Gardeners' World Live 2024: Win a pair of tickets for Sunday 16 June, plus discount code

Once again I’m happy to pair up with the team at BBC Gardeners’ World Live for this competition where you can enter to win a pair of standard adult tickets to BBC Gardeners’ World Live at Birmingham NEC. The tickets offered as the prize for this competition are valid for Sunday 16 June, 9am entry with a RRP of £56.00. For details of how to enter please see the ‘How to enter’ section further on in this post. I also have a discount code which you can use when purchasing tickets, the code is shown in the ‘Use my discount code’ section also further on in this post.

As you know I love going to Gardeners’ World Live so it’s great to be able my readers the opportunity to go too. Below I’ve included what you can see at this year’s show, but if you want to see more from my visits to previous year’s shows then be sure to take a look at my posts - and come back here after the show, as I’ll be adding to that collection of articles.

What to see at this year’s show

• BBC Gardeners’ World presenter Adam Frost’s headline Show Garden, The Chef’s Table - a large walk-through garden full of vibrant home-grown produce, a rustic outdoor cooking and eating space. Adam will also host a daily programme of ‘plot-to-plate’ themed conversations and demos with chefs from the BBC Good Food Show including James Martin and Michel Roux.

• New for this year, and designed to inspire town and city dwellers is the Urban Gardening space, sponsored by Blue Diamond Garden Centre group - expect to see ideas, plants and products for creative containers, brilliant balconies and wonderful window boxes.

• On the Urban Gardening Stage Ade Sellars (aka The Good Life Gardener) will host daily sessions with a line-up of expert urban gardeners, and there’ll be a Showcase Garden showdown between the UK’s top young landscaping teams with both teams competing to build the perfect city garden designed by Cherry Carmen.

• The show is also the new home for the British Orchid Council’s annual International Orchid Show which will surely be the highlight of the Floral Marquee with displays by more than 20 specialist orchid growers and societies.

• Also in the Floral Marquee will be an expanded Hot Off The Potting Bench where you can see brand new plants and varieties close up. There will be Plant Expert Workshops and the Plant Expert advice desk, or you can soak up the floral advice from BBC Gardeners’ World presenters, plant specialists and special guests on the Let’s Talk Plants stage.

• Another new addition for this year is the Get Growing Stage - an informal, drop in space dedicated to the joy of home growing, as well as a daily programme of top tips and growing advice and alfresco cooking demonstrations.

• The highlights of the show for me are always the Show Gardens and this year they will be showcasing back garden designs inspired by the theme ‘The Good Life’. The Showcase and Feature Gardens are always a place to pick up ideas and inspirations for gardens sized more similarly to our own gardens, and the Beautiful Borders really are just beautiful and show how much can be done with a small space - their theme this year is ‘Share my Space’.

• You can catch up with the presenters from Gardeners’ Wold at the BBC Gardeners’ World Live Theatre who will be ‘in conversation’ with Nicki Chapman and swapping summer garden tips with the BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine editors.

• If you’re a keen indoor gardener then head for the House Plant Hub, which also includes a House Plant Market and Stage.

• There’s plants for sale too in the Floral Marquee, Plant Village, House Plant Market and new Urban Gardens zone, so make sure you have plenty of scope to carry your plants home!

• And the Health for Life Wheelbarrow Competition also returns, where children from local schools and nurseries create wheelbarrow planters with a ‘food and climate change’ theme which visitors can vote on.

• And finally, your tickets also include entry to the BBC Good Food Show Summer with demonstrations, theatres, stages and talks, book signing, tastings and workshops, street food and plenty of food and drink to taste and buy.

Phew. It’s a great day, but one that’s often full on - so make sure you’re ready for it. I love it!

How to enter

To enter to win a pair of standard adult tickets valid for Sunday 16 June 9am entry, you need to leave a comment on this blog post telling me why you want to attend Gardeners’ World Live, then click on the widget below and complete your entry - you can get more entries by interacting on social media.

Win a pair of standard adult tickets for Gardeners’ World Live at Birmingham NEC Sunday 16 June 9am entry

A winner will be chosen and contacted by email on Wednesday 15 May.

Use my discount code

Use the discount code* GARDENS20 for 20% off standard adult/concession entry tickets (excluding Saturday) - this code expires on 9 May 2024. From 10 May use the discount code* GARDENS15 for 15% off standard adult/concession entry tickets (excluding Saturday) - this code expires 6 June 2024.

