We’ve got two tickets to be won for Toby’s Garden Festival at Powderham Castle in Devon on Saturday April 30, worth £150, for two green-fingered garden fans.
The prize includes a slap-up lunch from The Kitchen Table, and a chance to relax in the 14th century’s castle’s stunning music room and library, overlooking the ancient deer park.
The main headliner this year at Toby’s Garden Festival is BBC Gardener's World presenter and garden designer, Arit Anderson. If you’re a fan of RHS flower-show coverage, you can’t have failed to notice Arit, with her stylish flair for flowers and fashion.
After 25 years in the retail fashion industry, the TV gardener traded Dior for dahlias, re-trained in garden design at Capel Manor, and subsequently snaffled two coveted RHS awards for her designs at Chelsea Flower Show 2013 and at Hampton Court in 2015.
Ten years on and Arit is now a familiar Friday night face on BBC 1’s Gardener’s World, as well as a trustee for the National Garden Scheme while heading up an eight-part series of podcasts for BBC Gardener’s World Magazine, Growing Greener, where she interviews experts on ways to grow, eat and garden more sustainably.
Arit is joining Toby, the BBC TV and radio presenter, along with a host of other speakers and plant nursery exhibitors, on Saturday April 30 to share her design tips and insights into gardening more sustainably - everything from looking after your soil to growing a few veggies, even if you’re an ardent flower fan.
Two Devon gardens Arit may find time to visit while in the county are The Garden House at Buckland Monachorum and plantsman Keith Wiley’s garden Wiley at Wildside.
She adds: “Keith’s designs are inspired by nature but not trying to mimic it. We don’t want the weeds! But he manages to interpret and evoke something beautifully natural through his gardens.”
Get more planet-friendly garden tips from Arit at Toby’s Garden Festival on Saturday April 30 at Powderham Castle, Kenton, nr Exeter. Tickets £12 online in advance (£15 on the gate), under 16s free, dogs on leads welcome.
