Our coverage of this year's edition of Hampton Court Flower Show continues with a look at the show gardens.
The show gardens are under different categories: Main Show Gardens, Water Gardens, Summer Gardens, Conceptual Gardens, Capability Gardens, World Gardens, and City Gardens.
We had a quick whizz through all of them and on most occasions only passed by once. With limited time, we can only take photos as how we found them at that moment, so apologies for the few unnecessary characters found within the scenes. And the photos are not arranged by categories. But it should still give a nice glimpse at this years garden displays.
Without further ado, here they are!
The Squires 80th Anniversary Garden - Gold
Indian Celebration
All the World's a Stage - Silver Gilt
The Dogs Trust: A Dog's Life - Gold
Immerse - Silver (this was my favourite, surprised it only won silver)
WWT Working Wetlands Garden supported by HSBC - Gold
The Viking Cruises Scandinavian Garden - Gold
Witan Investment Trust Global Growth Garden - Silver Gilt
Zoflora: Outstanding Natural Beauty - Gold
World Vision Garden - Gold
PMS: Outside Inside for NAPS - Silver Gilt
Inner City Grace - Silver Gilt
Streetscape's Summer in Sussex - Silver
The Drought Garden - Silver Gilt
New Horizons - Silver Gilt
Youth Workz Garden - Bronze
Japanese Summer Garden - Silver
Katie's Lymphoedema Fund: Katie's Garden - Silver
CCLA: A Summer Retreat - Gold
Final5: Retreat Garden - Silver Gilt
The Abbeyfield Society: a Breath of Fresh Air - Silver Gilt
The Lavender Garden - Gold
The Bowel Disease UK Garden for Crohn's Disease - Gold (another personal favourite)
Wormhole (Foramen vermis)
The Red Thread - Gold
Near Future Garden - Gold
The Peacemaker - Bronze
The Outdoor Room: Inner Demons - Gold
Striving for Survival - Silver Gilt
Our Lives in Time's Hands - Silver Gilt
UNHCR: Border Control Garden - Gold
Greenhouse Effect - Silver Gilt
Rolawn: Why? - Gold
Normandy and 1066 Country Medieval Garden - Bronze
Turismo de Galicia The Route of the Camellia - Silver Gilt
Journey Latin America's Inca Garden - Silver
Great Gardens of the USA - The Oregon Garden - Silver Gilt
Great Gardens of the USA - The Charlestone Garden - Silver
Great Gardens of the USA - The Austin Garden - Silver Gilt
Feel Good Front Gardens
Not a show garden but just to throw into the mix, inside the Butterfly Dome:
Mark :-)
This gardening blog follows our journey as we create our Tropical and Exotic themed garden. We hope you'll enjoy the journey as much as we do. We started our Exotic Garden in 2005 and this site will show its development, as well as our travels, both abroad and within the UK to gardens, nurseries and friends.
I always miss some of the show gardens so this has been a great way to catch up! My favourite would have been the Oregon Garden if I'd seen it. I can see why you like the Bowel Cancer garden - lots of exotic planting!
ReplyDeleteIt kind of reminds me of our garden hence the bias :) our photos don't do it any justice at all.
DeleteSo many! It's easy to get overly critical and point out what I don't like, but I'll just say that there are lots of ideas that I'd steal for my own garden. Thanks for the tour! :)
ReplyDeleteIt's up to us as viewers to separate the wheat from the chaff I suppose. Some nonsense goin on there but some very nice ones too. A pleasure Alan!
DeleteMy favorite is the Dog's Trust Garden, mainly because those soft floral colors appeal to me right now. The judging criteria are less clear to me than the Chelsea show. I don't get why the Squire's Garden got gold, for example - it's pretty but not extraordinary. Ditto the Lavender Garden. Perhaps I'd have felt differently if I so them up close. Thanks for sharing your visit!
ReplyDeleteI have to say the results have baffled us too Kris. And it's a good year for conceptual gardens too when it comes to getting gold, too much I think....
DeleteI was expecting more like yesterday. Little do I know. These look like Chelsea wannabes. The only garden I liked at all was Squire's 80th Anniversary. The use of the crimson color in the fittings and in the flowers was magnificent. It really flowed and held it all together. Gold contrast was good. I liked that I could actually use some of these ideas. I thought the flowing water was wonderfully clever. How cooling!
ReplyDeleteI am very glad you provided this tour and I did not have to do it on foot. Thank you.
A pleasure Jane! And yes Squires garden is very nice, even more so in person.
DeleteI should have known better than to read this on my iPad! So much I want to say, but difficult to remember. I liked the ones you did too, of course. And rather liked the stream with the crevice garden-ish bottom, although the rest of the garden not so much. The Oregon garden looked a little messy...too much? Speaking of too much...so many gardens! I can't imagine the visual overload you must feel being there in person.
ReplyDeleteVisual overload it was Loree. Even when doing this post, I had to do it in three instalments as there were so many! Also I initially planned on tagging you on the Oregon garden to check what you think of it, and I had an inkling on what your opinion will be (I was spot on) ;)
DeleteGreat tour! I appreciated all the sculptural elements in several of the gardens. The Immersion was my number one fave, but there were others I liked too. I too am always baffled at who gets the gold, and who doesn't. This past spring in Seattle, I learned that some of the criteria (for that show, at least) was to have a certain percentage of the space covered in flowers. Perhaps this was because it is called the Northwest FLOWER and Garden Show - who knows? The result was that what I considered the best ones usually ended up with less than gold.
ReplyDeleteI must say, the judging criteria has baffled us as well. It can get daft sometimes how much of the criteria is allocated to things that may seem nonsensical to us audience. I think you may be right with the flower criteria thing on the Northwest show.
DeleteThis was fun! Kudos to you for capturing it all for our enjoyment. At least in photos, I find the simpler the better. In person, I'm sure the more chaotic designs had their charms.
ReplyDeleteSome of them were better in person, some vice versa. I think they gave too many golds on the conceptual gardens...
DeleteBravo for getting them all! The Summer Retreat for me I think. Some are really quite bizarre.
ReplyDeleteAhh that's nice as well. And yes, lots of bizarre ones!
DeleteAlmost all of these put the sad display gardens at the SF Garden Show to shame ! Hard to pick a favorite, but I am partial to Zoflora and the Summer Retreat . Thanks for taking time to post all these pics !
ReplyDeleteA pleasure Kathy!
DeleteGreat, thanks so much for this. So many interesting ideas to ponder if not to use.
ReplyDeleteThe Immersive was very cool, maybe too much hardscape to be a gold winner? The Crohn's disease and the dog garden--my pair would have fun digging out that reflecting pool in minutes. The border control garden? Wince.
Lots of fun ideas in these many gardens. It's always amazing to me how designers keep coming up with new and interesting gardens that are put together in such a short time.
ReplyDelete