My Top Twelve Picks from the RHS Tatton Park Flower Show

1. Award-winning fruit (and veggies)

2. Bees for Manchester

3. The Young Designer Competition

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the competition, five finalists have been invited to create gardens rather than the usual three. This is always one of my favourite parts of RHS Tatton Park Flower Show.

4. Whimsy

5. Old favourites in the Plant Marquee…

6. … and some novelties

I don’t know if Viola ‘Heartthrob’ is a new release, but I can’t remember seeing it before this year’s shows. The character and spirit of the large daisy flower made me smile – as my sweetheart pointed out, it looked as if a child had drawn the blueprint for it (if you know me in real life, I hope you’ll be kind enough not to mention what this tangle reminds you of). Other plants that caught my fancy included heucheras, gladioli, achillea, and the very striking Rudbeckia ‘Summerina Orange’ which was lighting up several displays. I’ll be sharing pictures of these in future posts.

7. Poisonous Garden

8. Stilt walkers (and musicians, and dancers)

9. School gardens

If I had to choose just one must-see section of this year’s Tatton Park Flower Show, it would be the 20 school gardens. They are wonderful. Top curmudgeon points awarded to anyone who can visit any four of these without breaking out into a grin and without spotting an idea for their own garden.

10. Creatures (there are fancy hens, too, and a bee on pretty much every allium you’ll see)

11. The Show Gardens (and Back to Back Gardens, and Cheshire Gardens of Distinction…)

12. Jubilation

I was admiring a really unusual flower spike when a gentleman on the nearby orchid stand caught my attention. He’d arrived with a companion and made a beeline for the place where the RHS awards are placed. His opening, rather defiant salvo ‘It had better be a silver gilt!’ no doubt reflected the amount of care that he’d lavished on the plants and in putting together the display for the show. The orchids did look good.

All was well. Soon he was declaring to all and sundry: ‘I can die now!… I can die! I can die!’. After 30 years of exhibiting at RHS shows, he’d finally won gold. For an exhibitor or designer, that small difference between silver gilt and gold really does matter. I left, smiling vicariously at his pleasure just as he was explaining ‘I always said I wanted to win gold before I die’.

The 2018 Tatton Park Flower Show is on until Sunday 22nd July 2018. Every paying adult can bring two children aged up to 16 free, helping to promote the RHS’s goal of getting more young people interested in gardening. For more information, check out the Royal Horticultural Society’s website.