A rose by any other name

Last September, the Quest for Veg were invited to Glee – a show for the garden center trade.

Glee is the place where the garden industry comes together to launch its new ranges, latest innovations and next bestsellers. Over three days, 7,000 plus visitors come looking for the products that will fill the shelves of garden centres, high street stores and supermarket shelves in the season ahead.

We were invited as part of their bloggers publicity programme.

We had a fantastic day, we gathered quite a few seeds and other products to try over the coming season, so look out for:

• Mr Fothergills – Seasol seaweed concentrate
• Johnsons – Turks Turban and exhibition onion seeds
• Blumen international – various seeds from their ranges,
• Thompson and Morgan – four types of chilli seeds, and purple and pink radishes
• Plant Works Ltd (empathy) – rootgrow mycorrhizal fungi and tomato starter
• Solar Centre – a true flame solar torch light.

One of the stands we came across late in the day was Haws watering cans.

They explained that they would like to chat with professional gardeners about some of their products, and asked if they could keep in touch.

Not long after Glee, they asked us to review their Fine as Rain watering can rose range. I offered to put together a professional gardeners consultation group and began to recruit professional gardeners from different branches of the industry.

Little did we realise just how many variations of watering can rose there are – over 20 boxes arrived, each containing a different model.

I put together a questionnaire for the group and distributed the roses.

A couple of weeks later, the group gathered at Quest for Veg HQ to meet Richard and Andrew from Haws who travelled from Birmingham.

The evening was a great success. Who knew there was so much to say about watering can roses? They might look like variations on a theme but the differences in the way they functioned was remarkable. The group discussion was fascinating

We would all like to thank Richard and Andrew from Haws for the top notch watering cans they shared with us. Later this week Sandra and I are off to Birmingham for a tour of their facilities. We’ll let you know how we get on.

Duncan’s beautiful can

Dee was pleased with her can

Michael’s 8.8 litre professional can

Elisa says “Thanks for replacement can”

Elisa’s 8.8 litre proffessional can

Richard pleased with his can

Andrew gives thumbs up to his

Do you use a watering can? Tell us where how you chose your can – or how it chose you!