A guide to RHS Show Tatton Park
Post categories: RHS Show Tatton Park 2011
| 07:00 UK time, Saturday, 23 July 2011
It's billed as the biggest garden party in the North, and the RHS Show Tatton Park, Cheshire, always lives up to its reputation for fun and a laid-back, friendly charm. This year I thought there was a confidence in the air: a feeling that here, too, you can reach the heights and break new ground.
It was reflected in the medals: six show gardens and 40 exhibits in the Floral Marquee struck gold. Three new rising stars were on show, too: here was where, we'll later recall, tomorrow's talent found their feet. Definitely a show for catching a glimpse of things to come.
Show gardens
Some show gardens try to capture beauty, style or atmosphere; others tell a story. The HMP Everthorpe garden, 'Save a Life, Drop the Knife' (gold and Best in Show) was firmly in the narrative category: the moving story of young lads struggling to turn away from knife crime.
Save a Life, Drop the Knife Show Garden at RHS Show Tatton Park
The garden starts hard and uncomfortable: all jagged, spiky Solanum atropurpureum, fastigiate cypress and jarring red gravel. But through the journey colours and textures become welcoming, with generous-leaved Catalpa bignonioides and strokeable Stipa tenuissima: an essay in how planting changes a mood.
Back-to-back gardens offered more water feature inspiration: an elegant trickle from a bamboo spout in '' (silver), super-cool triple fountains in matt-black containers from 'Minimal Impact' (silver-gilt), and a rainwater fountain splashing over über-modern grids in '' (silver).
Then there were the challenging, mould-breaking Visionary Gardens. You may not always like them: I wasn't convinced by the coal mulch in '' (bronze), though I rather fancy a shed full of red shoes (Sheena Seeks's '' (silver)).
But I found '' (gold and Best Visionary Garden) powerfully moving. It evoked a Rwandan refugee's flight from war, with jungle plants surrounding a dark, unsettling central space: carnivorous pitcher plants among the palms and bananas hint at lurking danger.
The Floral Marquee
Walking into the Floral Marquee at Tatton is like opening a box of your favourite chocolates. This year's selection was as deliciously varied as ever, from delicate china-blue flowering chicory at Hooksgreen Herbs (silver), to brooding bromeliads on Every-Picture (silver-gilt) dripping over black-water pools.
Best exhibit and a gold went to gladiolus specialists Pheasant Acre for their fireworks display in every shade from flame red to yellow and white. I adored deep scarlet 'First Blood' and smaller, more delicate G. nanus 'Nymph' with petal-shaped pink markings that look almost hand-painted.
Crocosmia breeders Trecanna Nursery, of Cornwall (silver-gilt) brought two new selections: 'Cornish Copper' in pale tangerine shading to darker ochre, and dainty 'Prince of Orange', smothered in rich orange flowers, each with a butter-yellow centre studded with red dots.
Flowerbeds
Birmingham City Council's Mini Cooper
Where else but in England would you find bowling greens, Mini Coopers and three Wombles, all created lovingly and painstakingly out of thousands upon thousands of bedding plants?
Bournemouth City Council won gold and Best Exhibit with its 21st century explosion of sophisticated exotics: stately purple Ricinus communis, multicoloured coleus and brooding black aeoniums, pepped up with hot orange dahlias and rudbeckia made a dazzling display.
I also adored 's Mini Cooper (silver-gilt) clad in tiny Alternanthera complete with sedum go-faster stripes and a zebra crossing of near-black coleus and white begonias; and Partington Parish Council's parsley bowling green(gold) with its sedum 'jack'.
Kids' stuff
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NSPCC's Happy Rabbit Valley
If your kids dismiss flower shows as 'boring', this could be the one to convert them. One glimpse of the velociraptor (dinosaur buffs will know what I'm on about) erupting from a giant cycad on Chester Zoo's '' (gold and best back-to-back garden), or the bunnies and their hobbit-like houses in the 's eccentric '' (bronze) and they'll be hooked.
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Have fun guessing which country is which in the 27 front-to-front gardens created by local schoolkids who obviously had a riot conjuring up different nations, from America ('Thyme Square' - geddit?) to a polar-bear filled Arctic. Brazil even has a football match going on on the lawn.
And there's more kids' fun at the New Charter DreamScheme's wildlife tower, full of papier-mâché creatures: the smiley green caterpillar emerging from an old shoe was particularly cute. Do it at home by stacking pallets and stuffing the gaps with whatever the kids can find (that should keep them occupied till September).
Young Designer of the Year
Here's a name you'll see again: rising design star , this week crowned the RHS Young Designer of the Year. The winner last year (the competition's first) was , who's since added a gold medal at Hampton Court to a meteoric career.
Cornish designer Daniela's urban orchard 'A Stitch in Time' took my breath away. She's cleverly woven foraging plants like flowering carrots among sunny daisies dotted with bright, jewel-like sparkles of Sanguisorba minor and Knautia macedonica; crabapples ('Evereste') and apple 'James Grieve' gave dappled shade and more to eat overhead. Yep: definitely one to watch.
Sally Nex is a garden writer and blogger and part of the 91Èȱ¬ Gardening team.
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