Things I’ll Be Doing Today
Today I won’t be at the Mount Congreve Garden Festival selling my rare and unusual, sustainably grown plants raised from seed in peat-free compost and grown using organic principles, because ISNA aren’t accepting new members AGAIN this year. So, despite Mount Congreve being 40 minutes down the road from me and the only fair in the same county I’m in, I won’t be there.
I’ll admit, I’m a bit pissed-off about it. It feels like a proper kick in the tits to be honest. Since 2020 I have been grafting my hole off building Individual Plants Nursery, literally carving it by hand from a hill side. It’s just me, I don’t have volunteers, helpers, employees or even a useable site, and unlike a lot of the ISNA members, I can’t open to the public so fairs are my only outlet to direct sales. I am literally growing for the sheer love.. but that love can only last for so long. I have spent years creating a client base, literally hustling a reputation to get my name out there with ZERO input from Ireland’s ONLY association claiming to represent “the best of Ireland’s small independent nurseries”.
Social media has been my main source of help, connecting me with my customer base and networking me with people who have welcomed me and given me generous advice and media coverage, BUT, to be included on the list of nurseries that ISNA represent would potentially make a huge difference, since they are a well established, national source for people to go to when looking for nurseries that grow choice plants! They also organise the three main fairs down my end of the country!
I’m getting tired. To be honest, it might be more lucrative for me to concentrate my energy on my freelance work and save the thousands of euro I spend every year on running the nursery and let it go to the briars. When your own industry representatives aren’t allowing you to be represented by them, despite you trying, for whatever reason (the reason given this year was because they’re “streamlining the application process”) then it does begin to feel like, what is the fucking point!?
A quick bit of research and I found that ISNA only plant fairs have rapidly declined in the last five years and so many independent nurseries that used to be on their list of members have ceased to exist. Ireland is a small pool, with a limited customer base to support niche nurseries, so I get it if the board, or whoever organises things, are keeping a tight rein on member numbers so that their members have less competition.. but please just be brutally honest about that, it is after all an association, not an organisation, they’re not obliged to take members if they don’t want!
Anyway, so, today I was meant to be doing a talk in the park for a mental health charity but my voice is going, so instead I’m going to prick out, pot on and propagate in my polytunnels, all my rare and unusual plants grown from seed, using my very expensive organic peat-free potting compost, whilst dressed in skanky tracksuit bottoms and a vest, with zero underwear on…
You’re welcome. Good luck today lads! Hope you have a great day of selling! Go and support ISNA members if you can, small independent nurseries are more likely to be doing things the right way and you’re supporting actual human people, not a faceless brand. You can find me bloody hours away all the way up the fucking country at RHSI Russborough House plant fair next Sunday, LOLS.
