Exhibitors
SHOW GARDENS | COURTYARD GARDENS | CHIC GARDENS | CITY GARDENS
PLANTS | FLORAL ART | LIFELONG LEARNING | MARKET PLACE
Floral exhibitors in the Great Pavilion
Images: Martin Mulchinock
Hampshire Carnivorous Plants
This exhibit shows many species of carnivorous plant in a natural setting. Key plants in this display are Sarracenia and Nepenthes.
Hardy Plant Society
This year the Norfolk and Suffolk Group are making the stand. All the plants in this display have been grown by local members and the organisation has been undertaken by a small committee of seven.
In this exhibit perennial plants are woven in swathes and spires in an impressionist tapestry to represent the key features of the East Anglian countryside. The overall effect will convey, through form, texture and colour, the luminous and subtle qualities of Norfolk and Suffolk’s unique landscape.
The exhibit also reflects the predominant colours of the Norfolk and Suffolk landscape: cool blues, chrome yellows, whites and silver greys with a hint of metallic gold. Plants range from the more familiar euphorbias, digitalis, lupins and verbascums to the less common Cynara cardunculus, Helleborus argutifolius ‘Silver Lace’, Myosotidium hortensia, Glaucium flavum, Astelia nervosa, Aquilegia flabellata, and Salvia verticillata ‘Hannay’s Blue’. Plants with impeccable East Anglian connections such as Baptisia australis ‘Nelson’s Navy’ and Thalictrum aquilegiifolium ‘Constable’s Clouds’ also feature in this display.
The Hardy Plant Society started preparing for this year's Chelsea two years ago. In May 2005 a comprehensive list of possible plants was drawn up and the members of the Norfolk and Suffolk Group were invited to select plants for growing. At the last count, more than 100 local members were growing Chelsea plants in batches ranging from six to 300, amounting to more than 2,000 plants overall. In April, a month before the Show, all the plants are gathered together in one place for the critical stage of checking, selecting and cosseting.
As an amateur group, funds are limited; there are no capacious glasshouses or cold stores to bring on or keep back plants. The Hardy Plant Society says that what it does have is lots of enthusiasm, a determination to produce the best possible display, and the local group members and their good will!
Hardy's Cottage Garden Plants
Herbaceous perennials
Harkness Roses
The development of new roses is at the core of Harkness Roses business. At Harkness Roses, the rose breeding is non-technical - there are no laboratory methods, just pollination by hand, and reliance on the roses to carry out their natural cycle. The main part of a rose breeder's work is in observing and selecting, and the company's main focus is on seeking and selecting for better disease resistance, stronger perfume, more variety and unusual colours, and more blooms over a longer flowering period.
Robert Harkness and his team aim to guide gardeners with no specialist knowledge of roses towards buying with confidence and therefore deliberately exclude many popular rose varieties that are known to give poor results as well as collectors’ items and rarities, which although much sought after by rose specialists, can lead to disappointment when confused with free-flowering roses for general garden planting.
Harkness Roses has raised more than £250k for charity through the sales of roses and hopes that thousands more will be raised. The firm’s charity work started back in 1971 when the climbing rose ‘Compassion’ was launched to raise funds for the rehabilitation of prisoners. It became a world-wide favourite and is still a strong seller today. Top earners include 'Samaritan', 'Princess of Wales' chosen by Princess Diana for the British Lung Foundation, and 'Mountbatten' for SSAFA.
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Harts Nursery
Lilies
Harveys Garden Plants
Shade and woodland perennials
Helen & David Millner -
Orchids
This exhibit features Phalaenopsis orchids with ferns and moss in a garden type setting. The display has a Japanese theme and uses bamboo, gravel, moss and ferns.
Helen and David’s biggest challenge is getting enough plants in full flower at the right time.
Herons Bonsai
Hillier Nurseries -
climbers, hardy herbaceous plants, trees & shrubs
Arc & Texture
"Gardens are often rectangular plots with straight edges and it is easy to fall into the trap of allowing the lines within the garden to follow the boundaries: a rectangular lawn, long straight borders along straight fences, a rectangular patio made of square slabs, a cubic shed. Gardeners and designers make great efforts to soften hard lines with planting: why not start with soft lines and add more? Arc and Texture challenges the normal shapes and lines of the ingredients that make a garden, everything has a soft line: paving, buildings, containers and of course the planting.
"The Ark by Forest Garden is an organic structure that floats softly in the planting providing a shelter from the elements but never separating the occupants from the plants and living landscape. A building of impressive proportion it blends with birches, grasses and lush foliage, bowing modestly to the soothing powers of the garden. Stone islands are free-flowing forms of fluid design in close harmony with the natural environment. Hard surfaces?; yes; hard lines?; certainly not! Just sensual curved forms providing space in the planting, and perhaps a place to sit, reflect and enjoy the garden.
"Fusion planting blends the exotic with the familiar, the architectural with the naturalistic; loud colours meet soft muted tones. At the heart of the garden mirrored borders for today reflect current tastes in planting.
Flower colour is of secondary importance to foliage hue, shape and form; texture is everything."
Hippopottering
Japanese maples
Howards Nurseries
Hardy herbaceous plants
H W Hyde & Son
Lilies
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