I’ve seen a number of unusual planters: teacups, bathroom suites, cars, trucks, tyres, socks, handbags, upholstered chairs… if it will hold soil, someone will think of putting plants in it. Continue reading “BrightSquare: Flowerbed”
Tideswell Well Dressing at The RHS Chatsworth Flower Show
Details from Tideswell’s well dressing, one of several on display at the RHS Chatsworth Flower Show in 2019, created from petals, leaves, seeds, pebbles and other natural objects. Continue reading “Tideswell Well Dressing at The RHS Chatsworth Flower Show”
RHS Chatsworth’s Mandala Mindfulness Garden
As news broke that this year’s flower shows have been cancelled, I found myself gazing at a pile of dry, leafy debris, cleaned from my hens and chicks, wondering whether making a mandala would sooth my mind. It wasn’t the best of ingredients, being a uniformly dull beige.
My thoughts turned to last year’s RHS Chatsworth Flower Show. The Mandala Mindfulness Garden had been designed as a quiet space to allow an urban school to provide wellbeing sessions for small groups and in one to ones. A sense of rest (from the seating areas) and calm contemplation (the mandalas), was balanced by flow (the airy planting and the oval path). Continue reading “RHS Chatsworth’s Mandala Mindfulness Garden”
RHS Campaign For School Gardens, Chatsworth Flower Show
Mayflower Primary School’s sensory garden, It All Makes Sense, was one of my favourite corners of the Chatsworth Flower Show 2019. If there’s a child in your life, you might like to take some inspiration from these recycled tin cans, painted with cheerful motifs. Pop a herb or a flower in one and you have a tiny garden to enjoy, with potential lessons in art, the environment, nature, nurturing and cookery along the way.
Tin can planter with a smile
Tin can plant pot
Butterfly, sun and flower designs
While my secondary school had a small greenhouse, I only have the vaguest memories of going inside it. We never did anything as exciting as making a garden for one of the RHS flower shows. I love it when I see some of the kids who have been involved at the shows, proud of what they’ve achieved and excited to explain to visitors what they were thinking about in this or that part of the garden.
I’m one of the lucky ones. Although my schooldays preceded the RHS Campaign For School Gardens by decades, my childhood was filled with small lessons like these as part of family life. Caterpillars in jars that turned into butterflies. Rose petal scented water. A succulent that grew in a pattern. Owl pellets to pull apart, looking for bones. Flowers to plant. Potatoes to dig (well before their time as we were too excited to wait). Pebbles to pick out of streams. A bat cave to explore. Continue reading “RHS Campaign For School Gardens, Chatsworth Flower Show”
Eutierria Mindfulness Garden at the RHS Chatsworth Flower Show 2019
The Eutierria Show Garden (pronounced you tee air ia), designed by Neil Sutcliffe and built by Creative Roots, drew inspiration from the cliffs of the River Trent. It was part of the mindfulness category of mood-enhancing spaces at RHS Chatsworth that demonstrate how access to nature and our wellbeing are interlinked.Â
Shade tolerant plants supplied by Miles Nurseries channelled the margins of woodland, but with gardenesque touches. White anemone ‘Ruffled Swan’, bronze ajuga, claret astrantia, blue geranium and a froth of tiny, chartreuse yellow alchemilla mollis flowers provided pops of colour against a green, textural planting of fern, moss, hosta, tiarella and brunnera. Trees and shrubs added architecture.  Continue reading “Eutierria Mindfulness Garden at the RHS Chatsworth Flower Show 2019”
Highlights of the RHS Chatsworth Flower Show 2019
The grounds of Chatsworth House make a wonderful setting for the youngest of the major UK flower shows. I hope you’ll find something of interest in my personal picks from the show.
1. Seasonal Cut Flowers
Lisianthus bouquet
Freddie’s Flowers had packed a breathtaking array of seasonal cut flowers in shades of lavender, cream and pink in the back of a truck to advertise their bouquet by post service. Continue reading “Highlights of the RHS Chatsworth Flower Show 2019”
Hay Time In The Dales: People’s Choice Award Winner At RHS Chatsworth
Chris Myers and I were chuffed to bits by the turn of events at The RHS Chatsworth Flower Show last week. We both had good reason. After a slow start (the judges’ Silver Medal theoretically rated it worst in show), the garden he’d designed was validated by the popular vote, being named the one the public loved most. Me? I’d been rooting for it!
Naturalistic plantings were a theme of this year’s show, but his garden was a hymn in praise of wildflowers (or more of a folksong). I enjoyed lingering awhile, listening to the sighs of pleasure as people glimpsed Hay Time In The Dales for the first time and felt its emotional pull. I knew this garden would haunt me, and it already is.
I thought of it when our evening walk took us past a flower-rich hay meadow between Edgworth and the Wayoh Reservoir. Around its peak now, the wildflowers include buttercups, yellow rattle, meadow vetchling, red clover, wild blue lupins, and a blend of grasses. A public information sign beside the meadow explains this patch of land represents what is now one of the rarest habitats in the UK.
It all seems so normal, and that’s part of the problem. Â Â Continue reading “Hay Time In The Dales: People’s Choice Award Winner At RHS Chatsworth”
Susan Rushton 