My Garden

Unless you've bought a railway cottage you wouldn't expect to have train track in your front garden. But as a reclaimed material it creates an interesting effect when used within a garden design.

'The Rain Chain' is a garden that addresses many of the issues facing today's gardeners and home owners. Garden Designer Wendy Allen told me, "In the brief, I set the garden in a flood risk zone. It's in a small railway town by the coast, so the railway track ties in with the railway and the pebbles with the coastal theme."

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One of my favourite parts of this year's Hampton Court Palace Flower show is the group of sustainable gardens. Surprisingly, well for me anyway, it isn't a display of 'Grow Your Own' plots of vegetables. Instead there is great innovation, vareity and intrigue.

One garden that really took my eye was the London Wildlife Trusts 'Life Cycle Garden'. It is an absolutely beautiful mix of soft pastel colours, wildflowers and much, much more. Within this tiny space there are masses of ideas and inspiration that can be repeated in garden plots all over the land, even in the city

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The heatwave that stayed with us from the beginning of the Garden build to the end was incredible. Every day the weather report raised the expected temperature, and everyday the sun obliged. We had to water the plants at least twice a day and still many, in particular the fruit trees, were clearly stressed. Martin announced his phone was telling him it was 35 degrees one day and my car said 33 degrees. We would slap on the factor 30, drink gallons of bottled water and knuckle down to creating the two gardens and the sampling area. And it was a joy because your working alongside the best gardeners in the country at one of the premier flower shows in the world, in a stunning setting with the Palace as our backdrop.

We laid the recycled plastic interlocking grids for the public pathways quickly and dressed them with white and black gravel bands to match Rachels colours. We were able to include the number ‘25’ within the grids cells in recognition of Rachels 25^th Anniversary. Read More...

The time has come! Its Friday 25^th June, Im back at Hampton Court again and Rachels ambitious display is underway. Let me take you on the Hampton Court Flower Show Garden build experience! Firstly you get there at 7:30 am latest. You will have checked the previous day that everyone is going to arrive/deliver everything that was agreed. You come into Home park through a small gate near Kingston bridge. And you enter another world. It’s a sudden escape from the impending rush hour traffic snarl up. There are fields, willows swaying beside ponds, acres of knee high long grass and everywhere herds of fallow deer really close up to you. You arrive at the far end of the long water and it’s a tremendous view along it to the Palace in the distance. Also you get your first sight of the giant white marquees that have grown over the last week and which will house the indoor displays of the Hampton Court Flower Show.

At the security gate we are checked to make sure we have our passes, safety boots and yellow hi viz safety jackets, then its on to stands C/93 that will become Rachels Passion for Taste Garden,  and C/94 Rachels Stylish by Nature Garden. Read More...

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Kids accompanied by an adult get in for free at this year's Hampton Court Palace Flower show. This year there's a huge surprise in store for budding gardeners and Fifi fans, as the charasmatic Forget-me-not tot will be at the show this weekend. There's a whole Fifi zone for little greenfingers to play in all week, but the star of the show will be posing for pix and helping them plant this weekend.

I caught up with Greg Lynn, Executive Producer and Managing Director of Chapman Entertainment that creates the show on Monday. He told me,"We've got a Fifi zone here today. Fifi and the Flower Tots has been one of the most successful preschool television shows of the last 4 years. One of the core things about Fifi in the show is her gardening, she lives in this beautiful garden, where everything is huge and that she is a very keen gardener. She grows all her own vegetables and fruit. She will pick one huge apple and make a massive apple pie for all her friends. So we espouse the virtues of gardening, healthy eating and I think Fifi has been a real boon to mothers to be able to encourage kids to get stuck into their vegetables. We've had lots of emails over the last four years from parents saying. "My daughter ate a blueberry for the first time today because she saw Fifi bouncing up and down on one like a space hopper." And although that's not why we made the show, we're here to make a piece of entertainment, we wanted to give it a nice organic feel and so we are here at the show to allow kids to come in and play in Fifi's world, to meet Fifi. Fifi is here, they can plant seeds, take away a pot and grow and nurture a sunflower, or go through the little assault course picking up vegetables and fruit from Poppy's market stall with a little wheelbarrow. It's just something for kids, something to introduce kids into gardening."
We have Fifi here today and then she is back at the weekend. But during the week we've got all of this for the kids to do from planting seeds to learning about fruit and vegetables."

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Garden lovers don't need to be told that plants, gardens and gardening is therapeutic, it's inherent knowledge in us all. Just a few moments spent in nature lifts energy levels, rejuvenates tired minds and feeds our souls.

 One garden at this year's Hampton Court Palace Flower Show takes this concept and uses it as part of its message. 'Hope Begins at Home' has been designed to highlight and support the work of Combat Stress, which helps ex-servicemen and women suffering from Psychological injuries

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The Plant Heritage Marquee at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show is always an amazing place to visit and this year is no exception. There are 18 exhibits from National Plant Collection Holders showcasing some of the amazing collections from the UK. I was particularly enthralled by the display of rosemarinus from Downderry Nursery/Simon Charlesworth.

The Plant Heritage Marquee was formally opened on Monday by BBC Gardeners' World presenter Toby Buckland. I caught up with him at the Hoyland Plant Centre stand, a fabulous exhibit of agapanthus and tulbaghia. I wanted to know what delights he had seen at the show. "I haven't looked around the show yet," he said, " I've just been in here but I would say I think the Plant Heritage Marquee is really fabulous and I just salute really the great work that everyone the NCCPG does. I think that they are the reason our land is green and pleasant, they are the gardeners working in the gardens up and down the land and I'm just humbled to be asked to work for them today."

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Jack Dunckley is possibly Britains youngest Garden Designer. He's certainly the youngest designer with a garden at this year's Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. It's been a busy year.In February he was invited to design a balcony garden at the London Plant and Design Show where he won a silver medal. In early May he built a show garden The Malvern Gardening Show, where he won a Silver Gilt.

At this year's Hampton Court Palace Flower Show he has created A Desert's Delight, it's the largest show garden on site this year and his very first at Hampton Court.
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