The conference, titled ‘Technical Times’, featured visits to Hawkesmill, Ball Colegrave Bordon Hill Site, Newey Avoncross and New Leaf, where the IPPS motto of ‘Seek and Share’ was truly on display.

A wide selection of speakers presented during the three days, successfully covering a range of topics from plant health to plastics, the breeding of Hellebores to Daffodils, biofungicides to responsibly sourced growing media, and smart IPM to electronic trading. The three-day conference enabled delegates to mix and share experiences and information from around the horticultural industry.

Presentations were awarded during the Thursday evening dinner, with Ben Gregory, IPPS Europe President, awarding the Rose Bowl to Kees Eigen Raam. The Rose Bowl is given each year to the person who has exemplified the IPPS motto to seek and share. Louise Heissell was this year’s six-pack winner of the exchange visit to the US where she will spend two weeks in 2020 visiting the US IPPS annual conference being held in Tulsa.

During the evening, the traditional IPPS conference auction was held with over £1100 raised, being equally split between IPPS scholarships and Acorns Children’s Charity.

Karl O’Neill, the conference organiser commented: “I would just like to extend my thanks once again to all those who presented talks, to the nurseries who enabled us to visit and sponsors of the conference; this is what makes the conference so enjoyable and successful for those who attend."

The 2020 conference will be held in Edinburgh, 7-9 October 2020.