. And is gardening not supposed to be primarily about growing things? Simple crops like potatoes and runner beans can be easily grown in something as small as a bucket. These were not gardens. They are excercises in one-upmanship. A way of telling your friends and neighbours how rich you are.

Okay, so maybe this means that I am an old out-of touch, grouchy traditionalist. Perhaps that is true but I simply cannot appreciate what we are currently being told is the way to manage our garden spaces. I do confess to likeing the old fashioned cottage garden with flowers and fruit trees and bits of everything imaginable growing here and there and teeming with butterflies, birds and insects and a place to grow fresh salds and vegetables. You can keep the costly paving, hard landscapeing and glass and steel gazebos. Just give me a place where I can grow spuds, cabbage, carrots and peas and still enjoy scented flowers on a summer evening.

On the point of leaving the show, I accidently came upon the 'Naturally Wild' stand I almost missed it becuase of the crowd of children and their parents who surrounded it and blocked my view. Well the parents had no choice but to watch and wait becuase the children were totally captivated by what was on display. When I got closer I recognised the reason for all the interest. Along the front of the stand among the clumps of ferns, mosses, and cowslips were transparent boxes with frogs, lizards, spiders and all sorts of creepy crawlies. There were also magnifying viewing boxes, which the children could pick up and peer into, viewing centerpedes and beetles moving around. Among them all was Dale Treadwell an extrovert Australian man whom I had met some years earlier at the Ploughing Championships and who, even then with
his live beetles and other insects, had acted as a magnet for children of all ages.

The contrast between Dales style of wildlife gardening and the sterile concrete structures at the other end of the show area was striking. I think
I spent over an hour both talking to Dale and standing facinated as he entertains children with his tales of the wild world. I know for sure who
I would ask for advice on what to grow in my garden - and it will not be one of the modern crop of trendy designers, I have enough concrete in the farmyard.

Joe Barry