Our Peter Seabrook is honoured by top gardening bosses – with a garden dedicated to his memory
GREEN shoots are showing in a scheme to create a memorial to honour The Sun’s legendary gardening guru Peter Seabrook.
During the pandemic, our much-loved and greatly missed colleague, who died on January 14 aged 86, created an amazing Floral Fantasia garden at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Hyde Hall site in Essex.
Now the RHS and other top organisations from the gardening world are considering turning the colourful plot into a permanent tribute to Peter.
They will also be looking at a way of remembering him at the world- famous Chelsea Flower Show. Peter’s vision for Floral Fantasia, with its beautiful, colourful blooms, was for it to become a centre of excellence — an area to inspire gardeners as well as a trial location to assess new plant varieties.
He also saw it becoming a facility for training and education, where students could learn to raise seasonal ornamental plants.
Simon Crawford, of seed company Burpee Europe, says: “I watched Peter invest a huge amount of time and energy into Floral Fantasia over the past three years.
“It was definitely a passion for him and he saw it as a legacy of his work over the past 60 years or so. I hope we are able to come together as admirers of his expertise to ensure that his legacy lives on for gardeners everywhere.
“Peter was a true hero of our industry, respected worldwide, and he will be sadly missed. We must try to follow in his footsteps.”
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Father-of-two Peter wrote a Saturday column in The Sun for 45 years and never missed a week.
Today his final Sun Gardening column appears in the TV Mag.
It includes one of his famed competitions, with ten lucky readers each getting the chance to win a pair of winter gardening gloves worth £27.
At The Sun Online, you can also listen to his archive of weekly podcasts, which Peter never missed making, even when our studios were closed during the Covid lockdown.
From 1977 until he passed away, Peter helped readers discover the joys of growing plants and vegetables, as well as campaigning on behalf of hobby gardeners and passing on brilliant money-saving tips. In his last column Peter was still researching new inventions to help his readers.
During his epic career at The Sun, he created a series of dazzling, award-winning exhibits at Chelsea Flower Show, including the highly popular Sun Flower Street.
He often made a posy to give to the Queen on her visits to Chelsea and she always gave Peter’s flowers pride of place on her desk at Buckingham Palace. In his final weeks, Peter was planning his most spectacular display for this year’s show to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
Now the RHS, which organises the Chelsea show, is planning to celebrate Peter’s remarkable life in May.
TV gardener David Domoney said: “A tribute at Chelsea is a great idea. He deserves the best we can give him.”
As for Floral Fantasia, an RHS spokesman said: “Hyde Hall held a very special place in Peter’s heart.
“It’s where he ran Floral Fantasia so we want to think about what we could do there as well.”
Sun Royal Photographer Arthur Edwards says his close friend Peter was tending the Floral Fantasia garden the night before he died.
Arthur says: “We chatted on the phone that evening and he told me about his busy day.
“He visited the garden centre to look at new varieties, planted oak trees with school children for the Queen’s Jubilee canopy and rounded off the day by digging-in bulbs in his beloved Floral Fantasia garden.
“He loved that garden and had made it absolutely spectacular. He would be overjoyed at the idea that it will continue to bloom and grow.
“Peter always said that if you want something enough, it will happen.”
Also in today’s TV Mag, Steve and Val Bradley, Peter’s colleagues on the Sun Gardening column for 20 years, share their fond memories.
They too reveal the joy that he got from talking to readers and visitors to his stunning Floral Fantasia garden.
In his tribute, Steve says: “Peter is reunited with his beloved wife Margaret — and probably busy organising the Pearly Gates Gardening Show.”
