Celebrating gardens, photography and a creative life
The Royal Horticultural Society is working hard to encourage young talent into the gardening profession and it’s great to see their efforts paying off. The gardens that caught my eye at this year’s RHS Tatton Park Flower Show were created by designers under the age of 28, competing in two newly launched categories that extend the RHS’s influential Young Designer Competition. Continue reading “Young Designers at the RHS Tatton Park Flower Show: Coastal Garden”
This summer, you’ll be much more likely to see me out trying to capture different forms of verbascums on my iPhone than to see me playing Pokémon Go.
I added this one, Verbascum ‘Caribbean Crush’, to my virtual collection at the recent RHS Tatton Park Flower Show. The flowers open upwards as the sturdy spire lengthens, starting off a soft, peachy yellow, gradually deepening to a burgundy copper as they age. The effect is of two cultivars in one: very striking.
One of England’s largest and most successful garden centres, Bridgemere Garden World, has been part of a large chain for several years. Its independent roots still shine through as a result of the group’s strategy to preserve the local feel and individuality of their acquisitions. It’s one of my oases of pleasure in an increasingly mad world. Continue reading “Bridgemere Display Gardens: The Cottage Garden”
Plant breeders are fascinated by details. Me too. At the recent RHS Hampton Court Flower Show, though time was tight, I spent a good hour checking out the displays and selling stands in the Plant Marquee. The ones that caught my eye did so because of the details. Did you notice that each flower of Viola ‘Elaine Quinn’ is a slightly different mix of violet and white with unique speckles and stripes?
Individually each is beautiful, together they give me pause: one minute I like the lighter ones best, the next the darkest ones. My eye alights on one flower then another like a human butterfly. Continue reading “RHS Hampton Court’s Plant Marquee: Details”
My sweetheart and I were counting our lucky stars earlier this week to have the chance to preview the wonderful RHS Hampton Court Flower Show. If you follow my blog, you’ll not be surprised that almost my first point of call was to catch up with some of my old buddies who were doing some nervous, last minute petal tweaking (always a massive temptation) on the David Austin display moments before the judges arrived. I didn’t think they had too much to worry about. Continue reading “Roses at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show”
This yellow daylily caught my sweetheart’s eye during yesterday’s visit to Bodnant Garden. The plant produces striking, dark, bronzy stems topped with buds that open to rich yellow flowers. Broad mahogany stripes linger on the backs of the outer petals: a legacy of the bud.
Continue reading “Yellow and Mahogany Daylily”
Susan Rushton 