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Novel inspiration for garden design
Some of Britain’s best known literature has provided inspiration for novel garden design at this year’s show. Visitors can enjoy the transformation of literary excellence into show-stopping garden design as some of our favourite novels are given a horticultural makeover at the floral extravaganza.
Designed by Christopher Moss, Far from the Madding Crowd will depict the escapism and tranquillity of Thomas Hardy’s 19th century novel of the same name. This tranquil garden features a thatched open hut accessed via a timber bridge suspended over a large pond. The garden will incorporate a range of sumptuous, exotic plants that are easy to maintain, as well as providing a diverse habitat for wildlife.
Isak Dinesen’s autobiographical Out of Africa has inspired Louise Ward and Lucy Hunter to create an Art Deco style show garden. The best-selling book, later adapted into the 1985 film starring Robert Redford and Meryl Steep, describes the experiences of a group of European settlers to Kenya during the early 20th century. The centrepiece of the garden will be an elevated tree house with a cascading water curtain falling into a plunge pool and surrounded by lush planting, drawing obvious similarities to the colonial Kenya described in the novel.
Conwy County Borough Council, competing in The RHS National Flower Bed Competition at the show, with its take on Lewis Carol’s Alice in Wonderland. The book has a special place in the hearts of local people, as the ‘real Alice’ regularly spent holidays on the west shore of Llandudno. The flower bed will feature upright floral sculptures of Alice, the Mad Hatter and a white rabbit, placed on a checked floral table cloth with two fabricated playing cards.
Lancaster Council’s use of Laurence Binyon’s poignant war poem The Fallen is aptly timed with the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme this month (July). The bed has been designed around one of the poem’s most poignant lines, “at the going down of the sun we will remember them”, depicted with the rays of a setting sun planted from red through the colour spectrum to yellow.
Alfred Tennyson’s poetic tribute to the British cavalrymen involved in an ill-advised charge during the Crimean War, The Charge of the Light Brigade, has inspired designer Clive Scott’s show garden that will take visitors ‘Into the Valley’. The garden will adopt the form of an open book with planting to reflect the mood of the poem; sabre-like Crocosmia 'Lucifer' will stand proudly amidst flowing Stipa tenuissima and the end of the valley will see a phalanx of Perovskia atriplicifolia 'Blue Spire' (Russian sage).
The forecast shows a bright and sunny outlook
The competition is hotting up as the garden designers make the finishing touches to their displays before judging begins for those coveted RHS medals - they will be hoping that both the weather and the judges will be kind to them.
None more so than Jamie Dunstan of PSI Nursery whose show garden, Long Hot Summer, is a contemporary Mediterranean design that provides shade and lounging areas in which to enjoy both the sights and sounds of summer. After winning an RHS Gold Medal for his back-to-back garden at his Tatton debut last year, Jamie’s design is eagerly awaited.
The heat is certainly on in the show’s magnificent Floral Marquee, where Robert Bird of Bridgend Nurseries is launching new plants Geranium ‘Summer Skies’ and Geum ‘Blazing Sunset’. Cookoo Box Nursery will also be feeling hot, hot, hot with its display of feisty chillies, with all hoping to impress the judges with their impressive and eye-catching displays they are painstakingly working on.
Also sun worshipping in Tatton’s Floral Marquee will be Sarah Clark of Green Garden Herbs with her Salvia greggii ‘Desert Sun’ and ‘Sungold’ cultivars, although things could cool down later on with her Echinacea purpurea ‘Prairie Frost’.
Probably the only person on site who will hoping for some rain during the show will be Andrew Parsons, whose Rainy City Garden is specifically designed as a back to back space for the wet, Manchester weather. His moisture-loving planting will be craving a rain shower, and without it, his unique ‘rain chime’ accessory will not make a sound!
Schools out
Children are enjoying the great outdoors as hundreds of pupils from schools across the region head for the RHS Flower Show at Tatton Park.
For some their trip to Tatton will give them the opportunity to see the end results of a project they have been working on. For others it will be the chance to see a garden that will become part of their school grounds. Such is the power of horticulture, that it has also been the catalyst to bring together two merging schools and make links between two schools on opposite sides of the world.
