Cape Town – Kirstenbosch’s participation at London’s Chelsea Flower Show – 38 exhibits winning 33 gold medals – has provided a direct interest for South Africans for decades. But for all of Chelsea’s prestige, the largest flower show in the world takes place at Hampton Court Palace every July.

Much younger than Chelsea, the Royal Horticultural Society’s Hampton Court Palace Flower Show was established in 1990, and takes place in 34 acres of garden surrounding one of Britain’s most famous palaces. Situated 20km south-west of London, this major midsummer gardening event includes 34 gardens, 600 exhibitors and a spectacle of flowering roses.

This year it ran from July 9 to 14.

Of particular interest to South African gardeners is the fact the Hampton flower show focuses on environmental issues, outdoor patio gardens, designs by young landscapers, school food gardens and growing your own food. In 1998, a gold medal award-winning food garden created by the Leyhill Open Prison at Hampton Court Palace interestingly provided the basis for the film Greenfingers (2001), starring Dame Helen Mirren.

Internationally acclaimed wildlife exhibits were to be seen at this year’s show. The Eden Project created a massive butterfly dome that featured a magnificent array of beautiful tropical butterflies, and an entire Bee Garden marquee provided demonstrations and advice on gardening for bees and bee-keeping.

The gloomy recession in Britain remains a backdrop to all garden shows, and celebrity customised henhouses were auctioned for charity at the show.

The large grounds at Hampton Court Palace offer young designers a platform for experimenting. A conceptual garden category with the theme of “the changing environment” drew a huge amount of media attention, and succeeded in ruffling the feathers of many traditionalists. Young designers included a range of old fridges in one garden, and a giant grass claw gouging the earth in another. Several exhibits were stylishly blackened visions of burnt-out forests – complete with 2m artistic flames and tombstones dedicated to nature destroyed.

Among the 34 large gardens created by landscape designers for this year’s Hampton Court Palace Flower Show were a number of trends relevant to local gardeners:

Multi-cultural gardening:

Secluded, sociable patio spaces are now being designed to celebrate and mirror the diverse and dynamic cultural make-up of modern society. The vibrant colour of walls and floor surfaces, together with sculptures and plants from across the world, reflect different cultures and horticultural traditions – all in one garden.

The gold-medal winning “Layers and Links” garden was created by a designer of Turkish descent who blended diverse elements – blue walls, artistic ironwork, patterned floors and English meadow garden – into a single garden.

The garden “August 1963 – I have a dream” celebrated 50 years of progress in racial integration and equality since Martin Luther King jr’s famous speech that month. Designed as a place for contemplation, the garden included paving and water features inspired by the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. Blocks of planting represented racial segregation and racial equality, while water features with white and black water cascades flowed into the centre of the garden to meet in a single pool.

Colour your garden:

Bright colours dominated many of the patio gardens this year. The “Four Corners” meadow garden included only plants that flowered in sunset shades of burnt orange, rust and gold. The design was inspired by the ancient Chahar Bagh Persian-style garden layout, and was divided into four areas by rills around a water fountain. Picture frames on the fence of the garden were filled with miniature succulents (Sempervivum) in the tradition of vertical gardening.

Bright orange was also the backdrop for a 1950s-themed garden which celebrated the low-cost, high-impact era of “Mid Century Modern”. Inspired by a vintage advertising poster, the garden included a patio and pool in a secluded seating area.

Blooms in red, orange and yellow also dominated “The Hot Stuff Garden”, which had a circular terrace with patio chairs.

Food gardens:

The Hampton Court Palace Flower Show specialises in cooking demonstrations and food gardens. The most impressive food garden created last week was entitled “A movable feast”. Inspired by army wives, the garden showed how to create a food garden that can be transported to wherever army families are relocated, making use of inexpensive, colourful containers.

The planting scheme featured the ingredients needed for a feast, while a river of yellow planting symbolised the ribbon of hope used by military families when a loved one is away on a tour of duty.

Promoting the establishment of school food gardens has taken on a new urgency in recessionary Britain. The Royal Horticultural Society’s Campaign for School Gardening uses the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show as a stage to honour the country’s best school gardens and identify heroes in school gardens across the country.

Notwithstanding the glamorous platform given to British schools at Hampton Court, South Africa’s own school food gardening initiative is still well ahead of the curve internationally.

