Our last article described our recent challenge to design a garden at this year's Hampton Court Palace Flower Show for the British Heather Growers Association. To our delight we were awarded a Silver Gilt medal for our first attempt at an RHS Show Garden. As our sponsors were plants men, most of the plants in our scheme were grown on their nurseries, and we could select the best for our planting plan. The non-heathers were on loan, and during the weeks before the show, we tended them at home, trying to encourage faster growth, or prevent them from flowering too early!
Finally the day arrived when we packed our cars to the brim with plants and headed excitedly towards Kingston. Just outside the Palace Gates we found our plot with the turf removed in readiness. The clock was now ticking and we had two weeks to create our garden from scratch. At first, our greatest challenge was the soaring temperatures. Our south facing site had no shade and the heat made simple tasks gruelling. The ground was solid which made digging heavy going, but fortunately our landscaping team were very determined and soon had the excavating under way.
Slowly our vision began to emerge and we were in a position to start the planting! The race was really on now as we only had three days to complete the garden before the Assessors came to start the judging process. Our aim was to demonstrate the differences between summer and winter flowering heathers. Positioning the summer varieties was relatively straightforward as we could mix and match their colours and forms to show them at their best. The real challenge was with the winter heathers as none were flowering (obviously!) and we were faced with several hundred green shrubs, all looking much the same as each other!
As we scratched our heads, wondering how to make these green blobs look interesting, we noticed that our trees had been scorched by the hot sun and were unusable. This meant a frenetic nursery dash in search of suitable replacements. Added to this, the herbaceous plants for the winter garden were refusing to flower. We had chosen a grass for its spectacular flowering stems, but with 3 days to go, the flowers were nowhere to be seen! Another speedy trip to the nursery to find an alternative! It was a close shave, but with a little help from our friends we managed to get everything ready for the inspection. Our minds were distracted, however, from the imminent assessment, by our first ever live radio interview on BBC Radio Kent, as part of their Sunday morning gardening programme. It was over in a few minutes, but this knowledge didn't alleviate our nerves or help us to construct sensible sentences.
For two weeks the sun beat down on us during the build. Then, as the Show opened, so did the heavens. On Press Day it rained and rained. On Tuesday we had our second live radio interview in a thunderstorm! Highly entertaining for the listeners, rather soggy for us! Show Week flew by with a noisy carnival of people, plants and plastic macs! The visitors we spoke to were amazingly complimentary about our endeavours and we hope we gave them some inspiration for their own gardens.
Altogether it has been an amazing experience to take part in the largest flower show in the world. Meeting so many different people who share our love of gardens was a privilege. The medal was the icing on the cake.
If you are interested to read more about the garden there are articles on:
http://www.rhs.org.uk/-
whatson/shows/hamptoncourt2009/small/bhga.asp
http://www.bbc.co.uk/-
blogs/flowershows/2009/07/heathers_making_a_recovery.html
