glee

I've even done videos of me in the shower standing in a bucket.

So it's the final day at Glee, which is why we are in florals.

And we're here with Dan Durston and Simon Blackhurst from Representing Durstons.

And we're delighted to say that you're back, returning to talk to us once more.

You know, it is getting better and better.

Yeah, yeah.

It's interesting because walking around Glee, there's quite a lot of products, not compost manufacturers, but people who are coming up with products will say, this will make your peat-free compost perform better because it's so rubbish.

It's an interesting one, isn't it? And

That just wasn't the case.

But we had fun and, you know, in trying to get plants into market and Uh, we went to Glee, uh, trying to get plants there like everybody was in front of the eyes of the garden centers.

And I remember going onto David Ross's stand, um, who was also an alpine grower.

Mm-hmm.

But it got people on the stand, so it got me thinking.

So one of our next plants that we introduced was Erigeron 'Canary Bird' from friends of mine in Seattle, and it's a sterile alpine, lovely plant, flowers for a long time, which we put into tissue culture.

And I thought, "Well, what can I do to get people on the stand?" So basically we took, bearing its name, Erigeron 'Canary Bird', we actually took our kid's canary in a cage to Glee and had it on the stand in the middle of these plants.

Now, can you imagine the embarrassment of every morning, not only going out of the hotel and walking with this cage under your arm, um, but then on the bus with all these growers, um, stepping into Glee and walking through the halls with this canary attached to your arm in a cage? And then I used to remember people coming up, uh, exhibitors in the quieter moments, uh, people like Alan Beaumont from Greenfingers, and he'd come up there smoking his pipe and he'd just say, "I'm just checking on the canary just in case there's a gas leak."

Is it called The Weekender?

Yeah, the Glee.

Deciding what we're going to eat, Michael kept talking about this damn seafood boil.

[laughs]

So, um, it's gonna be just, yeah, little bits and pieces across the board.

So I, I'm asking everyone at Glee this year, um, what's one thing, uh, that you think the garden center could actually learn from outside the industry?

I'm a big data person, but it's, it's, it's gotta be the level of detail that we go into when we look at our numbers.

Okay.

Signing up to our mailing list at theunderground.fm will mean that you'll receive insights and news all about new episodes straight to your inbox.

The Underground Podcast is produced by Righto Barna, a creative marketing agency for home and garden brands.

The production at Glee doesn't happen without a team of people behind it.

So my thanks goes to Matt Meen and Caterina Albanese from the Glee team for their help and assistance.

How funny was it, a- again, not funny ha ha, but funny like in a, because it's so audacious, when Josh Brolin keeps punching him at the end? Gladys is funny in a, in a very scary way because fables and storybooks also have a dark humor to them very often, and I think that's what you see sustained in this movie.

They, um, they have an adult glee because we, you know-

Glee is right

... you, you know that telling your children about people getting pushed in the oven is bad, but it's okay when it's a witch.

Bec- because life is so gruesome that the, the, the idea from an adult that the gruesome thing is gonna happen to the evil is pleasant, and kids don't understand that yet.

I wonder about his tastes.

I'm awaiting the follow-up crap show with Glee.

Well, Opie, after years of getting the wrong emails, you need to start having a little fun with it.

Thanks so much for sharing.

Yeah.

Welcome to this special edition of the Underground Podcast, and I'm here at Glee, uh, at the NEC in Birmingham, 2026.

And I am delighted to be joined by two guests today.

We have Natalie Boynton, who is sales director for Happy Plants, and Ed Hill, the managing director of Horti House.

Signing up to our mailing list at theunderground.fm will mean that you'll receive insights and news all about new episodes straight to your inbox.

The Underground Podcast is produced by Write Obara, a creative marketing agency for home and garden brands.

The production at Glee doesn't happen without a team of people behind it, so my thanks goes to Matt Meen and Caterina Albanese from the Glee team for their help and assistance.

And of course, my thanks goes to my brilliant co-host, Kate Turner, the gardener guru.

I think one of the reasons it's great to grow organically is because it isn't that hard.

So why wouldn't you? So obviously, you know, we come to somewhere like Glee and there's lots of things to help bash the bugs on the head and increase the fertility of your soil.

And some of them obviously are genuinely helpful.

But I've been growing organically from the beginning and...

They've just got the whole thing up and running so fast.

And we've had an amazing summer when we launched with 20 varieties this spring and we'll have 45 by next spring.

Obviously, we've got our stand here at Glee and we're chatting to lots of people and they seem to really like it.

Of course, there are a lot of vegetable seeds out there, very well represented here.

Like, I get it.

Like, I love it whenever, maybe when I have a gig, like a Glee weekend, and I go, "Do you know what? I've got weekend." And I c- I can't do stuff at home, 'cause I'm not physically at home.

'Cause if you're at home, you've got a, "All right, well, that, I need to decorate, I need to clean, I need to-

Yeah

But no, I do get...

My only worry is with the garden centres and the way they're going is I've walked through Glee and some of the things, and you might call me a snob, and that's fine.

Some of the stuff...

I know.

That's what I'm talking about.

There's so much more.

And I just think I would like Glee not to be showcasing these products that have come all the way from China.

Yeah, it's so difficult because I also do see a small market for that stuff.