Garden Blogs

The heatwave that stayed with us from the beginning of the Garden build to the end was incredible. Every day the weather report raised the expected temperature - and everyday the sun obliged. We had to water the plants at least twice a day yet still many, in particular the fruit trees, were clearly stressed. Martin announced his phone was telling him that it was 35 degrees one day and my car said 33 degrees. We would slap on the factor 30, drink gallons of bottled water and knuckle down to creating the two gardens and the sampling area. It was such a joy because you're working alongside the best gardeners in the country at one of the premier flower shows in the world, in a stunning setting with the Palace as the backdrop.

We laid the recycled plastic interlocking grids for the public pathways quickly and dressed them with white and black gravel bands to match Rachel's colours. We were able to include the number ‘25’ within the grid's cells in recognition of Rachel's 25th Anniversary. We are proud to say we built Rachels Passion for Taste Garden with no concrete at all – even the sleeper wall was just set hard in layers of mud in its trench. When Breeze House built the thatched Gazebo last Tuesday it began to look very lived in with the specimen fruit trees already positioned. Ken Muir had delivered some superb fruit bushes on Monday prior to this and I enjoyed planting out the remainder of the Garden with radiating bands of the fruit crops. The dwarf Peach Bonanza looked impressive in full fruit and was already attracting interest.

By this time our new friends Chris, Ag and Polly had started setting up Rachel's sampling stand. They were really friendly and we were now all together as a team labouring under the hot sun, looking after each other. Scotts built the Black and White Summerhouse on the Monday and Martin built the wall around it the next day. With the specimen weeping silver Pear and white barked Birch this garden quickly took shape. I enjoyed the planting of this garden most as it required me to be very creative about the combinations I could achieve with the good looking plants in the silver, black and white range that I had selected. I had also had to make some changes to the paths and seat. The white stone chips were a much better effect than the black I had originally designed for on the two paths. This meant the white bench didn’t work at all – so I phoned up Garden furniture maker Chris Nagle and asked if he could provide one of his hand sculpted hardwood black ebony seats. He said ok and it arrived just in time. Not only was it a perfect fit, it looked great and was lovely to sit on as well!

The big day came on Monday the 6th. The Rachel's team rolled out the red carpet and had a grand opening party. The Royal Horticultural Society judges arrived to make their decisions and we were left biting our nails until late in the day when two medals duly arrived! A Bronze for "Passion for Taste" and rather appropriately a fantastic Silver medal for our silver anniversary themed "Stylish by Nature Garden"!