Meadow In My Garden have joined forces with RhizoPhyllia to showcase the essential and vital partnership between wildflowers and soil microorganisms in restoring and regenerating sustainable soil fertility. And in any setting too, whether your garden, allotment, field or local community. Eddie, Paul, and Loulou will demonstrate seed and seedling inoculations, composting techniques, and matching those nourishing wildflowers and grasses to whatever array of soil condition and location you might encounter. Every patch of bare or damaged soil, including those under mulch, are being denied the sugars and enzymes that roots exude to feed the microorganisms that evolved to return the 'favour' in spadefuls of stress-busting compounds, plant growth-promoting hormones, and natural biocontrol agents. We will be giving a series of mini-talks at our exhibit throughout the show and sharing our knowledge on stage because the natural systems we are talking about apply to ALL plants.
Eddie Bailey (RhizoPhyllia) is a geologist, organic gardener, and soil food web specialist and advocate. He is founder of the RhizoPhyllia School of Gardening (RHS Assessor's Award for Retail Innovation HCPGF 2023). Eddie coaches gardeners and allotmenteers from all backgrounds and experiences. Clients include River Cottage, Garden Organic, Le Manoir, RHS Wisley, and Beth Chatto's, as well as individual RHS medalists. Eddie produced the 'The Evolution of Plants through Microorganisms' show feature garden at RHS HCPGF 2024.
Paul Jupp is founder of Meadow In My Garden, a Community Interest Company promoting gardening for wildlife and biodiversity. He is among the UK's most respected distributors of wildflower seeds, a leading expert and public speaker on restoring habitats for pollinators and their dependant wildlife. Consulting at any scale, nevertheless Paul has a passion for garden spaces. He works extensively with the RHS, local authorities, private estates and individuals.
Soil microorganisms created land plants 470 million years ago. Those early plants wicked carbon from the atmosphere and helped develop a stable climate, and food, for life that followed. Beneficial microbes are now being discovered in all plant tissues including seeds passing on the mother plant's biological elixir. Indeed wildflower meadows are the driving force of habitat restoration following natural disaster or indeed man-made damage, working in close partnership with the soil microbes; the wildflowers feed the microbes with a photosynthetic smorgasbord of sugars, vitamins and enzymes, and in return the microbes supply the plants with a vast array of stress-busting compounds, plant-growth-promoting hormones, and biocontrol agents.
Events over the summer and autumn will give a perspective-shifting illustration of the partnership between above-ground and below-ground biological diversity and function that provides insight for all plant life.