*Discounts valid on adult/concession standard entry tickets on Sunday 16 June only. Not valid on Saturday, VIP, 2-day tickets, added extras or with any other offer. 20% discount offer starts on 1 February and ends at 23:59 on 9 May 2024, 15% discount offer starts on 10 May and ends at 23:59 on 6 June 2024. £3.95 transaction fee per e-ticket order. Details correct at time of publication.

Hooks with a difference

As I’ve said in previous posts, the obvious thing about moving into a new build is that you’re the first people to live there - and that means things like shelves and hooks just aren’t there. And you don’t realise just how much we take these kind of things for granted, until they’re not there.

I know that not having hooks isn’t the biggest issue in the world, but a hook-less cloakroom wasn’t going to be viable long-term so a solution - and hooks - needed to be found. It wasn’t right at the top of our list, especially as the cloakroom was initially a handy store for a few moving boxes that we hadn’t quite worked out where their contents should go just yet, but with friends and family visiting we wanted to be able to have somewhere to hang their coats, and also we wanted somewhere for ours too.

MOH was keen to just get something on the wall, but I know that game - once there’s something up that you may have compromised on, then it’s up and in use and it could be a while (if ever) before it’s addressed ‘properly’.

But I wasn’t keen on any of the hooks, or racks of hooks he kept showing me, and nor could I find the right hooks. So we remained hook-less for quite a while.

The issue for me was I’d seen some lovely hooks, that were quite distinct but couldn’t remember where I’d seen them, and so until I’d found them again I couldn’t move forward. Luckily my Google-search skills are quite advanced and I did find them again on the Nkuku site - along with many more decorative hooks (I’ve just looked again whilst writing this post and let’s just say it’s a dangerous place for my purse).

By this time of course MOH was ‘just buy the hooks’. So that’s exactly what I did, well after a bit of measuring, checking where pipes and cables might or might not be, and some soul searching on the price, but fortuitously all this meant I managed to time my order with their sale.

And the hooks arrived, three of them. Each with three moveable hooks, which required three screws for each wall mount. MOH regretted his stance when he realised that meant eighteen holes to make, but thankfully he agrees it was worth the while - and of course the first thing hung on the hooks was a cycling helmet!

And since then a lot more coats, fleeces hats and scarves. It’s quickly become a very usable storage space as we also store (amongst other things) our garden seat cushions, the internet router, umbrellas, our current go to everyday shoes - and our bottle bag for our empties ahead of recycling in here.

Though I’m hopeful that soon we’ll be able to put our winter coats away!

Walking East Stoke's Lanes this March

Two in a month - I’m getting back to my original planned schedule, well closer anyway. Though not wanting to get your hopes up too much when I looked back over my photos for March I saw there weren’t many. That’s an indication of the weather we had - in summary, rain, rain and more rain with quite a bit of wind thrown in too. None of which is conducive to pop out for a walk, but that’s how it is and it’s worth noting the weather too, and hoping that this time next year is more favourable.

It’s another month without a visit to the Red Gutter, and this month we didn’t even make it down to the Trent either. However, taking our chance with a break in the weather, and after another dismal weekend, we headed out on one Monday and one Saturday heading along Moor Lane on both occasions, so that’s where all of this month’s photos were taken.

That said, it was great to see the blossom appearing bringing with it hope that the seasons were changing, and that the rain and wind would stop at some point!

And there’s proof it didn’t rain the whole month, it just felt like it.

We made it to the bridge in Moor Lane which there and back is a decent three miler, and taking about an hour is (or should be) relatively easy to fit into our days. I’m writing that to convince and remind myself that all of this is on my doorstep and it doesn’t take that long, so needn’t be a great expedition.

It was really good to see the water levels much lower than they had been, and I’m sure I’m not the only one to be pleased with this. I can’t imagine the aggravation and hassle that the weather this winter has brought to farmers and builders, and anyone who’s work is primarily based outside.

There were other signs that Spring was on its way, daffodils growing in the wild always bring a smile. In fact daffodils growing anywhere are guaranteed to raise a smile from me.

But the fencing that was laid previously wasn’t showing any sign of growth just yet, though I’m sure it’s early days and for the ones that were cut, I’m sure it’s been quite a shock so that will take some time to recover from. (Spoiler - they look different in next month’s instalment!)

Thanks for joining me this month, I’ll be back to sharing the next instalment around the third week of the month, but in the meantime if you enjoyed this post you may also like some previous series where I revisit the same place - there’s my year in Greenwich Park and remember that time when I followed a tree?