04 July 2019
Hampton Court Palace 2019
Garden Festival.
By Lynda Goetz
My father always maintained that a photograph which needed explaining was not a good photograph. I felt he had a point, although on occasions a title might be useful; but does this apply to all artistic endeavours? Not all of us understand music as well as others and some explanations can be helpful. Some Old Masters are better understood where we are given the cultural, historical and allegorical references, but does this apply to contemporary art and gardens? Wandering around the re-named Hampton Court Flower Show, I did at times feel somewhat patronised by the creators.
For a number of years now, the predominant themes of Chelsea and Hampton Court gardens have seemed to be the problems of environmental damage and human mental health. If gardens cannot simply be gardens and have to reflect a theme, then these subjects are clearly worthy of our attention; but should they really need explaining as much as their designers seem to feel they do, or should we be left, to a greater extent, to draw our own conclusions?
Most of us do not sit down and design our gardens; they develop out of a desire for a colour palette; seasonal impact; a variety of foliage shades and shapes; privacy and the need for a haven or even the desire to impress friends and neighbours (in which case a designer might be necessary), but it is unlikely that they are created with a theme in mind. A show garden is a different beast and whilst it might showcase new plants or highlight old ones, introduce new structures or certain colour combinations, it also has to paint a picture, tell a story or reveal a truth. How much does or should this need reiterating in words?
Calm Amidst Chaos, dedicated to and sponsored by the Maytree charity (helping those feeling suicidal) and designed by Joe Francis of Gardens for Good was a case in point. Whilst it could have been accused of something of a sledgehammer approach, its meaning could hardly have been clearer. Around a small oasis of green ‘to promote a sense of peace, calm and relaxation’ was strewn a ring of rubble containing such items as a clock, a coffin, a wheelchair, and a defunct missile. According to the write-up in the show catalogue; ‘While this Show Garden is a physical space highlighting the extremes of the physical world, it is also symbolic of the contrast we can feel within ourselves’. Well, who would have guessed? Still, this is a small gripe from a show that was, as always, a hugely pleasurable day out and a great opportunity, as I have said in the past, (Hampton Court 2017 and Hampton Court 2016) to get some new ideas for the garden as well as indulge in more expensive dreams of outdoor living and the various accoutrements to make those dreams happen. Indeed, perhaps the new name is timely and apposite.
There were some wonderful gardens to admire and be inspired by as well as plenty of ideas around health (mental and otherwise) and the environment. Two gardens addressed the problems of our decreasing summer rainfall; The Thames Water Flourishing Future Garden, designed by Tony Woods of Garden Club London and the Drought Tolerant Garden designed by the late Beth Chatto (named as the second RHS Horticultural Hero, the first last year having been Piet Oudolf), and recreated for the festival by David Ward, director of the Beth Chatto Gardens. The Forest Will See You Now, designed by Michelle Brandon highlights the benefits of the outdoors (as opposed to giant packets of For-Rest pills around the forest) as, of course, does the Back to Nature Garden which HRH The Duchess of Cambridge helped Andrée Davies and Adam White design and which first featured in a smaller version at Chelsea earlier in the year. The RHS Sanctuary Garden by Ula Maria is yet another which focuses on the ‘many benefits, mental and physical’ that ‘even the smallest patch of soil can provide us with’.
As always one left with the feeling of not quite having seen everything there was to see or done everything there was to do. We failed to attend one of the several free talks or workshops happening at different sites around the 25-acre show ground. We did hear the Brass Funkeys playing on the new floating stage as we sat and had a cup of tea overlooking the Long Water and its beautiful fountains (my other half thought my ideas for a water feature had got rather grandiose when I sent him a photo), and we did buy some stunning roses from the fantastic collections available at the Festival of Roses tent (dropped off at the plant crèche, they were duly ready for picking up later at the Rose Collection point by our exit gate). We also had a good look around the Floral Marquee and the Plant Village for other shrubs and plants we may have wanted to buy and managed to fit in a delicious lunch of freshly made sushi and sashimi at the Bubbles, Sushi and Seafood restaurant overlooking the Long Water and within hearing distance of the fountains (cascade or fountain for that water feature?). We also spotted various celebrities being interviewed for the BBC and the young designer Tom Simpson showing around friends or family as he clutched a bottle of champagne in celebration of his gold medal win for the Cancer Research UK Pledge Pathway to Progress Garden.
Colours and plants this year favoured once again the smaller, wilder-looking flowers, in keeping with the trend for environmental awareness and encouraging bees and other pollinators. I am not a huge fan of achillea (yarrow to those of you who know your wild flowers), which has for a number of years now featured quite heavily in its several colours from pink and orange through to yellows, but I do appreciate astrantia, red and white, and the delicate gaura and love foxgloves of all varieties. A couple of this year’s gardens featured digitalis x valinii ‘firebird’, a pretty new foxglove which won second place at Chelsea for new plant of the year. Sadly it currently seems to be unavailable. I’ll just have to get on with planting those newly acquired roses and do some research. There is always the Taunton Flower Show in a month’s time. I don’t think it has yet been renamed to reflect the wide variety of activities available – in case they are thinking of it, might I suggest The Taunton Rural Well-Being Festival?
