The last two and a half weeks at Hampton Court have been spent erecting green oak structures and planting thousands of oak seedlings, as well as over a thousand purple heather plants. All of this and more in order to create the second Quilted Velvet garden of the summer. This garden is much easier to put together than our Chelsea design, but it’s still hard work, seven days a week starting at 7am and finishing at nine in the evening. The extreme heat has affected both us and the plants, with the danger of grass turning brown and oaks shrivelling in the scorching sun. We have had to devote a lot of time to watering, and this has slowed the rate of progress.
We are, however, nearly there with just the final tweaks to attend to, as well as the watering of course. Having the garden all but finished should allow for a certain amount of relaxation, but this is not how it works out. I am finding smaller and smaller imperfections to correct and also worrying as to whether the heather will be in full enough flower for the opening of the show. The heather, a variety called Pink Star usually flowers around mid-summer and is slowly but surely turning a lovely Quilted Velvet shade of purple so should be just about perfect. Fingers and everything else crossed!
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