Into Africa was a project developed for Tatton, but that will have impact much further afield. It rediscovers the links between Lord Egerton, once the landowner of the Tatton estate, and his reserve in Kenya through the combined efforts of children from Egerton Primary School in Knutsford and children from Egerton School in Africa (now part of Egerton University). An educational exchange has seen the two schools celebrate the legacy of Lord Egerton, who in the nineteenth century grew vegetables at Tatton in order to produce seeds that he would take out to Africa for food production.
At Tatton an African school garden is being recreated using a Masai theme, expressed through shields, spears, an African hut and African wicker animals made by Knutsford school children. The planting will include traditional African staples such as maize and tomatoes.
In Salford, Radclyffe Community Primary School and St Clements Primary School are preparing to move to a new shared school in September 2007. One of the first ways of bringing the children together culturally has been driven through horticulture. Children from both schools have been working on a show garden, A Healthy Future, that is being built by the Northwest Regional Development Agency at Tatton and which will go on to form the central feature of the grounds at the new premises. Promoting healthy lifestyle and ‘five a day’ eating messages, the garden revisits a traditional walled kitchen garden to address issues such as sustainability and biodiversity.
Reaseheath College in Cheshire has taken on the task of working with not one, but eleven schools! All of the plants for The Plot have been raised by children from infant and junior schools in Cheshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire so that they could discover for themselves the origins of food and to encourage schools to create their own gardens. Carol Adams from Reaseheath explains, “We want to use our garden as a platform to demonstrate what could potentially be achieved in primary schools across the country to promote the ‘five a day’ message and a more vocational approach to the national curriculum.”
The plants in The Plot show garden will be housed in the Growing Spaces dome, which is not unlike one of the Eden Project domes. Working off solar panels, reflected heat and insulation means that tropical fruits and plants can be nurtured within the dome. As an outdoor classroom, history, science, geography, design and technology can all be taught within this one garden.
Students from the Welsh College of Horticulture (supported by Fforwm Tirlun) were set the brief of designing a garden for St Brigid’s School in Denbigh to promote an understanding of plants and to link into national curriculum subjects. The project gives the opportunity to explore environmental change, sustainable development, life processes and living things in a garden, which pupils from the school have also had the opportunity to help design. A secret den is one of the wishes that has been granted and the involvement of the children is acknowledged through a copper tree that has their names stamped on the leaves. After its appearance at Tatton Stepping Forward will be rebuilt at the school.
Schools across the region are turning their classrooms and playgrounds into jungles thanks to a project from BBC North West Tonight. ‘Classroom Jungle’ gives school children the chance to win for their school the garden being created by designer Janine Crimmins and team at the RHS Flower Show at Tatton Park. The garden captures the spirit of adventure, allowing children to feel lost amongst over-sized colourful plans set against walls of vivid red and orange.
Continuing the theme of classroom gardens, Cheshire Wildlife Trust is ensuring that its garden goes to a good home after Tatton. Its Naturally Victorian garden has been used as an educational project to help children understand the influence that Victorians had upon our gardening habits. More than 700 children have entered a competition to have the garden rebuilt in their school grounds.
The RHS arrives at Tatton
The RHS has arrived at Tatton Park to begin converting the sprawling estate into the showground that will play host to the North’s most prestigious outdoor event.
Tatton Park is being transformed into a 29-acre showground; 1,353m (1,503 yd) of perimeter fencing has just been erected and the team is about to start building the marquees, which will use enough canvas to cover 60 Wimbledon tennis courts!
Week commencing 3 July, as the layout nears completion, garden designers and their teams from all over the country will converge on the site to begin work on getting the show gardens ready. They will have just under two weeks to prepare their displays before judging takes place and the show opens.
Buddha to travel to show by canal
If you see a 1m (3ft) high stone Buddha serenely floating along the waterways of Cheshire over the next few weeks, it’s the centrepiece of the Meditation Garden at Tatton Park.
Deborah Oakley, a landscape architect who runs her business from her gardening shop in Hebden Bridge, is at Tatton for the first time with her back-to-back garden. It has been designed to provide a calm, quiet place for contemplation and meditation and includes restful planting, a pebble mosaic and evergreen shrubs.
She will be travelling to the show with the statue by her canal boat, which is part of her ongoing commitment to sustainable living.
Get on board at Tatton
BBC local radio stations from across the country will be broadcasting live from the BBC buses, so why not get on board and share your views about the show.
The buses contain the very latest multimedia facilities, and journalists and trainers will be on hand to help visitors have a go at everything from broadcasting to blogging.
Look out for them - they will be located to the south west side of the showground close to Avenue F.
