Planet Friendly Gardening

Many nurseries across the Festival are now embracing, or well on their way to achieving, peat-free growing, including Celtic Wildflowers, who will be bringing an array of locally-sourced native plants, shrubs and trees and providing advice on boosting numbers of pollinators.

There will be two pot-swapping stations, located next to the Floral Marquee’s Plant Crèche and within the Plant Village. Here shoppers will be able to exchange plastic containers for plantable POSIpot transportation sleeves, which can be planted straight into the ground. All the plastic pots collected during the festival will be recycled after the long weekend.

With both the cost of living and the sheer joy of growing plants for free in mind, nurseries such as Proctor’s will be bringing along medium to large-sized herbaceous perennials that can be easily divided and shared, such as achillea, leucanthemum and nepeta. There will also be an array of herbs that root well in water, such as mint and oregano, with the Kitchen Garden Plant Centre offering a big selection.

Seed seller Stocks & Green, located on Avenue D, will have lots of vibrant annuals.

Showground Sustainability

RHS Malvern Has Promised To Continuously Improve Its Impact On The Environment And Empower Its Visitors To Make More Planet Friendly Choices.

Some of the changes we’ve already made are:

Plastic, Bags & Pots

Plastic bags have been replaced with biodegradable, paper or tote bags for use in the Floral Marquee, Plant Village and Plant Pavilions
Visitors are being encouraged to bring their own bags for life and there will be re-usable bags available to buy on site
A site wide ban of plastic bags from traders has been implementeD
As part of the 3P Free Zone you will be able to take any plants you buy during the Festival home without the plastic pot. This will be made possible by a ‘POSIpotting’ bench where you’ll be able to swap your plants over from plastic pots into a compostable and plantable POSIpot system, for free! You won’t even need to take the plant out of the POSIpot for planting at home as it can be planted in the pot. All plastic pots collected at the Festival will be taken for recycling.

Show Build & Planning

We’ve made upcycling a focus of the 2023 show to help influence attendees to be more sustainable outside the show
All compost for show gardens and feature gardens is sourced locally from Worcester County Council, is peat free and derives from garden waste
All our trade stand and plant shop banners are reused
In building the festival, we procure goods and services from responsible suppliers who share our sustainability aims, and we prioritise local when we can

Food & Drink

Free water refill stations have been installed across the showground to minimize usage of plastic bottles
Visitors are encouraged to bring their own bottles
We have increased plant-based food offerings at the festival
Visitors will be encouraged to bring re-usable cups

Greener Travel

We actively encourage visitors to attend the festival using public transport
We provide a free shuttle bus transporting visitors from Great Malvern station to the Showground and back again, to reduce cars to site and to reduce the environmental footprint of the show. This runs every 20 mins each day of the show
EV charging points are provided
Bicycle racks are provided at West and South gates to encourage cycling instead of driving

Electric Vehicle Charging Facilities

We have six 7.2kw Type 2 charging points located inside red gate for the duration of the show located in Gold Parking
Type 2 charging leads are provided
The charging points are free to use for show visitors and offered on a first come first served basis. The facilities are not available to pre-book and you do not have to have paid for Gold Parking to use the EV charging facilities
We ask that visitors only use what they need and request that those using them in the morning move their cars after 4 hrs, allow the charging points to be used by other visitors in the afternoon

Waste

All of our waste on site is collected and stored in our secure waste compound to then be taken to a Materials Recovery Facility where it is sorted and processed to ensure all recyclables are sent through the appropriate routes. All of the non recyclables from this process are then sent to incinerator to be turned into energy.