In this episode Joff hops on the train to Paddington and navigates the London underground to find The Business Design Centre in Islington, London. It's the Garden press Event and he get to talk to some amazing people who have produced some equally amazing and well thought out products.

Previous guest on the podcast Andy from Dahlia Beach tells us about her flower farm, the highs and lows of growing flowers, and her plans for 2024. Joff tries to sell her a double decker bus.

Sue O'Neil form Genus Gardenwear is launching a fabulous new product - The Pro-Pant. Feature rich, designed by gardeners, and built to last these trousers are going to be a firm favourite amongst professional gardeners and landscapers. 

Guy Grieve from Atlantic Garden has lived an intersting life writing books, living in the wilds of Alaska, diving for scallops in Mull, and now turning seaweed into a product that will put the life back into your soil.

Alex Curran started Roots Plants three years ago and has a network of UK nurseries supplying sustainable plants with provenance. 

Dick Woods from Finches Friend has decided to combat the problem of parasite transference on garden bird feeders and has produced several new products that will save a lot of our garden birds from trichomonosis.

Stuart fro Niwaki introduces us to a new secateur the latest addition to there fabulous range of japanese garden tools.

In this episode Joff talks to Adrian Bloom about his new book FOGGY BOTTOM - A GARDEN to SHARE.

From breaking turf in an empty meadow in 1966, to its near maturity in 2023 it is the story of a garden and its plants. That’s a 56-year-old garden with stories to tell. 

More important in Adrian’s view is what the Foggy Bottom Garden represents today and how many more can benefit from sharing it. He shows and describes changes in weather and habitats, dramatic seasonal changes shown through the diversity of many worthwhile plants.  

How to keep a balance between design and ‘right plant’, ‘right place’ and need for change as the garden grows and develops. Adrian has continually adapted his garden as the once empty windswept meadow became sheltered and shaded. Flooding still happens from time to time, spring frosts seek out early flowers, occasional gale blows the tops out of trees.

Joff discovers Adrian's early passion for speed skating, how a seed brought back from his adventures is now a 100 foot Redwood tree, the fashion for conifers and the changing markets. The early days of Foggy Bottom from a stark new-build bungalow with a small garden to a six acre garden planted as a test ground for perrenials and conifers. 

To have a look at the books and it's contents or to purchase go to the Foggy Bottom website here.

Derek Gow is a farmer and nature conservationist. Born in Dundee in 1965, he left school when he was 17 and worked in agriculture for five years. Inspired by the writing of Gerald Durrell, all of whose books he has read - thoroughly - he jumped at the chance to manage a European wildlife park in central Scotland in the late 1990s before moving on to develop two nature centres in England. He now lives with his two children on a 300-acre farm on the Devon/Cornwall border which he is in the process of rewilding.

Derek has played a significant role in the reintroduction of the Eurasian beaver, the water vole and the white stork in England.

He is currently working on a reintroduction project for the wildcat.

I ask Derek about his transition from Scottish farm to Scottish wildlife park to a 300 acre rewilding project in Devon.

We talk extremes from huge water buffalo to tiny harvest mice and from Heck cattle whose sole aim in life seems to be to kill you to water voles and white storks. 

Derek is a straight talker with a dislike for commitees much prefering to be hands on getting jobs done while others continue to discuss and debate. 

If you like what you hear you can stay on Derek's farm to see for yourself what he's getting up to. Go to www.rewildingcoombeshead.co.uk