Established in 1990 by Food and Trees for Africa, and sponsored by Engen and The Woolworths Trust, the Edu-Plant campaign has trained more than 40 000 educators in food gardening and greening for schools.

More than 600 schools across the country are assessed annually, and 60 make it to the finals, with 21 honoured by winning in various categories. Last year, the top award for the best school food garden in the Western Cape was won by Vergesig Primary School in Robertson.

GENERAL GARDEN TIPS

* Get ready to prune roses in the last week of July. Not all rose bushes respond well to heavy pruning. A modern rose that particularly resents heavy cutting back is Iceberg.

* A general rule with bush roses is to create a vase shape by removing any inward growing stems. Cut away all dead and diseased wood, and spindly growth. Cut back bush roses by a third, and train canes of climbing roses as horizontally as possible to encourage more flowers.

* Never prune or cut back shrubs that flower in spring. These include rambling roses such as the banksia rose, azalea, camellia, deutzia, philadelphus (mock orange) and rhododendron.

* Take out spent vegetables, dig over the beds and fork in compost and well-rotted manure in preparation for spring planting. Start seed potatoes in shallow trays of soil in a warm place in preparation for planting out in August.

* Don’t wait until August before staking plants securely to prevent damage. New plants are at great risk from wind rocking and loosening emerging roots. Shrubs and trees with brittle branches should be reduced to avoid tearing and breaking.

* There is still time to plant the bulbs of tiger lilies and tall white St Joseph lilies. If planted now, good drainage is vital, so they’re best planted in containers where they can be protected from snail and slug damage.

* There is still time to plant colourful winter bedding plants such as primula and pansy. Established seedlings of these bright annuals can be planted directly into prepared beds or containers. Pansies do best in a sunny corner, whereas primulas will do better in the shade. – Weekend Argus

The fourth annual Art Blooms exhibit brought flowers and color to Solomons last weekend and, this year, featured a floral design demonstration.

The Calvert Garden Club recruited designers from around the state to create their best floral arrangements for the art show, which ran July 19 through 21 at Annmarie Sculpture Garden and Arts Center. Last Saturday, garden club members demonstrated for eight local floral aficionados how to put together one of the designs.

“We want to show people how you can be inspired by a piece of art,” Calvert Garden Club President Joyce Fletcher said during Saturday’s demonstration.

Fletcher, of Huntingtown, and fellow garden club members Mary Smolinski of St. Leonard and Shahla Butler of Huntingtown showed up at Annmarie with buckets of fresh blossoms ready to be joined into a masterpiece that, like the other Art Blooms pieces, was inspired by a work of art in either “Elements in Balance: earth, air, fire, water” or “Text/message: a teen art exhibit,” two exhibits currently displayed at the arts center. They chose to use a mosaic, “Earth Medicine Wheel,” by Lori Goodman, for their inspiration.

“What we want to do today was go over the process of what you see around here,” said Butler.

Even though a group of designers had already created a representation of the same piece, the three ladies said they thought it would be helpful for the audience to see an alternative method.

Smolinski said she and the other garden club members wanted to create a piece to “compare with other interpretations” and show their guests different options they have when making a floral arrangement. The main difference attendees could notice was how Saturday’s creation was a flat adaptation, and the original Art Blooms designers had constructed their interpretation vertically.

The flat approach is a technique known as “pavé,” the club members said.

The piece they worked on Saturday was a much more literal interpretation than the one presented at the art show. The designers adopted the shapes and colors almost directly from the artwork, while continuing to teach their audience about the different approaches they can take when designing.

“It’s not always the colors we pick up on,” said Butler. “Sometimes it’s the shapes, sometimes it’s the feel.”

The garden club members started out with a block of Oasis floral foam as their base and continued to place flowers in the designated pattern.

The arrangement began with the dark leaves of a coleus plant, as the artists worked their way to the center of the piece with a variety of blooms. They enlisted hydrangeas, carnations, coxcombs, thistles, lily grass, eucalyptus leaves and St. John’s Wort buds to complete their interpretation.

Eventually, it was all hands on deck as the club members recruited their audience to help finish the design.

The hands-on approach helped those in attendance understand the process better, as well as enjoy the demonstration more completely, according to visitors who participated in the demonstration.

