Celebrating gardens, photography and a creative life
2020 has been a year of should-have-beens. This week, the Southport Flower Show should have been in full swing, its colour and happiness injecting life into the traditional seaside town that hosts it. The show is run as a charity and profits maintain Victoria Park, the 34-acre site that has been home to the show since it started. Continue reading “Southport Flower Show Cartoons”
Tatton Park is a garden in north-west England that, in normal circumstances, hosts a flower show in July. One of my favourite small gardens in the Back to Back category at last year’s show was created by the garden’s head gardener, Simon Tetlow, and built with the help of local volunteers. Named in honour of the 50th anniversary of The Very Hungry Caterpillar book to help attract children’s attention, it was designed from a bug’s or beetle’s perspective. Continue reading “The Very Hungry Caterpillar Garden (Tatton Park 2019)”
‘Bringing Your Furniture to Life’ in the Floral Art Marquee at last year’s Southport Flower Show was designed by Angela Coulton of Petal & Twig. Continue reading “Floral Art at The Southport Flower Show”
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.
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”
Remember the days when the Town Hall was the place to go if you wanted ‘further particulars’ about an event? How life has changed since then! At this year’s Southport Flower Show, we had no horse leaping events, but we did have heritage animals, courtesy of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, including a pig that was more rare than a giant panda (and much the same size).
The cultivars may have changed over the last 90 years, but gladioli like those shown on the 1929 poster were on display in 2019, together with just about every August flowering plant you could hope for.
Amongst so many choice plants, this solitary, perfect, innocent-looking, pink Japanese anemone caught my eye. Continue reading “Celebrating The Southport Flower Show’s 90th Birthday”
Susan Rushton 