Garden Centre

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Sheds in focus

In my garden, my shed is dedicated to horticulture – but it seems I might be in the minority. Apparently, even in these dark days of recession, shed enthusiasts are spending up to £25,000 to turn boring wooden structures into palaces worthy of Kublai Khan.

Part of the blame, if blame it is, belongs to the Shed of the Year contest, which receives around 1000 competitors a year. Last year’s winner has an octagonal pub complete with pumped beer, fans and glass doors, in which he entertains his rugby playing friends. He has three other sheds too, one for lawnmowers, one for bicycles and one for actually shed contents like pots, compost etc.

And there are celebrity sheddists. This year’s judges Sarah Beeny, from the Property Ladder TV programme and Radio 2 presenter Chris Evans. Hmmm. Neither of them strike me as being great horticulturalists. The other judge will Trevor Baylis who invented the wind-up radio in a shed!

The thing is, lovely as the idea of shed attraction is, it all adds to the pressure the poor gardener feels. Not only do you have to have a garden that is good enough for such luminaries as Alan Titchmarsh, you must have a water feature that would win Charlie Dimmock’s approval, your vegetables should be organic enough to please Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and now Chris Evans may turn up to poke around in your shed!

Labels: garden shed

The All Seasons Gardener at 9:07 AM

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