RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show

Bob and Stuart left the nursery on Friday to set off for Hampton Court.  The hire van was loaded with most of the stock and artefacts needed for the display.  This includes moss for top dressing between the plants, pots and newspaper that are used underneath the moss to fill any spaces and of course those most important plants.  The main difference between our display and the gardens built outside the Floral marquee is that most of our plants are all staged still in their pots as we are building the display on top of wooden staging.  The outside gardens can dig down into the ground and plant the plants just like you do in the garden.  It is much harder in many ways to build the indoor display as we have to disguise the fact that the plants are often in differing sized pots!

Unusually this year the nursery was not ablaze with colour.  It almost seems as though August has come a month early.  Achilleas are flowering in abundance but many other summer plants have either finished flowering or yet to start. Bob and the team have however managed to create a display that they are happy with considering the plants available.  Jen, Stuart and Linda are working with Bob at Hampton Court so that I can stay behind at the nursery with the other staff to keep up the good work.  Just keeping all the plants watered is a bit of a nightmare at present as well as trying to keep them deadheaded and weed free.  At least the dry weather is keeping some of the plants free of too much slug damage but it doesn't seem to have stopped the damage the mice are inflicting on some of the plants just as they are coming up to flowering.