THE
TEESSIDE BRANCH PHOTO GALLERY
Plant Sales
The Branch holds several sales each year in various
locations including botanical gardens, shopping centres, market stalls,
charity fairs and shows. In most cases, as well as a range of individual
plants of varying sizes and prices, ready made bowl gardens, books and
sometimes packets of seed are also on offer.
There is always free advice available from our
volunteers, though sometimes conditions are less conducive to customers
stopping to talk and ask questions - the picture on the right (below) was
taken at Yarm Charities Fair on an particularly inclement day. It was breezy
and never stopped raining; all day the area where the stall
was pitched was under the threat of a red flood warning with the nearby
River Tees in serious danger of inundating the town. Indeed the Police
did eventually call a slightly early halt to the proceedings as the waters
rose in the adjoining side streets!
Plant sales are extremely important to the Branch.
They have several major benefits including:-
-
publicity - literally hundreds of members
of the public are spoken to over the course of a season, thus raising public
awareness of who we are and what we do
-
recruitment - contact with so many people
is a valuable source of new members
-
fundraising - several hundred pounds are raised
each year, this is used to fund Branch activities (principally room rent
and speaker's expenses)
-
sale of plants - the sale of good quality
plants to the public, at extremely fair prices, accompanied by free advice,
encourages more people to grow these fascinating plants
The quality of our sales stock and of the presentation
of the plants has improved dramatically over the years. The two pictures
below indicate an improvement between 1988 and 1992, but the more recent pictures show the quality of presentation we now try to achieve.
We are also now more self-sufficient, having purchased our own market stall.
| Photographs at Durham Botanic
Gardens by Viv Brooks and at Hartlepool Horticultural Show by Brian
Unwin. All other photographs by John Ellis |
The copyright for all pictures on
this site remains the property of the BCSS Teesside Branch and the original
photographer. Anyone wishing to reproduce any of them for whatever reason,
either as hard copies or for website use, should e-mail their request giving
full details of the intended use. Such requests will generally be looked
upon favourably provided they are for none commercial purposes.
