Flower shows are a great day out for all the family

Since 1924, Southport Flower Show has been one of the largest northern flower shows, with Tatton coming first. Southport is still a large show with 80,000 people attending over four days.

Once again the nursery was exhibiting in the floral marquee with a display of hardy northern perennials, along with other nurseries from up and down the country.

It is always hard to miss the showy displays of cut flowers at the summer shows, whether it be dahlias, gladioli or even sweet peas, many new varieties are coming out each year and with a little bit of extra TLC all of these can be grown in your garden.

A tremendous amount of work goes into getting these stands just perfect, with all the flowers facing forward and the colours blending in with one another.

At the flower show you really have two different types of stands, the cut flowers, and then the growing plant displays, much like the nursery’s display.

These consist of actual growing plants which are flowering and sometimes the timing of these displays is much trickier than the cut flower.

A vibrant perennial which always flowers for Southport is the crocosmia, hot colours or red, orange and yellow, and these are complimented with the soft pastel colours of Border Phlox (Phlox paniculata) blues, pinks, purples and whites.

Now is a great time to plant Summer perennials as you can easily imagine where the colour and height of them will fit into your garden as they are fully grown. A little tip though is that when planting perennials, take off the flowers and feed with tomato food. This will make the plant put energy into development rather than a flower, therefore making a bigger plant for next year.

A day out to a flower show is a great eye opener into the world of gardening, you will see plants you never knew existed and also be able to get free help and advice from specialist growers. It’s also a great day out for all the family.