Hampton Court Flower Show.

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I was lucky that my husband agreed to take me to the Show this year. He’s not a gardener! However, as our daughter lives within half a mile of the ferry, we can stay with her and see the family as well as the Show.

We caught the ferry from Richmond and floated off down the Thames.

It’s a delightful way of getting to the Show – no traffic or parking problems.

In my innocence, I had thought that going on a Members’ Day it might not be so crowded – wrong!. I think everyone else had the same idea!

The Show was divided into three ‘Areas’ this year; ‘Grow’, ‘Inspire’ and ‘Escape’ – all colour coded on the plan and in the catalogue, with matching banners to show you the way round. I think it would be impossible to see everything, though.

We started by looking at some of the Conceptual Gardens. ‘Ashes to Ashes’ is all about the dreadful Ash disease, and the new hope of breeding disease-free trees.

It was a bit scary, with its gravestones!

This heap of fridges was called ‘Tip of the Iceberg’ and was meant to show that something beautiful could be created from human debris.
Each fridge has plants spilling out.

Apart from the Conceptual gardens, there were Show Gardens – my favourite was inspired by a Wedgewood plate, and was planted in blues and whites.

I couldn’t get near enough to look at the next garden – it was surrounded by press photographers and BBC cameras. I just caught a glimpse of a familiar face!

Apparently, she had been presenting a trowel to the Young Gardener of the Year.

We moved on to the Floral Marquee – where nearly a hundred Nurseries display their flowers and plants, and sell some, too. I spotted Plantagogo and our Vicky, and managed to say hallo to her.

This is part of Blackmore and Langdon’s stand – I loved the deep purple Delphiniums!

And Waitrose sponsored a huge display – this is one corner of it.

Each Nursery had their own display and some were awarded medals for them. The one that I’d have give a ‘Best in Show’ medal to was by Squires’ Garden Centre – they called their garden ‘After Jekyll’ and they’d created a wonderful cottage garden, with Gertrude Jekyll’s favourite plants in it, plus the rose named after her, naturally. They’d added some modern touches such as these glorious coral-coloured Delphiniums.

Two photos of the garden from different angles.

One more lovely stand in the Marquee – all those different Lavenders en masse were stunning.

Off out again, to see the Biome with the tropical butterflies in ‘Escape’ Zone…via the plant village, of course, where I lingered and bought three plants, including this white Campanula and the Fatsia ’Spider’s Web’.

Campanula ‘White Octopus’

Fatsia japonica ’Spider’s Web’

We had to queue to get into the Biome – they let small groups in at a time, so that it didn’t get over-crowded. The butterflies were free to fly about amongst tropical plants. They were amazingly beautiful, but very difficult to photograph as you can imagine.

We went in the Rose Marquee to see and smell the wonderful selection of roses in there, shown by over 20 growers…every colour and form of rose you could imagine! The ‘Rose of the Year’ was called ‘Miss Marmalade’, but I spotted this one which I found hard to resist.

Rosa ‘Burgundy Ice’

I didn’t take one home, though. How restrained was that?

Back out, we decided that it was time to go to the ferry. We walked past many, many interesting stands selling everything you could imagine for a garden… tools, gadgets, ornaments, plant supports, outdoor furniture and so on.

Time to go back to Richmond, with a detour up river past the Palace with its tudor chimnies.

Float down past Teddington and Kingston, with tired but happy people, most of whom had plants with them!

And back to Richmond Bridge and our dock.

Oh, a week after this wonderful trip. I still couldn’t get that rose out of my head – you’ve guessed it – I’ve ordered one, and it’s coming tomorrow!

• 18 Jul, 2013
• 18 likes

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