The Royal Horticultural Society is returning to the parklands of Cardiff Castle with a show that is ready to dazzle the Welsh capital with charming show gardens, beautiful displays of spring flowers and a host of fun activities for gardeners of all ages to enjoy.
History of the show
The RHS Spring Flower Show, Cardiff is in its fourth magnificent year.
The show was first held in 2005 and formed part of Cardiff’s celebratory centenary year as a city, as well as its 50th anniversary as the capital of Wales.
The show was officially opened by HRH The Princess Royal.
Prior to its return to the capital in 2005, the RHS last held a flower show in Cardiff in 1920.
Anthea Guthrie
Slugger Off!
Designer: Anthea Guthrie
Sponsor: Heronbridge Special School
Slugger Off brings together all the theories of natural slug control and breathes life into them. For not only is this garden a lesson in the school of life curriculum, it also is a charming visual feast of flowers and foliage. Organic, eco-friendly gardens don’t have to fit a formula and this one doesn’t either. It succeeds because it has been created in conjunction with real children, from a genuine school with a true passion for what they are doing.
The garden uses integrated pest control, specifically for slugs, but it will also assist in keeping other garden pests under control too. It’s designed to attract birds into the garden to eat the slugs. There are plenty of plants to bring insects into the garden that provide a food source for garden birds. Nest boxes provide safe havens for rearing young; these are made and designed by the school children in the shape of iconic Welsh buildings such as Cardiff Castle and the Coalhouse Cottages. Bunches of sheep wool from the Brecon Beacons hang in the tree. Local nesting blue tits have already homed in on this comfy accessory for their newly built nests, despite its proximity to a lively flock of birds created from recycled milk bottles by local sculptor Dominic Gubb and hanging in the trees.
The garden also includes a border packed full of slug-proof plants such as Heuchera ‘Palace Purple’, Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘Purpureum’ and other red-leaved plants, as well as tough leaved rosemary 'Mrs Jessopp’s Upright’ and silver-leaved plants like Convolvulus cneorum that also resists the ravages of slugs. The school children wanted to see if it was true that slugs preferred green lettuce to red, and have planted both colours in the garden to see for themselves.
The whole garden is packed full of great ideas with brilliant attention to detail; there’s even a slither inn for slowworms and other wriggly visitors and a hedgehog hotel made from an old cane chair. The uprights on the woven willow fence are all topped with empty snail shells, a warning to any slimy fiends that their presence is simply not welcome.
An old, dead apple tree supports a gaggle of dangling hand-made terracotta pots, crafted by the children and filled with herbs, salads and other tastebud tinglers. Normally these plants are slug fodder, but now hung above and out of reach of these voracious munchers - they tease and taunt any that slide beneath searching for food.
The garden will be recycled after the show and replanted back at Heronbridge Special School.