Both our guests on the HortWeek Podcast broadly agree with the reasons for a peat ban and agree there is a need to reduce carbon emissions to help fight climate change. But they are not equally convinced a peat ban is the way to do it.

In the 'for' corner is cosmos and hollyhocks national collection holder and lobbyist Jonathan Sheppard.

Sheppard says: "You only have to look at places like Hampton Court where they have the peat-free garden where the plant list was massive. I've never seen a plant list as long which showed people that you can grow without peat. So I'm just wholly not convinced that you can't be a successful grower. But then I guess it depends on what do we mean by a successful grower. I just don't want to see rewards being given when there's an RHS sustainability strategy when using peat...It must be the wrong thing to do, given the science that we know about how much CO2 digging this cheap product up emits."

And in the 'not so sure' corner we have dahlia and sweet pea grower Darren Everest.

Darren argues: "Just for example in the National Dahlia Society, you try finding me one of the top elite growersn that don't use peat and I think you'll struggle to find any...growing flowers to national level requires a lot of time and years of knowledge and experience growing and I haven't found anybody online yet, certainly in the dahlia world, that has found a suitable non-peat-based product. "

HortWeek editor Matthew Appleby hosts the discussion which focuses on efforts to end peat use by growers and RHS exhibitors.

The pair reflect on their experience of using peat free and debate how significant the carbon emissions cuts achieved by ending peat use in horticulture will be.

The RHS plans to end peat use from 2026 and they ponder how this ban will affect different growers, awards, whether shows will attract fewer exhibitors and crucially, how it can be policed.

For more information on growers and garden retailers going peat free, see https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/peat

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ICL's Sam Rivers digs down into Integrated Pest Management and speifically IPM planning.

Sam describes what the current situation in the industry is with regards to IPM planning and details the 'hierarchy of control', which includes cultural, biological, physical and chemical methods.

He gives examples of the different types of controls and talks about regulations for biological control.

Sam warns that chemical control is a last option and lists some of the many new restrictions on chemicals that are coming in.

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GroundsFest 2024 took place10 - 11 September at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire. Initial visitor numbers from day 1 (unaudited) of 4,738 were 40% up on last year, the show’s inaugural year.

The podcast was recorded on day 2 of GroundsFest amongst the hustle and bustle of the show. HortWeek senior reporter Rachael Forsyth spoke with Chris Bassett, event director at GroundsFest, Jonathan Snowball head of professional at Husqvarna and David Fisher head of landscape and rural at LANTRA about how the show has been going so far.

Snowball explained that Husqvarna took advantage of the outdoor space making its entire stand a live demo area – one section for chainsaws and another for robotic lawn mowers and ride on machines. Bassett explained that this was a USP when setting up GroundsFest, allowing exhibitors to have that flexibility with their space and offering something different for visitors.

Fisher said conversations at the show centred around the skills shortage with LANTRA facilitating a “well attended” seminar on the challenges and opportunities in the amenity sector. Questions arose around where the next generation is coming from, keeping people in the industry, and how we can best show off what careers and pathways look like.

Bassett said the show has had really good feedback so far, and while you will never get 100% positive feedback the team is ready to make tweaks based on feedback for next year. Overall, though, Bassett said visitors are enjoying being able to get their hands on the kit and test it.

See: www.groundsfest.com

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