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Timothy Penrose is honoured that Bowden Hostas has recently been granted a Royal Warrant from HRH The Prince of Wales, for Hosta Cultivation, the only Hosta company in the worldThe Royal Warrant to Bowden Hostas from HRH Prince Charles that has been granted this prestigious honour.

Timothy acquired Bowden Hostas in 2004 from his father-in-law, but is delighted that he and his team are continuing the family tradition of gaining RHS Gold Medals and have just been awarded their eleventh gold medal since acquiring the business. Bowden’s continued with their veritable ‘gold run’ at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show with (they think) the help of ‘Bishop George Bell', their new hosta.

If there was ever an Aladdin's Cave for landscapers then Nailsea Patio
Supplies is it and John Marshall the owner is the Genie of the Lamp!

A tiny part of the vast array of hard landscaping products: The land on the horizon is another storage area mostly for natural stoneHere, between the A38 near Bristol and the M5 right next to Nailsea Railway Station, you’ll find all those impossible to find hard landscaping materials that you need in any quantity: paving, walling, both ‘recon’ and natural, brick, stone, slates, gravel to pebbles of every size from every corner of the country and mulching materials of every type and colour imaginable from shredded tyres to broken glass. And the prices? They are not design for the pick and mix hand scoop, we talk in tonnes and square metres here and the prices encourage you to buy in those sorts of quantities. There are ornament and containers, pergolas and archways. On top of that there is fencing, edging, sleepers (old and new), timber and the decking. There is proper top soil too and silver-sand for horticultural use; I haven’t seen that being sold by the ton for years. John even recycles old building products for use as hardcore or footings or fancy mulches. There is a lot of recycling going on here. Wait until you see some of the exotic mulches that seem straight out of an outré garden designers’ handbook with crushed and tumbled coloured glass,bricks, metal, rubber and most attractive of all, recycled toilet bowls!

Once in a while you come across a photograph that is not just an image. It is a work of art, because it is more than just the image. It makes you stop in your tracks and holds your attention in theWalter Rowe with his Nikon D200 same way as a painstakingly crafted painting. But this is just a picture of something caught at a moment in time by the press of a button, held by a recording instrument and mechanically reproduced. Yet despite that, here is a photograph that expresses more than the eye can see, because it is taken by a person with an eye to see and at a time when he or she realises the full expression of the subject can be caught. The equipment the photographer uses, and how it is set and set up are all important. But like the painter’s brush and palette these are just the tools of the trade and the techniques to attain the final vision.

There are just a few photographers who can do this. Many of them come from a fine art background. Only one or two seem to have been borne with a gift that enables them to express themselves and something about their subjects through the medium of the static image. One of them is Walter Rowe.

Walter Rowe photographs water lilies and rock bands. Think about that. What do they have in common? There are two things his water lily pictures do pack. They are the vibrancy of a song and the impact of a stadium performance. On top of that he can make water lilies look sexy!

To see what made such an artist tick, I asked him for an interview and I was really glad he accepted. And so here are the bones of that interview, with some of his tasty pictures just to make plant photographers everywhere green with envy: