What did I buy at Hampton Court?

Red Mohican flower heads, I do love it when a plant name actually matches its' appearance

My purse was crying but my bags were groaning.  For the sake of length Im going to split this into two parts: plants, and things that will become plants.  Lets start with things that will become plants shall we?

Aquilegia ‘Pom-poms’- It took me about twelve seconds to decide to buy these seeds, and yet I hate Aquilegia.  They are just so damn virile.  I have spent much of the last two years trying to halt the spread across the garden by the last batch the mother bought.  Yet when I saw these featured on Gardeners World a few months ago I knew in my heart any attempt to resist their frilly charms would be futile.  Luckily they grow very well in the dark spot in the garden where everything else objects to being put.

Sweet Peas- I was very disappointed at the sweet pea fair on offer this year, I could only find one seller: Eagle Sweet Peas, which is perfectly fine but I was hoping to try something new.  Although tempting to buy a great big variety pack full of varieties I don’t want, I decided to go expensive and be selective, choosing just two varieties: Leominster Boy which is a salmon orange, and Charlies Angel; a pretty pale blue.  I plan to buy more online at some point and will probably end up with a terrible combination of colours as I put them together myself.  Oh well.

The beautifully coloured 'Indian Summer' graduating from red to light purple at the bottom.  The Gladiolus look here much how I felt at the time: droopy

Judging by the very skewed nature of this photo I was on the verge of passing out from either heat or the thrill of the purchase, but it does show four of the varieties I bought: Aftershock- a very vivid pink and white, Chit Chat- splodges of a very blue pink on white, Magma- an unsurprisingly bright red and Green Star- odd I know but it works for me 

Gladiolus- Oh gladiolus.  I went a bit overboard here but in my defence they are my favourite cut flower.  Despite having still to get a single flower on the ones I bought this year, the wrong soil and nowhere to plant them, I went and bought forty bulbs.  Yes forty, because apparently im planning on opening a fresh flower shop next year and will need an endless supply.  Thing is I saw ‘Indian Summer’ in the display, knew I wouldn’t be leaving without any and there was an offer on for forty bulbs so just thought screw it; lets just buy the whole stand.  So buy the whole stand I did.  I didn’t buy forty Indian Summer bulbs because that really would have been overkill, instead plumping for a mix of varieties with Indian Summer, Aftershock, Chit Chat, Magma, Green Star and Black Star. In effect all I have really bought is a hell of a lot of work as I will have to dig up most of the lawn and then spend three weeks digging trenches.

Three Red Mohican Bulbs, looking remarkably like rather crusty garlic gloves

 Alliums- As I have mentioned on here before, round things appeal greatly to me, round things suspended high up on sticks even more.  Therefore I am a great lover of an Allium.  I set out to increase their numbers in my garden but had no particular variety in mind.  Luckily the stands are comparable to a pick and mix sweet stand.  It does annoy me when they show bulbs on the stands that they are not actually selling, such as ‘ping pong’ which I immediately wanted but was denied.  Not so the case with Red Mohican which are as the name suggests red and do actually have little hair dos, like a thousand pins sticking upright out of a cushion.  It was love at first sight.  Less so for the ‘Rosenbachianum’ and ‘White Giant’ Bulbs that snuck in during that rather spendy moment when I was ordering a thousand gladiolus bulbs.  On top of forty another six didn’t seem like much of a stretch.  Thankfully the lady who sold them to me wrote on the packets what they were otherwise I would just have two bags of rather large unidentifiable garlic.

Three 'White Giant' bulbs, I know this because the bulbs are huge, and luckily the bag is labelled 

Stand Out Plants- Hampton Court

Its not the birds and the bees but the balls and the bees.  The flowers were alive with them!

Allium Sphaerocephalon- Hampton was heaving with balls.  There were Alliums everywhere; in the flower marquee, in the show gardens, but also clutched in virtually every pair of sweaty hands I could see, and they were all the same variety.  Allium Sphaerocephalon can be effectively summed up as a dark red purple tennis ball on a long stick.  A stick that has a shocking amount of flexibility which wiped the smile of every purchasers face as realisation set in that they were going to have a fight on their hands to maintain order with their new set of balls.  Thankfully I took a picture of the label because ‘Sphaerocephalon’ is not exactly catchy!  Other Alliums get memorable descriptive English names such as ‘ping pong’ or ‘red Mohican’ that you have a hope in hell in remembering, but clearly ‘Sphaerocephalon’ is just too descriptive to replace, even in Latin so that’s what they decided to stick with.  Every Allium seller had a delightful display of these flowers and they were a definite winner with the crowds.  However the best display belonged to a nursery situated outside of the flower marquee as it had turned into a complete bee-fest.  If ever you wanted conformation that bees like alliums this was it, there were at least forty bees and those bees were going to town!

