Hardy plants are behind our RHS Flower Show gold

Just looking around the floral marquee this year there was colour from wall to wall, all the stands were packed full of flowers and the plants looked healthier than ever. This has been the after effect of having what seems to be a summer!

After the good weather you will all notice in your garden how much healthier and happier all your plants look and this gave us a recipe for success when heading to Tatton this year.

We were given a 250 square foot circular stand to fill with plants to fit our brief, “Plants for a Northern Garden”. The plants included Astilbes, which are damp lovers, our well-known Crocosmias, a large range of Achillea (Yarrow) and also what seemed to be the plant of the show, the Monardas (Bergamot).

The display (pictured) was divided by two stepping stone paths which led from a hot sunny border around to a small natural pond surrounded by shade loving plants like Hostas and Heucheras. It took four days to construct and used just over 2,000 plants!

Most of the plants used are out of the batches grown on the nursery, allowing us to sell if all off on the Sunday. However, some plants are larger show plants just used for the shows, like Hostas and the Japanese Maples.

When arriving at the first day of the show we were delighted to find out we had achieved top marks and been awarded the gold medal for our display.The judges said they couldn’t fault it and complimented us on the wide range of plants used and the exceptional quality considering all plants had been grown outside on the nursery.

We pride ourselves on growing hardy plants outside and we believe this is the reason for our success at the shows, as other nurseries do grow plants in greenhouses and polytunnels. Our customers always seem pleasantly surprised when they come back and tell us how well the plants are doing that they bought from us the previous year, instead of asking “how can I make this plant look as good as the day I bought it?”. This may be down to the fact the other nurseries they bought it off grew the plant in a polytunnel for all of its life!