RHS SHOW 2009 - Click here for latest show pictures

RHS Flower Show 2008
No Common or Garden Show.

For 5 glorious days in summer, Tatton Park plays host to the RHS Flower Show, and, like thousands of others, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I read somewhere that a garden is a friend you can visit anytime and going to The Flower Show is like having friends in high places.
This year we were in need of some sunshine, and found it here in abundance. The rain didn’t matter. Wellies are in anyway, thanks to Kate Moss, and there’s nothing we British like better than braving the elements for a day out.
Personally, I love the orderly queues and the trek to the loos. I love the temptation of a fresh pork baguette, the politics of bagging a seat and the outrageous price of coffee. I always spend too long in the Country Living tent and make mental notes to come back and buy things, but then don’t.

Mostly I go to be totally blown away by the creativity, skill and passion that turn a deer-sprinkled field in Tatton into a world where everything is in perfect bloom and dreams become reality. I’m in awe of the skill, planning and dedication of the people who conjure up rivers, build hills and lay mossy pathways that look as if they’ve been there for ever.

My favourites are the back-to-back gardens where you take a mini world-tour and step smoothly from a Tuscan courtyard to a woodland in Cumbria.


Then there are the show gardens where contemporary imagination meets traditional craft and the flower beds where our local authorities and colleges rise to the challenge and surpass all expectations. How can they re-create entire battle scenes in flowers when it’s hard enough just putting them in a vase?
I also go to be inspired. I want the chocolate brown blooms that look amazing against lime-green foliage. I want my garden to be a haven for wildlife and herbal remedies. I want a water feature, with bubbles.
 That’s what The Flower Show is all about. Dreaming and achieving. Endeavour made manifest. A celebration of nature’s beauty and man’s ability displayed for all to applaud.
I hope you went.
Numbers were down this year. Perhaps it was the weather. The event should be marked in glorious colour on your calendar. Go to honour the British-ness of gardening. Celebrate endeavour and achievement and all things floral. And be proud that it happens right here in Knutsford.