All the fun of the plant fair: where real gardeners do their shopping

These gatherings of specialist nurseries are brilliant sources of exciting specimens and expert knowledge

Gardeners, a horticultural pal of mine has always said, are an inherently thrifty bunch. Some of us will pay a hefty price for a particularly good pair of secateurs or boots, but in general, the car boot sale spade can be a trusty companion, certain perennials exist to be divided, and seeds are to be saved, swapped and sown. I think that’s why all the plastic tat sold in garden centres – often with a tenuous connection to gardening, at best – winds us up. As one particularly old-school garden writer once espoused, plonking annuals in a window box isn’t gardening, it’s shopping.

Still, there are certain commercially minded events that I look forward to with the same fervour I did the Clothes Show at Birmingham NEC as a teenager (if you know, you know); this month is particularly good for them.