However, Jen has now gone off to travel the world again - this time a short trip to Poland with a friend who comes from there, and my dear man and I had the pleasure of a trip to Hampton Court Flower Show, courtesy of Ray of Rotherview Nursery, who built me my front garden earlier this year. He shows at Hampton Court - and at Chelsea where, this year, they got a silver (Chelsea) and a silver gilt (Hampton Court), which is pretty damn good and follows previous successes.
We set off yesterday quite early, heading for the Park and Ride as advised on the RHS website. It took us some three hours from door to entrance gate, which was quite a trek, but once inside that was all forgotten. We've not been to the show before, so were determined to see plenty but not exhaust ourselves!
The first thing that caught my eye was this rather lovely group of poppy head inspired garden sculptures, lacy against the cloudy blue sky
The blue came and went, but the day stayed warm and we wombled about looking, looking and looking some more, finding ideas for our own garden and seeing things that were just lovely, or quirky or in some cases just a bit bonkers, including one, with a laudable message, called the coppafeel garden, which, with its saggy fabric breasts at the entrance, just didn't quite do it for me, but perhaps I didn't look hard enough, or have enough of an out there sense of humour!
Here though, are some that did
World Vision Garden |
Hands On - with some thoughts to take away |
I am, because of who we are |
Copella Plant and Protect garden |
as did this firework explosion of eremerus, which I would love to have in my garden one day.
Once we'd looked at the show gardens, we went to eat, checked the plan of the space and realised that we'd only seen about a quarter of it so far! As I tend to get pretty painful if I push things too much, we decided to have a quick wander round the floral marquee, which looked pretty overwhelming from this perspective
but included Ray's stall, full of delightful troughs planted up with alpines, which are Rotherview's speciality, and won them a silver this year
Once we'd said hello, we escaped the melee and rambled back to the entrance, admiring the fountains on the long water
and in my case, being particularly charmed by these "rain trees", which, with their platter and splatter, I could have watched for a long time, were it not for my legs and back which were, by now, protesting rather!
So we loaded ourselves onto the obliging bus, waiting to take us back to the park bit of the park and ride, navigated our way through a number of confusing and very busy Saturday afternoon places, hooked up with the M25, then the M23 and rode the tarmac all the way back to Sussex.
Whenever I take this route into the rest of England, I really feel that I'm on my way home when I see this lovely view of the Downs, their long backs swooping down to the flatlands below Lewes. They always seem to be watching and waiting, while we humans, like little ants in our busy cars, hurry and scurry around beneath them, going from and to somewhere way beneath their lofty radar
Firle Beacon |
Thank you Ray!
Wonderful pics, loved the poppy heads and green planted shapes in the pool. I have a very small but interesting contribution (yarn) for your weaving. Let me know when you have some free time and I'll bring it over. Or of the hospital has gobbled up all your time, I'll pop it in the post. Or you can drop by for a cup of tea after a hosp appt if you aren't too tired and would like to. Too tired. I mis-typed that as 'toot ired' - is that a form of road rage?
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