Yvonne Matthews' display
GARDENING SOMETIMES show gardens and displays at the big events are the gardening equivalent of a Rolls Royce — when all you can afford is a Fiesta.
The excruciating attention to detail and often esoteric theme means they bear such little relevance to real gardening.
You have to look through the razzle and dazzle and perfect planting to see what elements will transfer to more humble efforts.
There was some stuff at this year’s Hampton Court Palace Flower Show that would not, easily, translate to 'real world’ gardening but much that readily does.
There was David Bellamy with his bearish enthusiasm for the English apple and his support for the aims of the Island Orchards Group that I will feature in a future column.
And there was more Island interest from the Garlic Farm’s display, which struck gold for the seventh year in a row, and garden designer Yvonne Mathews whose show garden scooped silver.
There was much in both entries to take away with you, both in terms of the memories of stunning achievement, and practical stuff too.
Now there will be none of us, I would wager, who would try to re-create Colin Boswell and his team’s garlic plaiter’s bothy, complete with its thatch of garlic, but the swathes of planting — including, predictably enough, garlic of many kinds — could be on the menu of any gardener with a suitable 15ft square of sunny garden.
This year, the Boswell team, which has in the past, relied on Nicky Hayward and then her daughter, Jules, worked with Paul Barney, of Edulis, based near Pang-bourne, a highly experienced plantsman, to create the Garlic Lover’s Garden.
"We demonstrated the diverse range within the allium family. We had a 'garlic tree’ and also examples of the UK’s own indigenous Elephant garlic, allium amp-eloprasum babingtonii, which is restricted to a few surfing beaches in the south west and river inlets on the west coast," said Colin.
"There is an inference these are relics left from visiting Phoenicians in the late Bronze Age, around 1500BC.
"In one corner of the garden was a bothy, constructed of ancient oak timbers rescued from a farm building, with its roof thatched with different garlic types, massive Elephant garlic bulbs, Iberian and Albigensian Wight — white Mediterranean types — and beautiful streaked purple garlic, Chesnok Wight and Early Purple Wight."
The craft timber work in the bothy, oak and cleverly constructed pale fencing from old produce trays, some going back 50 years with the date when they were made still on them, were all the work of Island-based craftsman and builder, Bill Hood.
His wife, Angela, produced much of the painted signage.
Bill is based at the Garlic Farm and, although involved on projects over the Island, is the creative force behind much of the recent additions that were opened by Clarissa Dickson Wright a month ago.
The swathe of planting included jasmine, verbena, verbascum, the wild garlic tulbaghia, round-headed leeks and the delightful little rose, Long John Silver, to name but a few.
Something to take home, apart from a wealth of garlic knowledge and planting ideas, was a taste of the skill of Romanian architectural student, Adiela Talos, who has been coming to the farm to work each summer for the past four years.
She gave plaiting demonstrations outside the bothy.
Coming from close to Transylvania, she is a natural at plaiting and grapping (bunching) garlic to the greatest artistic effect.
Out in the open, away from the huge Grow Your Own marquee, where the Garlic Farm’s entry again won the best of the entire entry, was Yvonne Mathews’s garden which drew inspiration from the poem Loves Last Adieu by Byron.
Yvonne, as ever, wanted to build a different kind of garden with an interesting theme. Ironically, next door, a garden inspired by Keats’s On the Sea, penned on the Island in 1817, won a gold medal.
A significant feature of Yvonne’s planting was that it included the newly released Black Velvet petunias and euphorbia Breathless Blush too. There was a monumental urn and a metal gazebo manufactured by Darren Nash, of Fishbourne, that was built in the style of, and represented, a Victorian hearse complete with Dichondra argentea Silver Falls forming its shroud.
Appropriately enough, it was built by Rob Carr — a former grave digger — and gardening friends from the Co-operative Funeralcare.
She said: "There are always many trials and tribulations in building a show garden, but the major difficulty this year, with the really good weather we had been having, was holding the many hundreds of petunias, bizzie lizzies, nicotiana and geraniums back.
"This involved all the family, and indeed neighbours, pinching out the flowers as they arrived too early. It was a daily task that certainly created many debits in my 'favours book’ — but the vibrant and dramatic show these plants gave was well worth it."
Yvonne has been building show gardens for 11 years and has built them at the Chelsea Flower Show, Gardeners World Live and, of course, Hampton Court.
She has won many RHS medals, including golds, and at this year’s Gardeners’ World Live show, that preceded Hampton Court, she built a garden for the Macmillan Nurses that won silver gilt.
Petunia Black Velvet was only released this year and has been much in demand. Like all petunias, it blooms prolifically from spring through to autumn and is on my list for next year.
Highwood opens gates
TOMORROW (Saturday) Highwood at Cranmore Avenue, Cranmore, opens for the Friends of Ventnor Botanic Garden.
Highwood is a lovely mature garden, occupying about a quarter of a ten-acre site with south-facing slope.
There are borders of shrubs, perennials, an oak copse, lawns and a natural pond.
Directions: Two miles east of Yarmouth on the A3054 turn left opposite the bus shelter into Cranmore Avenue, which is now part Tarmac, with approximately the last 100 metres to Highwood unmade. Parking will be signposted, with disabled spaces near to the house
It is open from 10.30am to 12.30pm. Admission is £3 and non-members of the Friends are welcome.
Brighstone and District Horticultural Society has its summer show on Warnes Lane Playing Field tomorrow afternoon (Saturday) and Rookley Village Association has its show in the village hall, also tomorrow afternoon.