Tatton reaches for the stars

RHS Flower Show Tatton Park is looking to the stars this year with its series of Galaxy Gardens.

RHS Flower Show Tatton Park is looking to the stars this year with its series of Galaxy Gardens.

Jonathan Price’s first show garden represents the awesome scale of the galaxy. Clusters of bright cordylines and sempervivums are planted through an elliptical spiral of raked gravel; all enclosed by a steel and wire vortex rising three metres into the air.

In Leon Davies' and Brendan Vaughan’s Gravitational Pull, chaotic plantings and acute angles give the dramatic impression that the plants are being ripped from the earth and pulled into a black hole.

Watch this Space, designed by Dori and Howard Miller for the National Schools’ Observatory, uses loose, airy foliage and spiral patterns to recreate the centre of the galaxy, with red and blue plantings representing different coloured stars. A telescope will allow visitors a close-up view of the centre of the garden.

Lingard Styles’ garden is a moonscape, complete with arid, monochromatic plants and a central glass geodome for growing edibles. The design was inspired by a theory that Saturn’s icy moon could support life.

Located in a natural woodland glade, Mike Russell’s The Star Gazer’s Retreat is a place to observe the stars by night and relax by day; complete with a sedum-roofed observatory, living sculpture and evening-fragrant plants.