The Hampton Court Garden Show is held in July, so all of the display gardens are created outdoors instead of inside. This garden was mulched with slate pieces. Very lovely, but impractical, if you walked on them, they broke.
I loved the simple color scheme of this birch garden.
There was a rather large pond with a cute little tiki hut built on it.
This display was called "Couch Potato" and was put together by a bunch of college students. All of the plants in it were in the solanum family. There was also a couch and a TV in the display, off to the side.
I normally don't care for contemporary gardens, but the colors in this one were so rich and elegant.
Romney carts were quite popular and you could get them small enough for a children's play house, or large enough for a guest room.
One massive tent was given over to extravagant displays of flowers, fruit, and vegies. I'd love to shop in a produce department that carried veg like this!
The tropical Flowers were quite stunning.
I call this "Cactus Dessert Cart".
They were raffling off a stone cottage and actually built a stone cottage in the pavillion so you could see what it looked like. This is the real thing, not cardboard!
After a very long, hot day, my sister and I walked our weary feet back to the bus that would take us to our car and paused for this jail-break photo.
New Blogger of the Week - The Born Again Gardener
16 comments:
wow that was impressive, thanks for taking us on that tour...they are different seeing them more like condensed show gardens
That must be the main difference, other than the outdoor/indoor thing: in England they raffle off cottages bigger than my house! I'll keep my eyes open for cottages at the Northwest Flower and Garden show this week in hopes of a similar raffle....
Christine in Alaska
The birch garden is stunning - my favourite! (Except maybe for the stone cottage - I'll take that, too :-))
Although I live in UK I have never visited Hampton Court flower show.....your post was elegant and most beautiful.
Personally I prefer to visit places like: Great Dixter, Leeds castle.....where the gardens are natural and in keeping with the surrounding area.
At the end of the day it is down to personal choice.....but thank you so much for showing me something, that would only be a short drive away......
BTW great photograph of you and your sister......
I've never been to Hampton Court Flower Show either though I used to go to Chelsea Flower Show quite regularly. I agree with Cheryl that I'd rather visit real gardens, places like Sissinghurst, Pashley Manor and all the small private gardens that open under our National Gardens Scheme. If you are in England again buy a copy of The Yellow Book which will lead you to all kinds of wonderful gardens that may only open for 2 or 3 days each summer.
I haven't been to Hampton Court Flower Show in years. If they are starting to raffle houses I shall make more of an effort in future!
I love the birch garden, it's very elegant!
I always wondered who won the cottage. The tickets were 50 pounds each and they were selling them all over the UK.
I enjoyed that. The white birch garden was such a simple but beautiful idea. Living art. The tropical plants and the cactus were lovely too.
I really, really want that stone cottage. So charming and something you will never see here on the northern prairies of the US:)
Marnie
Hi Cindee I've never been to Hampton Court either but I am not a fan of these garden shows - the gardens look great for the show - probably only look good for about 3 weeks in total.
I prefer to go to actual gardens and see a continuation of flowering plants throughout the season. Not sure about in the USA but if you saw the hoops they go through to get the plants looking like this for the show - forcing some, keeping others in cold temperatures to hold them back etc - I like things au naturalle
Rosie
Rosie- Yes, they force the plants here too - just about all of them, because the shows are in the winter. It also leads to such unrealistic combinations as daffodils and delphineum blooming at the same time in the same garden. But as I mentioned before, we love our garden shows in the US because they ARE in the winter when we are begging for anything at all in bloom.
Dear Cindee, There are now, as I am sure you know, a number of garden shows throughout the season in the UK, probably too many to visit in any one year.
Many of these shows, as Hampton Court, are now under the auspices of the RHS. Whilst they have become very professional in their overall organisation and presentation, for me they have somewhat lost that 'country' charm which existed in their infancy.
Hi - I found you through blooming writer, (I am on one of those blog binges where you pick a link from one blog and keep doing it for an hour!). I'm looking forward to the garden shows myself here in the south. Its usually a haul, but worth it.
How wonderful that you were able to go! What a treat!
I loved that birch garden best! Such lovely green.
This was great that you allowed me to take this tour with you. I found you through blooming writer, and am rambling around the blogosphere.
The Village Green Resort sounds wonderful.
La bordura sotto le betulle ha un aspetto molto fresco...dalla foto credo di riconoscere l'alchemilla mollis, l'actea simplex, forse anche un'astilbe bianca...e le altre? mi piacerebbe conoscerle per riproporre qualcosa di simile nel mio giardino vicino al bosco. Grazie per lo spunto d'ispirazione!
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