Only a week ago I was in Moscow lecturing at The Moscow Home and Garden Show 2010 - what a great experience. I met Sergey at Chelsea last year and he invited me to be the overseas guest at this year's show - you never know where Chelsea is going to take you. The thought of going to Russia and lecturing through an interpreter was a little daunting, but after a few words of encouragement from David Domoney who did it last year I couldn't wait to get there! The Moscow weather might be cold - still a good depth of snow on the ground - but the welcome could not have been warmer. The show is young - only three years old. It is held in The Crocus exhibition centre - very modern - a bit like the NEC but more up to date. The Home and Garden show consists of four areas - Aqua Spa, Wooden House, Fireplace and Garden. It is a little like a hybrid between a trade show and a public event and of course being indoors in the winter it has a very different feeling from your typical English flower show - more like one of the North American shows. The event provides a showcase for garden designers and there are around 20+ small show gardens. There is little plant material available, so houseplants and artificial flowers are allowed to create the effect.
It would be easy to be dismissive about the gardens compared with those at a British show like Chelsea, but I couldn't help but think back to shows of 20+ years ago at Earl's Court and the rather more basic things we did in those days. Many of the Russian ideas were conceptual and highly original and the enthusiasm and passion was excouraging and humbling.
My lecturing experience endorsed my feelings about the whole event. Enthusiastic young designers in a young market and industry in a country which has been able to have little interest in the garden market until now. The passion for knowledge and enthusiasm for the subject was overwhelming - as was the realisation of how lucky we are not least of all because of our climate and the wealth of plant material available to us.
I shall never again moan that the winter has killed my phormiums and damaged my cistus. If the only evergreens you have to work with are a few conifers and deciduous shrubs are limited to a dozen common subjects, and you can still long to create beautiful gardens, then what should we be capable of?
Some who read this, if anyone does, may cringe when I say that I found the whole experience quite emotional. For the lectures I had a truly wonderful interpreter - Anastasya from St Petersberg who was a garden designer and horticulturist and she enabled me to get my message easily across to the 120 or so delegates. However even outside the lectures the language was not a barrier - even though I now speak only 5 words of Russian and many I spent time with spoke little English. However as often happens in the wonderful world of gardening there is a bond between the souls, an understanding that we all appreciate each others interests and share each others passion to create something to please others. It's quite difficult to express in words - perhaps that is why the language is somehow unimportant.
And what about Chelsea - well its been on hold and now its back to business. As soon as we get to the middle of March there seem to be horribly few pages in the diary between me and the event - so here goes.............
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