It is interesting to see how gardening adverts have changed with the horticultural industry and modern developments. Yet a top fruit business has in some ways stayed the same.

We are all pleased to see Ken Muir’s specialist fruit business is still on the go although Ken himself died in 2011 at the age of 85. This advert in The Garden October 1976 was placed when his mail order business was 10 years old. Ken Muir was famous for starting the Pick Your Own trend and supplying strawberries to Marks And Spencer. Unfortunately I can find no trace of Oldfield Nurseries – they claim an admiral slogan that we can take to heart  ‘We are NOT a garden Center -  We grow what we sell.’ Is it another case of use it or loose it?

Are weather vanes as popular now as they were? We get modern weather forecasts via all sorts of media but gardeners need to understand local conditions and what impacts on their own micro climates so there is a place for wind vanes.

Landsman bookshops suffered the fate of other specialist bookshops when information became a cheap commodity on the internet. This coincided with a drop in the number of students studying horticulture and farming. They lasted another 32 years after this advert  running a mobile bookshop which visited major agricultural and horticultural shows but then liquidation followed.

Andrews Lawn Edgers LTD  are not ‘ALE and hearty’ either! The Vintage Horticultural and Garden  Machinery Club reports ALE ‘sold many items including the Spintrim lawn edger, Billy Goat vacuum, Bluebird scarifier and the Cyclone spreader’ they have the adverts to proove it. I like the thought of Jenny the generator for the garden.