As Monty Don calls it, ‘The great garden party in the North’, RHS Tatton (July 19-23) was fabulous this year, with a perfect heatwave hitting Cheshire AND we won a silver – our third award of the summer.
We can’t lie to you – doing two show gardens in the space of four weeks was tough. Building a show garden means 15 hour days and can take up to two weeks from digging the foundations to dusting off the floor tiles with our socks, minutes before the judges walk round. We always work to incredibly high standards BUT RHS judges are notably tough so we really push ourselves on a show garden to tick every single box.
Our garden was part of the Evolution gardens area, so we drew inspiration from Capability Brown, as part of the tercentenary of birth this year. Even though he was working in the 18th century, much of his work is still relevant and actually very contemporary today. He pioneered the naturalistic look, as opposed to the ultra-formal gardens that were previously in fashion.
The From Hall To Home show garden we created brought together a swathe of naturalistic planting with grasses and perennial meadow flowering plants, along with pleached trees, slightly more formal buxus ball rows and a classic pergola – painted black to bring it up to date.
We also included our fire/ ice table as a nod to our signature outdoor kitchen look, proving that actually high end outdoor kitchens can work in any type of garden.
The competition was really tough in the Evolution gardens, but we were really thrilled to take home a silver award.
Our head designer Michael McGarr was featured on the special BBC programme commissioned specially to look at the RHS Tatton Flower Show, and was interviewed by Rachel de Thame.
We’ve had a ball doing both BBC Gardeners’ World Live and RHS Tatton this year, but would think twice about doing two show gardens so close together again. Next year, however, we are aiming upwards and will be applying to create a show garden for RHS Hampton Court.
Drop us a line if you are interested in buying one of our show gardens, via the contact page.
