Garden Blogs

What a fantastic show - there are 30,000 people a day looking at our gardens! Chris and her Rachel's events team are submerged with people queing up for samples and cool bags of delicious yogurt and all the other goodies! For me, it's a strange time as I hand over my garden to others after the judging and press day razamatazz. Only they are not all strangers. My son James (21) is in charge of the maintenance of the gardens during the show period and it's great to see him and nice to know the gardens are in good safe hands. He will mostly be watering, deadheading flowers and fruit, answering questions about the plants and, of course, scaring off those pigeons! After 12 12hr days, I need to get home for a break from the Show although, of course, there is my regular garden business to catch up on so it's not exactly a holiday (but it's nice to be back in my own bed for a few days!) And, of course I get a chance to tuck into some of the contents of the Rachel's coolbag we took away with us - rice pudding - yummmy! After the awards were given out, Rachels threw a lovely little party on the stand. If anyone was disapointed not to get a Gold medal it didn't show and I got to meet Rachel herself and husband Gareth as well as Rachel's MD Neil. They were all really nice and down to earth and Neil gave a speeech, including lovely comments about the stand and gardens, and even gave me a bottle of champagne! After that we all went to a Gala night black tie dinner dance in one of the marquees and my wife Katharine and I danced the night away to the live band. At the end we all went out to see the spectacular firework finale to celebrate the start of the show. On Saturday I came back to the Show. It was really odd as it felt like weeks ago since I was here and yet really it was only 3 days! Everything looked fine - in fact the plants seemed to have grown. Bob Sweet the RHS shows director and I were taking the winners of Rachel's competition around the show as part of their prize. They seemed to have had a great day with trips on the river and a good lunch at the show. The showground is massive so I hope Bob and I didnt tire them out too much. All the winners were really enthusiastic and it was nice to have the opportunity to show them my favourtite things and, of course, show them all around the "Passion for Taste" and "Stylish by Nature" Gardens. I'm delighted to see that the fruit in Passion for Taste is still showing well and the blueberries are now blue - there is a sumptouos smell of fruit around attracting lots of comment. It's great to hear people enthusing over things that not so long ago were just ideas in my head and scribbles on a sheet of paper! The Silver medal winning "Stylish by Nature Garden" has been also attracting lots of interest - in fact one admirer has asked me to see if it can be rebuilt in their Garden - which would be great if it's possible. And now it's time to close the Garden down. A fair bit of my time away has involved me beginning to arrange for the breakdown of the exhibit. This is always complex as the RHS expect the plot to be just clean and clear by the 15th of July, so there is plenty of time pressure here and it's important that everyone turns up at the right time...