AGM and ALD 2024

Andrew Ward - 60 Plants to Grow Before You are Compost

"I've always been electrified by plants. I think it's somehow hardwired in me” says Andrew who graduated from a childhood collecting carnivorous plants and earning extra pocket money by helping neighbours with their gardens to a degree in plant biology, a PhD in plant breeding and a career growing the plants he loves in the garden and nursery created with his wife Helen in rural Nottinghamshire.

In recent years Norwell has become renowned for its collection of hardy chrysanthemums. Today has around 130 of these undervalued autumn flowers, offering the biggest selection for sale in Europe. He suggests " winter can seem a very long time. People who say their gardens are all but finished at the end of June are missing out on so much". His Gardeners World appearance in March, when he discussed his Astrantia collection, was very well received and he is now concentrating on the development of his 16th sand bed.

Peter Williams – “A Year in a Woodland Garden”

Peter, a former principal lecturer at York St. John's University, is a plant and soil scientist, ecologist, statistician and lifelong gardener. For many years he ran a small nursery and plant propagation is one of his passions. In particular, he grafts rhododendrons magnolias and azaleas. He now talks and writes about horticultural matters and opens his magnificent five acre woodland garden in Yorkshire for charity events.

This garden at 'Weathervane House' has long been considered one of Yorkshire's finest. Over the past three years Peter has worked closely with John Grimshaw at The Yorkshire Arboretum and he also a Trustee and garden advisor at Burnby Hall Gardens in Pocklington which boasts a national collection of water lilies and probably the best preserved and maintained Backhouse rockery in the country.

Nick Hamilton – Barnsdale After Geoff (1996 to Present Day)

Nick developed his passion for gardening, aged 9, when his father purchased a derelict garden centre in Kettering. He worked with his dad at weekends and during school holidays. He trained at Writtle College in commercial horticulture and his sandwich year placement was at Darby Nursery Stock in Norfolk where he later worked and at other nurseries until his father purchased a piece of land, adjacent to Barnsdale, in 1989. This land formed the nursery and ultimately part of Barnsdale Gardens. Nick took over the running of Barnsdale Gardens when Geoff died and has developed it into the inspirational garden that it is today.
Over the years Nick has also managed to fit in appearances on Gardeners’ World, writing books, being a regular contributor to gardening magazines, talking to gardening groups, as well as tutoring most of the courses being run at Barnsdale. On top of all this he is still creating Gold Medal winning displays in the Great Pavilion at The Chelsea Flower Show and in the Floral Marquee at the Gardeners’ World Live Show. Nick is also the President of The Cottage Garden Society, a position he took up in 2007.