A Koria hydrangea forced out early so we all knew what we were getting.  The mother had to choose this exact moment to have a feel didn't she

Hydrangea Koria- Exactly like a normal lacecap hydrangea, except it looks like its been attacked by an arts and crafts fanatic with their beloved crimping shears.  There is nothing like a little frilly edge to add a bit of interest.  I would say that along with the aforementioned allium, hydrangeas were the other plant of Hampton.  People were definitely buying ‘Koria’ en mass but not quite like they were buying another variety sold by the same nursery that had completely cornered the market.  Stupidly as it didn’t appeal to me I didn’t get the variety but it was a two toned lacecap.  A mottled mixture of purple and blue I swear every other person had bought one.  I would see visitors from behind, assume they were carrying a child and then have them turn round and reveal the hydrangea lovingly clutched to the bosom.  There weren’t many kids at Hampton, so maybe people had withdrawal pangs for the dead weight they were used to lugging around and filled that hole with a hydrangea. 

'Sunny Side up' Superbums are simply stunning

Leucanthemum x superbum ‘sunny side up’- What a name.  Bravo to who ever named a plant ‘superbum’.  Any plant with a name like that deserves a special mention.  As it happens I am particularly fond of daisy-type plants.  Closely related to the ox-eye daisies seen on all verges round my area but on steroids, these have a lovely mass-packed untidy texture that I find irresistible.

Echinacea 'Southern Belle' 

Echinacea ‘Southern Belle’- Love it for much the same reasons as ‘sunny side up’.  I have seen this before while trawling the internet for Echinacea seeds but you have to actually buy this plant and I always felt it wasn’t worth it.  I have changed my mind; in person I loved them.  For some reason these remind me of fat pink hamsters in tutus, which I know is very odd but they just work for me.

Echinacea ‘Green Wizard’- I considered growing some of these last year but I couldn’t decide whether I actually thought they were attractive plants.  Resembling a lump of black honeycomb they are hardly bright and cheery plants.  However they were used in the bed of yellow plants at Hampton and in that situation they showed their true potential.  Used in the right setting ie. Amongst bright colour or possibly feathery grasses these would provide a very black structural contrast.  Despite not taking a picture, me thinks I will be getting a packet.

The Dahlias- I’ve never been much of a fan but three turned my head:

‘Happy Single Party’- Highlighter yellow; need I say more?!  I don’t even get how a plant can even produce colour like that naturally.  Imagine that singing out from your border! A line of these edging your front path and you would never fall drunkenly into a bush on the way home from the pub again.

Hide your retinas people because these are bright!

‘Happy Single First Love’- Love the colour, unfortunately so did everyone else and they got their first.  Name is a complete contradiction of itself.  I don’t think it is possible to have a ‘happy single first love’ as love generally requires two, but as this is clearly referring to not being a double flower I will let it pass. 

‘Dame Deidre’- Well this wins the award for the most terrible name ever hands down.  Way to make a plant sound exciting, no offence to Deidres.  Luckily the name does not stop it being very yellow, very spikey and huge.  If Big Bird was to be represented in a single flower it would be this one.  I wouldn’t probably want this in my own garden as it wouldn’t fit in, but it really is something.

The worst named plant ever

Hampton Court: Was the inspiration section really inspiring?

Natural wildflower type planting, great, but what are those pesky dusky blue flowers?!

There was a time in my amateur gardening career when I had narrow horizons and my growing interest extended to fuchsias, and no further.  I went in for them in a big, big way.  But fuchsias, like any plant have their limitations.  Lets face it, they may vary in colour and frilliness to a certain extent, and they are lovely, but they are all much a much-ness.  Luckily, at some point somebody must have smacked me over the head with another plant and opened my eyes to a world of possibility.  Now I realise that variety is key; it doesn't bore the other users of the garden so, doesn't require epic overwintering measures and I must admit is a little more stimulating on the eye.

I sometimes consider myself to have an ok knowledge of plants; I know my Agapanthus from my Alliums for instance.  In reality there are thousands of plants that I don't even know exist and its not until one extracts oneself from ones own veg patch and goes and visits somebody else's garden that one is made aware of this.  Due to a severe shortage of time on my part I don't get out as much as I should, in a gardening sense, but Hampton gave me an opportunity in the form of the show gardens and the nursery's wares for sale.  I saw a lot to wet the palette, but not much of it came from the show gardens Im afraid.  Now Im not sure I actually saw many of the show gardens, but it was boiling, I was sweating, the feet were hurting and I had the attention span of a gnat before wandering off to find a combination of shade and water so it needed to be good.

Do flowers only come in purple?!

I only made it into the 'inspire' section late in the afternoon, saw one wildflower meadow, saw another, then may have wandered off back to the flower marquee.  Don't get me wrong, I will take a wildflower meadow over a bed of Begonias any day, I appreciate a bit of natural planting and I am wholly supportive of planting for insects, but I think if a wildflower meadow is going to be used in a show garden situation it needs to include some really special things.  One of the gardens had a ring of tall grass encompassing the garden forming a surprisingly solid boundary but still allowed the viewer to look in which I thought was a nice idea, no use in the winter obviously but could be used as internal partitions within your garden during the summer, and excellent if you have the odd rabbit bouncing around.

