Garden centres vow to boycott magazine after Don’s campaign
WHEN Monty Don advised readers of Gardeners’ World to avoid buying massproduced plants from garden centres he had protecting the environment in mind.
However, hi s comments have resulted in a backlash from the centres themselves – and they are now threatening to stop stocking the magazine.
Don, the BBC presenter, has been criticised for “attacking the industry that employs him”.
Andy Bunker, director at Alton Garden Centre in Essex, told Horticulture Week: “How on earth can you be a garden centre that’s advising your customers not to buy from you?” Mr Bunker, who said he sells up to 100 copies a month of the magazine, has advised other garden retailers to follow his lead and boycott it.
Don had written in Gardeners’ World: “We should not be buying cheap, massproduced disposable plants but either grow them ourselves or buy them l ocally from small producers. We should each own the impact of what we buy and how it contributes to carbon emissions.”
He added: “No garden centre should stock” peat or peat-grown plants and “if they do, then they are actively choosing to do harm. Cheap mass produced houseplants and bedding potted into peat cheers people up. There has to be an alternative that is just as accessible.”
The British Protected Ornamentals Association also hit out, asking the presenter to visit its growers. James
Alcaraz, its chairman, said: “We are all used to politicians… saying particularly stupid things but we do not expect it from someone within the industry. I should accuse Monty Don of being bad for the environment, all the hot air and CO2 that is emitted from his lips, no amount of tree planting could balance out his personal carbon footprint.”
Mr Alcaraz added the industry was trying to become more sustainable, phasi ng out plastics and using f ewer chemicals. Don recently signed a new two-year presenting contract with the BBC show of the same name. Part of his job involves presenting the coverage of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
The presenter told The Daily Telegraph he hoped that the industry would work with conservationists to solve the problems of peat and over consumption instead of taking sides, and that as along as garden centres continued to sell peat and other products they were “part of the problem”.