Flower Show holds the UK Skills Floristry Final
The UK Skills & Oasis Academy Floristry Finals will take place on 19 July, which is the culmination of a number of regional heats held across the UK.
The UK Skills categories incorporate both entry level and advanced level florists, while the Oasis Academy competition is open to more advanced artists with a minimum of four years' experience.
Find out more by visiting www.skillschallengecompetition.org.uk
Event of the year
The 2005 RHS Flower Show at Tatton Park has been named as Event of the Year at the prestigious Visit Chester and Cheshire Annual Awards.
Announced at the ceremony at Chester Racecourse, the flower show was shortlisted alongside runners-up Chester Food & Drink Festival, Crewe Open Day and the Thundersprint.
This accolade reinforces the show’s status as one of the top national events on the summer calendar. This has been achieved with the support of the region as a whole and in particular due to close working relationships with partners that include the NWDA, Cheshire County Council, Cheshire & Warrington Tourist Board, and Tatton Park, to name but a few.
The RHS Flower Show at Tatton Park will now go forward for England’s Northwest awards, with the winners of that stage moving on to the Enjoy England Awards for Excellence.
Bright and breezy colours
Garden designers are set to make pinks and reds this season’s hottest gardening colours, with a combination of pale shades and dark pink crimson tones adding a bright and breezy atmosphere to the show.
Penny Meadmore has designed an unashamedly girly garden, appropriately named Pink, which will feature textural pink planting and walls of wood and glass enclosing a peach-shaped deck surrounded by a pool of circular water.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, bright shades of crimson provide the setting for a passionate summer evening in the Crimson Crush garden designed by former RHS Bronze Medal winner, Philippa Probert.
Tatton to provide visitors with peace and harmony
Visitors are guaranteed a bit of peace and harmony from two beautiful Zen gardens this year.
In an interpretation of a classical Chinese scholars garden, Utaxus Garden Designs’ Garden of the Waxing Moon uses a fretwork gate, a bamboo grove and a moon window to provide a peaceful retreat. Plants such as pine, prunus, pomegranate and a banana tree will also feature, representing different elements of China.
Deborah Oakley is also incorporating many calming influences into her back-to-back garden design, enabling the space to become an escape from today’s busy world. The Meditation Garden will use a Buddha statue as its focal point, with six low oak seats to allow space for sitting and meditating, and restful planting surrounding wavy paths and a dark still pool.
New Eucomis to be launched
Kevin Pratt of Poppy Heads of Stockport is launching a new Eucomis at the show that was bred from E. comosa, which is, as yet, unnamed. It grows to 50cm (20in) high with bronze-red foliage and rose-pink flowers and is ideal for dry gardens and poor soil. Kevin is a National Collection holder and grower of both Eucomis and Fritillaria.
Pet- and wildlife-friendly gardens
Some innovative garden designers are busy finalising their pet- and wildlife-friendly gardens.
The West Kilbride Environmental Group has put together a garden for feline friends. The Cat Lovers and Their Cats back-to-back garden will include highlights such as underground tunnels, foliage for shade, cat toys and a range of non-poisonous plants approved by a toxicologist at the Feline Advisory Bureau.
Back-to-back gardens from the Cheshire Wildlife Trust and Butterfly Conservation have been designed specifically to attract wildlife and insects, and many other designers are also incorporating special areas and havens in the garden for all sorts of fauna.
Africa comes to Tatton Park
This year’s show is set to be influenced by the superb flora of Africa, with designers taking some inspiration from the continent’s dramatic landscape and exotic nature.
Former RHS Gold and Silver medal winners Lucy Hunter and Louise Ward have joined forces to create an Art Deco-style show garden inspired by the multi Academy Award winning film Out of Africa.
Tatton Park’s head gardener Sam Youd, meanwhile, has teamed up with Egerton School in Knutsford to develop Into Africa - a back-to-back garden taking inspiration from a Kenyan school garden. Here shields, spears and an African hut will feature alongside traditional staples such as maize and tomatoes.
Edible gardens
With growing your own increasingly being the order of the day, the show is featuring a set menu of edible gardens.
Jacqui Brocklehurst of Colour My Garden has designed a back-to-back space called Eat My Garden, which shows how a garden of any size can be used to produce healthy, organic food in an artistic and creative way. The garden features a relaxed seating area surrounded by plants that can all be eaten, including sunflowers, poppies, fennel, marigolds, sweetcorn and oats.