Another thing that bothered me were the colour schemes.  I get that purple and white flowers are nice and people like them, I like them, but god are they boring.  I looked into one garden and it was a sea of purple and white, there were alliums and lavender and thats all great, but personally I would like to see some really interesting colours and combinations, but then I like colour.  In another garden there was a really great dusky blue flower, no idea what It was unfortunately, but it stuck out for me as the highlight within another wildflower meadow with a great big rusty metal cow stuck in the middle of it; how delightful.  All I want to see really are a sea of labels so now I would actually know what that flower was.

The first section of the Britain in Bloom exhibit: Agapanthus? Check! Purple and white colour scheme? Check! Decorative archway? Check! 

I don't think these can be described as being anything other than whoppers!

The show garden that really stood out for me was the Britain in Bloom exhibit.  I didn't see any blurb explaining what the garden was about, and I certainly didn't have the energy level to search for it, but whatever the point, I liked it.  Not the first part; blue and white alliums, trellis; standard.  The second bit was an extremely visually curated vegetable patch.  None of the vegetables resembled the tatty plants I have in my patch and they were absolutely huge and therefore well past the point where you would want to eat them, but what does that matter when it looks good?!  But the third bit I thought was excellent.  In the words of Coldplay 'it was all yellow'.  Consisting of a bank of yellow stretching from my feet at the front right up into the sky at the back in the form of sunflowers grown en-mass like they are in foreign fields.  Apart from the odd touches of complimentary burnt orange and purple and obviously green, every plant was shock it to you yellow, and I thought it was brilliant.  You may not want an entire garden of yellow at home, but then who wants a giant rusty cow either?  It was bright, uplifting, fun; like somebody had taken Big Bird from Sesame street as the inspiration and created a border from there.  Yes it wasn't relaxing, but not everybody goes into their garden for a nap.  It worked though; I didn't buy any wildflowers afterwards but I did buy a packet of sunflower seeds, and that surely is the sign that a garden was inspiring.

Yellow border from the Britain in Bloom exhibit, particularly like the bands of a single plant at each height

That Dahlia basically is the flower embodiment of Big Bird all by itself

Hampton Court Flower Show: Day overview

A swan and her three cygnets on the water at Hampton while we ate our picnic

The absolute last place you want to be standing in England in humid 25 degree Celsius heat is in a packed flower tent, especially when one still has a slight temperature from having been ill.  But that is where I was to be found on Saturday as I attended the Hampton Court Flower Show on the outskirts of London in England on Saturday; a day I had been looking forward to pretty much since Chelsea last year.  I dragged myself from my sick bed determined to go forth, be inspired and buy, buy, buy, which I managed quite well, but my god was it hard.  Obviously I didn’t want it to rain but it was boiling.  Half an hour in the floral marquee and the flowers started to swim before me.  Outside on the grass picnickers were huddled in shaded spots melting and by mid afternoon I spied a whole row of bare ankles hanging into the water as I crossed a platoon.  I didn’t get the memo about the weather and turned up completely inappropriately dressed in jumper, jeans, walking boots and a raincoat of all things.  While eating my lunch, moist in unpleasant places, I enviously spied three young women in light summery dresses, all groomed and elegant on a nice day out while my hair angrily frizzed around me from the humidity.  But luckily I wasn’t there to look good, I was there to exercise my little flexible friend, and he has had to take a little lay down after all his exertion. 

A display of Sphaerocephalon Alliums, definitely one of the standout plants of the show, everybody had some, including myself! 

A lake of cranberries outside the food tent, as you do

I hate to say it, but I was actually slightly disappointed with Hampton this year but only because last time I went the emphasis seemed to be on growing and there were lots of seeds on sale.  I distinctly remember going in a tent full of growers with flowers and vegetables and all their seeds being laid out in front of them.  I was really looking forward to visiting this again and rootling though like a pig for truffles but alas. This year they seem to have completely done away with this feature and there were no vegetables at all, except for a Mr Fothergill’s stand, which I did raid.  There were still plenty of nurseries and the whole of the floral marquee but on the seed front this year it was definitely lacking.

I spent most of my time in the ‘growing’ section as that is what I went for but there was also a large Country Living magazine tent full of crafts where I had a brief chat about wallpaper, somehow even though it’s the day job I can’t resist a wallpaper sample book, a food tent that in the heat Im afraid had just too much of an overpowering scent for us to go in, and of course the show gardens.

Rather than just have one huge post on Hampton I thought it might be more reader friendly to split them up into manageable chunks so there will be posts on inspiration, plants that stood out to me, and of course all my lovely purchases!

Inside the sweltering flower tent