Tina Pasco at Salvo Fair 2010

Tina Pasco is a garden antiques dealer well known in the UK, France and USA for the past 16 years. Over the next few months she will be searching out the best garden antiques for her first stand at Salvo Fair.

Tina spent her childhood days in the overgrown gardens of derelict houses with dried up fountains and crumbling statues, whilst playing truant with her brothers. Her passion for garden statuary and ornament stemmed from these encounters. Years later she bought a run-down house with half an acre of garden and began trying to create a romantic garden with statues, urns, fountains and follies. "I kept on buying more and more, and in the end there was too much! Less is always more in a garden," says Tina. "So I decided to have a garden sale and began advertising. It attracted loads of people and I sold everything I wanted to sell. I began trailing around the big antique fairs in England and France buying and selling garden antiques. I used to go to Swinderby and sleep in the lorry for 3 days. At Newark I could find amazing things. Living in the lorry and doing the fairs was quite a hard life. I longed for a shop, and in 2000 found my present property which is a Georgian house, with a coach house and garden from which I run my business, Esprit Du Jardin'.

The only 'new' item Tina will bring to Salvo Fair is a Victorian-style mobile cloche, handmade by Suffolk Artisan and friend, David Le Versha. Tina says 'I met David at English antique fairs 15 years ago. He would bring along a trailer load of beautiful handmade benches, mobile cloches and greenhouses, and gazebos. If you didn't catch him within the first 20 minutes he would be sold out. We got on very well, and have teamed up to do Chelsea Flower Show in the past. David's bread and butter now is creating the mobile greenhouses for me, which means he can concentrate on beautiful one-offs like rose tunnels, gazebos, bridges or fern houses. It was David's daisy chairs that caused a stir at Chelsea on Diarmuid Gavin's stand. David will be coming along to Salvo Fair.'

The mobile cloche was designed by David Le Versha in 1995. It is made entirely in-house with exception of from the cast iron wheels that are made at a local foundry. The boards and seed trays are made from reclaimed or sustainably sourced timber. The idea is that the cloche can be moved around like a barrow. The boards inside can be lifted so plants or seeds in the ground can be covered by the structure. It can be painted any colour, but white and green are most popular.





Please note: Copyright to this design is owned by David Le Versha, and the product is available exclusively from Tina Pasco at Esprit du Jardin.

Tina Pasco

Salvo Fair