The Baker Consultants team brought along our newly developed soil listening station, which helps us listen to what’s going on in the world beneath our feet. After a few early mornings of going behind-the-scenes of the RES show garden to pick up bugs to introduce to our lab tank, we invited guests to come and listen to the sounds of the earth with us and help us to determine the health of the soil, for which we determine through a simple mantra: “a noisy soil is a healthy soil”. We also met a few PhD students, who we hopefully inspired with our example of how it’s possible to commercialise academic study and make a real difference to how the Agri industry will function for the benefits of us all and our planet. It was great to be given such a fantastic opportunity to showcase our Ecoacoustic technology and how it can be used to support a sustainable future of farming for the food, farming and wine production industries as more and more consumers seek organic and sustainably farmed foods.
It was also a pleasure to spend time with the RES garden’s designer, Tom Massey, during our time at the show. It’s not often we come across garden designers who understand how to make insect-friendly spaces that are simply stunning. Tom’s design even inspired the RHS to add more plants to their “plants for pollinators” list – a great step towards encouraging more insect diversity in gardens across the country. Now the show is over, Tom’s garden will be moved to IQL Stratford, providing a space for urban wildlife to thrive in the heart of London and provide a living resource to inspire future insect scientists. Baker Consultants is also hoping to do some long-term monitoring of the RHS garden once it has made the move.
Whilst at RHS Chelsea Flower Show, we also had the opportunity to attend the RES fundraising auction and dusk drinks, hosted on their show garden – which looked even more spectacular in the evening. The auction, held to help the RES raise funds to support their insect research, had some interesting guests in attendance, from sponsors Mishcon de Reya to Koppert and Yeo Valley. Two lucky guests also won our “Wild Sound Experience” auction prize, who we’re are looking forward to seeing later in the summer.
All in all, we had a spectacular, jam-packed week at RHS Chelsea Flower Show and it’s certainly an experience the team at Baker Consultants will remember for years to come. Hopefully, our time and involvement in the RES show garden helped to raise the profile of soil health and the potential of ecoacoustics just a little through our involvement.
The Baker Consultants team is highly experienced and we are passionate about what we do. If you need advice related to ecology, surveys or conservation, then please get in touch with us via our contact form on the website, or you can call us on +44 (0)1629 593958 or email us on info@bakerconsultants.co.uk.