Exhibitors in the floral marquee are also getting in on the act, with an a´ la carte selection of basils, mints, bergamot and rhubarb from Green Garden Herbs, as well as a choice of unusual fruits, veg and herbs being displayed by Cookoo Box Nursery.
New layout
2006 will see a new show layout for Tatton, to make the site easier to navigate and to allow room for more gardens. The proposed plans adopt a grid method system with avenues and rows crossing the showground to make sure that visitors do not miss any element of the 24-acre site.
Bedding seminar
Now it its second year, the RHS Amenity Bedding Seminar takes place on Friday 21 July between 10am and 3pm. It will feature speakers including Stuart Lowen from Ball Colegrave, Andrew Middlemiss from Leeds City Council and Neil Lucas from Knoll Gardens.
A keynote message on improving Green Skills Awareness will also take place, as well as the presentation of the award to the Best Flower Bed in the RHS National Flower Bed Competition.
Tickets for the seminar can be booked over the phone by credit card on 0845 612 1253.
Gardens become outdoor classrooms
Education is firmly on the timetable at this year’s show as many of the gardens become outdoor classrooms for children and adults alike.
Eating five portions of fruit and veg a day is the message of the North West Regional Development Agency’s show garden, which is based on the healthy eating curriculum being implemented in primary schools across the region.
Students at Reaseheath College are also using their show garden, entitled The Plot, to provide a real outside learning experience for visitors, in a space that highlights how the garden can be used as a valuable educational resource.
The British Bedding & Pot Plant Association will educate the gardening public on how to use pot and bedding plants to their best effect with its Butterflies and Bubbles show feature, while Fforwn Tirlun’s Stepping Forward Garden will demonstrate the importance of play in its back-to-back garden for St Brigid’s School in Flintshire.
Fairtrade comes to Tatton Park
The global Fairtrade movement is coming to Tatton Park, with Vale Royal Borough Council’s special show feature based on a Costa Rican village.
Visitors will be able to walk through the garden’s vibrant atmosphere filled with artisans, musicians and storytellers while they can take a look at the market stalls packed with Fairtrade produce and discover where these goods can be bought in the UK at no extra cost than regular produce.
The garden will be planted with Fairtrade flowers, lush tropical species, as well as varieties linked to Fairtrade products such as banana and coffee plants, vines, sugar cane, and apple, pear and citrus trees.
RHS National Flower Bed Competition reaches new level
Teams entering the RHS National Flower Bed Competition are becoming more and more creative as the event’s profile increases even further. Highlights include:
Conwy County Borough Council is symbolising Lewis Carroll’s immortal Alice in Wonderland book, which was said to have been written in one of the Council’s coastal towns - Llandudno, while Bury Metropolitan Council, on the other hand is portraying its annual World Championship Black Pudding Throwing Competition.
Howzat! is the title of Nottingham City Council’s flower bed, which pays homage to the historic Trent Bridge cricket ground, and will feature giant cricket stumps, while Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council is using its exhibit to display the abstract, multicultural and colourful vibrancy of its varied communities.
Cheshire Group NCCPG
This year, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales is sending trees from his National Plant Collection® Fagus to Tatton, as well as his National Plant Collection® Hosta to enhance the Cheshire Group’s display in the show’s National Plant Society’s Marquee.
New National Plant Collections® making their debut in the marquee this year include: Heliotropium held by Mrs Shirley Palmer from Nottingham; John Millington is showing two new Acanthus from the National Plant Collection® Acanthus - Acanthus eminens and Acanthus pubescens; and Shirley and Terry Tasker of Southport are unveiling a new cultivar of Begonia rex called ‘Lazy River’.
Victoriana comes to the RHS Flower Show at Tatton Park
With Victoriana high fashion on the catwalks, designers at this year’s show are embracing this golden age and taking 19th-century style as the inspiration for their gardens.
Robert Frier of Charlesworth Design is using the ultimate Victorian garden accessory, the fern, to dress his back-to-back garden creating a tranquil, low maintenance retreat entitled Pteridomania, literally meaning, ‘Mad for Ferns’.
The Cheshire Wildlife Trust’s back-to-back garden, meanwhile, designed by Jo Capstick and Nicky Saddington, features another 19th century ‘must-have’, a stumpery. Here, uprooted tree stumps are arranged to form a natural sculpture that provides a safe haven for woodland plants and wildlife.