Hampton Court Flower Show: Always believe in GOLD! Gold, Gold, Gold!
Can you tell how proud we are to have won Gold at Hampton Court Flower Show? As you can imagine we are very excited to have won this prestigious acknowledgement, especially as we are very small team and newcomers to the show. We are so honoured and especially proud this award was given to us the year that Malcolm Pharoah celebrates 50 years at Marwood. The success at Hampton Court is down to Malcolm and the garden teams vision and ambition!
Our stand was in the Plant Heritage section within the floral Marquee, and the pyramid of flowering Astilbes attracted much attention – visitors even described it as a pink volcano.
Astilbes of various pastel colours including red, pink, white were tastefully arranged into groupings of 5 to 7. The impressive Astilbe ‘Amethyst’ was placed at the top of the pyramid and was the most sought after. Each face of the pyramid had an interpretation board explaining a different aspect of the Astilbe story: History, Cultivation Requirements, Uses and Design. We are so pleased to be able to share this information and spread the joys and uses of Astilbes (although don’t ask us on tips for watering a massive pyramid of flowers- in short, its hard work!). Overall the week was a huge success though and we were awarded a Gold medal and at glass cup for best in section.
To say demand was high would be an understatement! We very quickly sold out of plants and to our delight, needed to restock throughout the week. White coloured astilbes seemed to be the most sought after, such as ‘Weisse Pearle’ and Elizabeth van Veen’, and ‘Elizabeth Bloom’, a bright pink bloom was in demand. On the last day of the show, customers were able to buy plants on the stand and 95% of our beautiful plants that made up the display were brought. Don’t forget these are still available to buy online from us.
We are very fortunate to have many loyal garden volunteers to call on, many of whom who kindly assisted in running the plant stand during the show and we would like to say a big thank you to Tony, Fiona, Ollie, Pat, Pete, John and Sue for making the time travel up to London and help run the stand, as well as the rest of the garden team who worked so hard to make the show a possibility. We’d also like to thank Kathryn who helped so much with the display boards and leaflets. We really do have a fantastic volunteer team at Marwood! As always, if you’d to join us, please see the volunteer section of the website for details.
How did you cope with the heat?
July has also seen some of the warmest weather on record and let’s face it, it’s been hot! Visitors have flocked to Marwood to cool down under the shade of the trees (and under the shade of the tea room with ice cream and cream teas).
Many plants in the garden have benefitted from the warm weather such as the newly planted Mediterranean terrace, which is situated just below the tearoom and really comparative to other plant designs in Marwood. Unfortunately, many plants such as Hydrangeas and the lawns have (like us gardeners) struggled with the heat. Much of the team’s time during this period has been focused on watering nursery plans many of which have had to be watered multiple times a day. The warm weather has also had another knock-on effect, plants are flowering on average two to three weeks ahead of schedule! So, we are already met with the spectacular – Hesperantha, New York Asters and lobelia which is normally not seen until the middle of August.
If you missed us Hampton court, don’t dismay we are heading to RHS Rosemoor flower show on the 19th of August and would love to see you there.
