The Hampton Court Flower Show 2014 runs from 8 to 13th July 2014. If you have never visited before it is a great day out for gardeners, novice gardeners and those just wanting an idea or two to spruce up their gardens. This a quick run through og some of the highlights of this years Show before it is open. Please come back to to a full report on the show, wth ideas for you family garden from the 9th of July when we will report direct from the Show
This year’s RHS Hampton Court Flower Show will be divided into three zones.
GROW is the horticultural heart of the show. With spectacular nursery displays in the floral marquee, you’ll find the inspiring Plant Heritage marquee, outstanding gardening stalls and even more nurseries in the Plant Village, s take the credit card as you are bound to want to make a few purchases. This year the schools’ Scarecrow competition celebrates the First World War Centenary.
INSPIRE is all about challenging perceptions and pushing boundaries, Inspire will encourage visitors to re-think their preconceptions of contemporary garden design, with horticultural creations pushing boundaries and championing innovation. This year the popular Conceptual Gardens are designed around the theme of the seven deadly sins – one garden for each sin. You will also find leading designers trying their hand at Turf Sculpture. The sculptures demonstrate how art and the landscape can be closely linked. The six sculptures are being designed and created in just two days before the show opens. The sculptors come from a wide range of backgrounds and include conceptual garden designers Tony Smith and Sim Flemons; Gavin Hardy, the head gardener at Tottenham Hotspur; Gardeners’ Question Time panellist Matthew Biggs; garden designer Adam Frost; and artist John Humphreys with gardener Andy Hyde.
ESCAPE includes a new Community area, set around a village green, displays celebrating 50 years of RHS Britain in Bloom, circus-themed Rose and Floristry marquee with a new british grown flowers theme. You will be able to take an incredible journey through the RHS Invisible Garden to discover the wonders of the unseen world of the microscopic garden. Become a scientist yourself and use a microscope to investigate plants, fungi and invertebrates. You can also discover how you can support nature in your own garden and the role it plays in maintaining biodiversity with the RHS science team and other experts.
Kidsinthegarden PreShow Picks of Gardens at the Hampton Court Flower Show 2014
The NSPCC Legacy Garden
The NSPCC Legacy Garden focuses on the NSPCC’s work over the last 130 years and the legacy they have created. The theme of constancy runs through the garden, which has been designed to encourage visitors to consider the legacy they wish to leave for future generations of children. Designed by multiple RHS Chelsea Gold Medal winners Adam Woolcott and Jonathan Smith, the garden demonstrates how gifts in supporters’ wills have helped fund our work and takes visitors on a journey through the past 130 years, with plants and toys helping to reflect the different eras. At the centre of the garden there is a copper beech where messages from supporters and young people will be displayed.
The photo above shows wishing pebbles in the NSPCC garden at the Chelsea Flower Show 2013.
Untying the Knot
The Bounce Back Foundation’s ‘Untying the Knot’ Garden at the Show is a reflection on the challenges faced by people leaving prison. Designed by Frederic Whyte, previous Gold Medal winner at Chelsea, the garden’s creative planting shows how lives are changed when people are supported in learning skills that lead to jobs when they are released from prison, and how this helps reduce re-offending. Through the use of plant colour, form and texture, the design recounts how Bounce Back’s painting and decorating social enterprise works with ex-offenders to build confidence and create new, fulfilling lives, whilst also encouraging society to see them in a different light
When the show is over, the garden’s message will live on as it is being donated to HMP Brixton, where it has been allocated ‘pride of place’ in one of London’s most forward thinking prisons, representing the drive towards transforming rehabilitation.
You can keep updated with the progress of this garden on their blog.
Hedgehog Street Garden
The Hedgehog Street Garden is a joint collaboration between The British Hedgehog Preservation Society and People’s Trust for Endangered Species. It aims to raise awareness of the plight of threatened hedgehogs and show how gardeners can help the species in their very own back yard.
Created by award-winning garden designer Tracy Foster, the garden will feature various elements that are beneficial to our native hedgehogs. Hedgehog populations in the UK have plummeted by over a third in the last ten years, and one of the factors contributing to this decline is tidy, fenced-in gardens. One of the simplest steps gardeners can take to help hedgehogs is to link gardens in their neighbourhood by teaming up with their neighbours to make a small hole in shared boundaries so that the creatures can roam freely. A hole that is 13cm in size at ground level will be big enough for a hedgehog to pass through.
Please see here for photos and a full report of the hedgehogstreet garden.
Kidsinthegarden will be at the Show on the Press Day and will be filing more reports as soon as possible after then. So please pop back and have a read.
For tickets please click the link on the advert on the sidebar.
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