“It was ambitious when they started,” said Roseanna Vogt of Chesapeake Beach. “It certainly opens your mind to what you can do. It was worth coming down for and seeing how they balance the art and the flowers.”

Many attendees left Saturday’s demonstration saying they felt inspired to complete a floral arrangement of their own.

“We don’t have any restrictions for this, which is why a lot of people like it,” said Butler. “You just get to be creative.”

“This is a wonderful blend of everything I love — art and flowers — so I always show up,” St. Mary’s Garden Club member Karen Doherty said of the Art Blooms exhibit. “It’s a wonderful show this year.”

The Art Blooms weekend is a joint effort between Annmarie and the Calvert Garden Club. Annmarie decides on a theme for the show and puts the word out to local artists, said exhibit co-chair and former Calvert Garden Club president Denise Moroney of Huntingtown. The club finds interested designers and assigns each team or individual a piece of artwork to interpret, she said.

This year’s exhibit was inspired by an array of artwork from “Elements in Balance” and “Text/Message.” The floral interpretations were paired with their corresponding pieces and displayed for the weekend only. The annual corresponding Art Blooms Gala reception was held July 19.

The public is welcome to submit designs for the Art Blooms exhibit. Those interested in participating in the 2014 event should go to www.annmariegarden.org for more information.

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The huge decorative mirror in the corner of this garden makes an interesting wall full of character and interest.

A garden wall made from the hedgerow of European beech with its burgundy foliage is colorful and functional.$RETURN$$RETURN$

Every garden needs great walls! That’s the horticultural inspiration I took away from a two-week jaunt through English and Scottish gardens I recently made. It’s not a new lesson for me but one of which it is good to be reminded.

Every student of garden design has probably been taught to approach creating a garden much like an interior designer does a room inside a home. You pay attention to the floor, walls, and ceiling, which all impact the overall feel and look of the design.

In garden design these elements are the “bones” of your garden, the non-living elements around which you add living plants. Another way to look at it is as the backdrop or canvas upon which you paint or build your garden.

If you’ve ever been to England and Scotland, you see very quickly that they are blessed with fabulous walls around which to build their gardens. Of course you can’t go wrong with buildings and ruin walls that are at least 800+ years old. Almost any planting up against such historical walls looks great!

But built walls don’t have to be old to provide a great backdrop for a garden. I’ve visited a few gardens in the United States that had purposely built “ruin walls” to provide a stunning backdrop to their gardens. The brick wall of the side of my home has provided wonderful color and vertical structure to my garden. I have purposely chosen orange- and coral-colored plants to harmonize with the terra cotta color of my home’s brick. Whether wood, brick, plaster or stone, you’ll find building walls to serve as an excellent wall to your garden.

Other outstanding garden walls I saw on my trip were not made of inert materials but of plants themselves. Fabulous hedgerow walls of European beech, hawthorn, yew, arborvitae, Leyland cypress, and espalier apple trees made great garden backgrounds. The color and or texture of these hedgerows provided stunning surroundings for their gardens. I especially liked the burgundy-colored walls of the European beech hedgerows which proved to be a great backdrop color for many gardens. Hedgerows are nice and provide a solid canvas as a wall but with so many plants of one species planted together, they are prone to insect and disease attacks. Planting a mixture of plants that blend complimentary evergreens and deciduous trees and shrubs is one of my favorite walls to use for a garden because of the variety and interest it can provide. Choose a color theme for your varied planted wall, and it will be stunning and hard to beat.

Fences, whether wood, stone, wrought iron or a variety of other materials, work well for a garden wall. I’m especially fond of materials that can be painted a color that you would like to use in the garden. I’ve painted my wood paneled fence that runs across the back of my driveway a rusty-orange color that not only complements my home’s brick but accentuates the orange- and coral-colored plants in the small garden I’ve created in front of it. Wrought iron, split-rail, or other see-through fences allow plants that creep or cascade over and through the structure to add interest and character to the garden’s backdrop.

Think outside the box when you select a wall for your garden. I’ve seen a variety of interesting elements used to create a fantastic garden backdrop — everything from windows to mirrors, bookcases, pallets, and crates. One of the coolest gardens I’ve seen used a huge decorative mirror as a wall that added so much interest and at the same time made the small garden seem bigger.

So survey your garden. What are its walls? Can you enhance them to make your garden more stunning?