Dame Celebrates Flowers At The Palace

The 21^st Hampton Court Flower Show kicks off in suitably austere fashion with celebrities from all walks of life lending their support to the event. 

This year’s theme celebrates ‘home grown’ and ‘British grown’. This is a new feature to the Hampton show, which includes a field of golden crops (in this case sunflowers), orchards and a market garden as well as bees, chickens and ducks.

90 floral exhibits were housed in one enormous marquee on the north side of long water – 70 of these were by British growers. 

Most exciting was the unique and creative display from Garsons who have been growing produce since 1871. They displayed a uniformed mix of colourful fruit and vegetables along side plant, flower and foliage displays all of which looked totally stunning.

Shakespeare is the inspiration behind A Midsummer’s Rose festival, where Dame Judi Dench was presented with a new rose in her honour, named ‘Drama Queen’. Primary schools from the South East of England involved with the RHS Campaign for school gardening were challenged to create a scarecrow inspired by the comedy plays of Shakespeare. 

All 40 entries were exceptional; the scarecrows were made from scratch using plant material as well as recycled elements. Amongst one of my favourites was the orange man made from plastic shopping bags – one motivating way to use up your old shoppers.

The show is also marketing a celebration of the 100^th anniversary of Girlguiding UK, an organisation that recognises the importance of giving girls the chance to get involved in a huge range of activities. 

This included a show garden designed by Philippa Pearson. The plants and design highlights the elements that members say make girlguiding UK a unique organisation. This is certainly a garden not to be missed. 

Designer Jill Foxley created the show garden ‘A matter of Urgency’ which aims to raise awareness of an overactive bladder (OAB) a condition that effects nearly one in five people in the UK aged over 40. 

The garden echo’s the frustration and urgency of OAB, a long and winding path inset with glittering glass tiles leads to a giant pink tap that appears to be magically suspended in mid-air. A straight path out of the garden symbolises taking action to help alleviate the condition. 

A visit to the vintage England marquee introduced me to Jo Silsbury one of the founders of ‘Scarlet Bakes’ offering exclusive home baking mixes and baking kits. Two mums that have a passion for baking run the company, which is based in Hampshire. Their mixes are made only with the best ingredients and are very simple to make. Presented in a glass kilner jar the kits look inviting and an asset to any kitchen.

My day was topped off with a plant themed fashion catwalk show suggesting the spirit of Vintage England, presented by television celebrity gardener David Domoney it was the perfect end to a perfect day. With over 160,000 visitors expected to attend I will not be the only one with lasting memories of The Hampton Court Flower Show.

Poppy Watt

Posted Tue, 07/06/2010 - 23:12 by Poppy Watt