Horniman Plant Fair
Taking place across our beautiful Gardens, you can buy plants from small and independent nurseries run by specialist growers who are passionate about the plants they produce.
The Nurseries provide a spectrum of plants including cottage-garden favourites, shade-loving plants, alpines, trees and shrubs, succulents and many more.
Speak directly to knowledgeable growers and get advice from experts about what you are growing… or would like to!
We will also have a series of talks on our Bandstand, tours of the Gardens from the Horniman Garden’s team, and a workshop in our Pavilion. Find more details below.
This event is run in partnership with Plant Fairs Roadshow.
Although children are welcome, this event is aimed at adult visitors and there will be no children’s activities.
Tickets will be available on the door.
Various talks will take place throughout the day with an exciting panel of horticulturalists, gardeners and experts.
Tours
Come on a tour of the award-winning Horniman Gardens led by our amazing Gardens Volunteers team. Explore the Sunken Garden, Grasslands Garden and Micro-Forest. Details of timings available on the day.
Talks
Sui Searle | Gardening to remember
1pm – 1.20pm
How might gardening help to connect us to a sense of place, to ourselves, to each other and to our more-than-human kin? How might it help us to remember ourselves and perhaps even make us indigenous to place? Such apparently simple questions feel so deeply important and urgent in the context of our current times of separation, displacement, loss and in the face of multiple crises. Can gardening guide us in remembering?
Alice Vincent | Why Women Grow
1.30pm – 1.50pm
Alice will be reading from her book, Why Women Grow, outlining how and why she decided to embark on interviewing women about their relationship with the earth. Afterwards, there will be a chance to meet Alice with a book signing.
Katy Merrington | Shape-shifting Plants with Sculptural Qualities
2pm – 2.20pm
Katy Merrington, Cultural Gardener at The Hepworth Wakefield will share some of her favourite plants and dynamic combinations for year-round interest.
The Hepworth Wakefield is an award-winning art gallery in the heart of Yorkshire. Where a piece of unused land has been transformed into a beautiful flower-filled garden, free for all to enjoy, designed by internationally acclaimed landscape architect Tom Stuart-Smith.
Michael Wachter
2.30pm – 3pm
There are 23 million gardens in the UK, and each one – regardless of size – can play a crucial role in restoring wildlife and helping combat climate change. Michael Wachter, senior gardener at Great Dixter will highlight how gardening can become a vital part of enhancing biodiversity, how humans can be a keystone species in the landscape as well as how this work can reconnect us back to our roots.
Errol Reuben Fernandes, Michael Wachter, Sui Searle and Zena Alkayat | Panel discussion
3.10pm – 3.30pm
Parks, gardens and green spaces have never felt so important. The wonder of growing something from seed and the connection with nature that we experience when we garden or spend time in nature is something that everyone should have the right to experience. Our panel talk, chaired by our Head of Horticulture will focus on how we can achieve access to gardens, greenspace and horticulture for all!
Errol Reuben Fernandes is the Head of Horticulture at the Horniman Museum and Gardens. With a background in fine art, gallery education and psychotherapy as well as being botanically trained, Errol’s approach to landscape management, horticulture and design is creative, thoughtful and sensitive.
Michael Wachter is senior gardener at Great Dixter.
Sui Searle is a gardener, printmaker and writer. She has worked in botanic, public, private and community gardens as well as having spent a short period writing for gardening magazines. She is the founder of @decolonisethegarden which focuses on bringing a decolonial lens and anti-racism perspective to horticulture and is editor of the online gardening newsletter, Radicle.
Zena Alkayat is the founder of Bloom, an award-winning independent publishing house celebrating gardening and nature. Bloom’s seasonal magazine, beautiful books and creative events cover expert gardening advice, stories from our wild world and ideas to supercharge your love for the outdoors.
Collage workshop
Shaping Paper and Colours
Inspired by the florals and foliage found in Horniman Gardens, this workshop will help you to explore the possibilities of collage. Using the principle suggested by the attention restoration theory, you will be invited to restore your energy and use your time outdoors in the Gardens as an inspiration to compose decorating hand-made cards and leporello using paper and plant-based pigments.
Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck
Johanna is a painter, transdisciplinary artist and cultural practitioner artist based in rural Oxfordshire. Her practice is composed of painting, drawing, installation, sculpture, film, photography and writing. It often conceals ecological messages rendered in soft and delicate methods. In several of her projects interaction with the environment and others plays a central role.
Workshop info
Workshops will last for one hour in the Pavilion. Spaces will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
Workshops will take place at:
- 11.30am
- 1.30pm
- 3pm
Plant Nurseries attending:
- Beechbridge Plants
- Copton Ash
- Eleplants
- Fleur de Lys
- Hedgehog Plants
- Miles Japanese Maples
- No Name Nursery
- Online Garden Plants
- Pelham Plants
- Pineview Plants
- Rose Cottage Plants
- Swallowfields Nursery
- Zophian Plants
UrbanCrazy Golf
Plant Fair attendees can get a special offer on UrbanCrazy Golf – play one round, get one half price.
