Suncream, sunhats and seeking out shade were the priorities as RHS Badminton launched in sweltering temperatures. True, that British standby the umbrella was everywhere but being used as a sun protector rather than rain shield.
I spent a hot day there. These are my thoughts on the first of two new RHS shows.
The star of the show for me was Tom Stuart-Smith’s feature garden in memory of Cotswold philanthropist Julia Rausing.
The large, walk through design was a masterclass in beautiful planting, soft pastel colours and undulating drifts set against the formal structure of clipped yew mounds. The drought-tolerant planting was bang on topic and I was taking notes for my own garden.
At its heart was a simple water feature and somewhere to sit – very tempting in the heat. Around that was woodland planting with multi-stemmed trees.
The final element was a wildflower meadow that linked the garden with Badminton House and the lake.
Jo Thompson had created a feature garden celebrating the long running radio show The Archers. Cottage style planting was a glorious mix of colours with freshly picked veg and a ‘stall’ selling tomatoes among the features.
The borders had her trademark roses and some lovely combinations of perennials.
Seeing Jo Thompson walking two goats was not on my RHS Badminton bingo card though. The goats were there as part of the garden until after the press call. Presumably they were then taken to somewhere cooler.
Among the show gardens, my favourite was the garden promoting the work of Macmillan Cancer Support designed by Elle Arnett and built by Artisan Landscapes. There was a peaceful, coolness about it that was particularly appealing in the heat.
Shade-loving planting hemmed paving made from textured limestone, the outer edges of quarried rock, leading to an area of brighter planting around a round water feature, made for the garden by Urbis.
Pale columns and birch trees were set into the planting, a nod to the proverb that inspired the design which says societies flourish when people plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Macmillan derives a lot of its income from ‘forward giving’ through legacies.
It’s Elle’s first showgarden and she was thrilled with the gold medal award.
It was the water features that caught my eye on another of the show gardens.
Finding Hope by Rick Ford and Pip Probert had several circular water features that reflected the perennial planting around them.
The garden was highlighting the work of CALM, a UK suicide prevention charity, and was structured around 16 squares representing the number of lives lost daily to suicide. The garden got silver.
The Best Show Garden award went to Stephen Moody for his evocation of the cricket ground and gardens around Old Heathfield in East Sussex. It’s where Young at Heart works, bringing together older people and children through willow sculpture and gardening.
Sophie Leo picked up a trio of awards in the Young Designer Gardens contest, winning gold, Best Construction and Best in Show.
Her garden, sponsored by Blue Diamond Garden Centres, highlighted the work of Maggie’s, a charity that provides centres offering support for those with cancer and their families. It was inspired by Sophie’s own experience of grief and was a sanctuary set among a stone sheepfold with native planting.
The iconic stone walls of the Cotswolds featured in Honing Heritage designed by Nick Leitch for the Artisan Gardens section. Flagstone paths led through a space filled with colourful perennials while the whole garden was enclosed in drystone walls.
Joshua Fenton, familiar from both Gardeners’ World Live and last year’s RHS Chelsea, had created an Artisan Garden for someone interested in herbal remedies, bee-keeping and wicker products. Low, woven fencing enclosed colourful borders. The garden got silver gilt.
Basket weaving was the inspiration for The Split Hazel Basketry Garden by Henry T Pope in the Artisan Gardens. It was inspired by the work of a friend, one of the few people in the country who still makes split hazel baskets. It had everything that would be needed from hazel, water for soaking and even an old hazel trunk with pegs for hanging baskets to dry. It won gold.
Another gold medal winner and also the Best in Show for the Artisan Gardens was a woodland craft garden by Rachael Austin. It promoted the work of the Ruskin Mill Trust with children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
The judges particularly noted the wildflower meadow and it was my favourite part of the garden.
There were several entries into the Pocket Planting section, among them a design by Megan Dodd who created a border at this year’s RHS Malvern – you can read about it here.
Like her previous design, it featured flowing perennials in soft shades and won her a silver gilt medal.
RHS Badminton – the flowers
Though temperatures were high in the Floral Marquee, it was a relief to get out of the sun and it’s always a pleasure to look around the beautiful displays from leading growers.
The Master Grower for the show was the Kitchen Garden Plant Centre based in Newent. This family run herb specialist is a stalwart at RHS shows, including Chelsea, and has won several top medals.
The unjudged Master Grower display traced the journey of their plants from propagation to packaging for the mail order side of the nursery.
It was a very special gold medal award for Richard and Vicky Fox of heuchera nursery Plantagogo as it brought their tally of RHS golds to 100.
Also winning gold was Dan Stearne of Dan’s Plants though at his third he’s got a way to go to rival Plantagogo.
I can’t really grow hydrangeas as my soil’s far too dry – even in a normal summer – but this caught my eye on Rosemeade Nurseries’ display. What a colour!
This is the tiniest sanguisorba I’ve ever seen. It was on Bluebell Cottage Gardens’ stand.
I always like catching up with Rob Hardy of Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants. The nursery’s top sellers on the first day at RHS Badminton were the appropriately named Crocosmia ‘Firestarter’, ageratum and Verbena officianalis ‘Bampton’. Unusually though, the verbena’s leaves were green rather than the usual purple.
Shona Lockheart, who was helping on the stand, told me she wondered if it was a reaction to the extreme heat – this verbena is known to change colour if it doesn’t get enough sun. Shona said she had one at home that was in full sun and had gone green. She’d also heard of several more that had done the same thing. A case of a plant adapting to climate change? Possibly.
One of the prettiest displays was an array of penstemon by Green JJam Nurseries. It’s likely to be the last time this popular nursery is at an RHS show as the full peat ban comes in next year and owner Julia Mitchell has struggled to get the plants through the winter in peat-free compost.
RHS Badminton – the verdict
So, was RHS Badminton a winner? As predicted by everyone who lives in the area, there were huge problems with access as the roads are narrow and visitors faced very long delays in traffic. The lack of a good mobile signal in much of the Cotswolds also hampered the ticketing system, which was on an app. After the first day, the RHS did open the show earlier and altered the parking system in a bid to ease congestion.
I heard that visitor numbers were below what they had hoped for, which had an impact on nursery takings. Possibly it was the extreme heat that had put people off though the RHS had done their best to mitigate against this, including providing several water bottle refilling sites and putting picnic tables under trees.
For me, the site was a vast improvement on Hampton Court Palace with the show laid out in a more logical way and the more compact site making it easier to navigate without it feeling over-full. The setting with Badminton House in the background was lovely.
As yet, there is no news as to whether it will return to Badminton or when. In the meantime, there’s just a fortnight until the second of the new 2027 shows, RHS Sandringham.
Tickets for RHS Badminton are available here.
Enjoyed this? You can read about more of my flower show visits here.
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