I don’t know what was more welcome, the first big flower show of the year or the sunshine that greeted the opening day of the RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2024.
Whatever, there was certainly a celebratory atmosphere at the Three Counties Showground and not just among the designers and their construction teams who had created show gardens in at times horrendous weather over the past few weeks.
Cotswold firm Graduate Gardeners had more reason to celebrate than most as their first Malvern show garden since 2018 took a hat-trick of awards – gold, Best in Show and Best Construction – in what is their 50th anniversary year. It just remains to see if they will lift the people’s choice award as well.
Their design is typical of the sort of gardens they create across the Cotswolds and is for a family who want to use their outdoor space for entertaining. It’s divided into three sections with a wildflower meadow and rill at the front, a seating area in the middle and finally an outdoor dining area.
The firm is no stranger to awards with multiple gold medals at both Malvern and Chelsea but that didn’t diminish the delight of designer Mark Draper: “I’m overwhelmed to get Best in Show and the construction award. I’m so pleased with the recognition for the boys’ hard work.”
The other gold medal-winning garden at the RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2024 is ‘It Doesn’t Have to Cost the Earth’ by designer Michael Lote.
It showcases the use of sustainable materials, including gravel paths made from stone walling production waste and the way the offcuts of York stone have been laid as stacks to minimise cutting and to allow them to be lifted and reused in the future.
Sustainability is the theme of Ian McBain’s ‘Concrete 2.0’ garden, which got silver gilt. It shows how you can produce a garden using recycled and sustainable materials.
Among the features are paving produced in the UK with cement-free concrete and a water feature using reclaimed agricultural troughs.
‘The Laskett’, designed by David Wyndham Lewis, is a snapshot of Sir Roy Strong’s Herefordshire garden and is promoting the work of horticultural charity Perennial, who now own the garden. It won silver gilt. (You can read about my last visit to The Laskett here.)
Laura Ashton-Phillips has a young family in mind with her ‘Eat, Drink and be Rosemary’ design, which won silver.
It combines native wild flowers, places for children to play and somewhere to sit out and enjoy the garden, all set around a lovely wooden greenhouse.
I liked the colour scheme of ‘The Grand Appeal Garden’ by Suzy Dean, which mixes blue, green and white informal planting and sets it against a black cabin. It too has places for children to play. It also won silver.
New for the RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2024 is the Festival of Houseplants with numerous stands dedicated to growing indoors be that plants or pots.
It was good to see Cheltenham-based The Aroid Attic there with a very full display. (Read more about the shop here.)
I was drawn though to knives. Not just any knives but a new product line from Ocean Plastic Pots, which I first encountered some years ago at Chelsea.
This Scottish firm produces mainly pots using plastic recovered from the ocean but has now added trowels and these rather beautiful kitchen knives to their range.
Ally Mitchell explained that they were made using broken fish boxes. “We tried them in pots but it’s a different type of plastic and it didn’t work.”
In the four years since the firm launched, Ally estimates that they have used 25 tonnes of waste in their products, which are 100 per cent recycled plastic.
RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2024 Floral Marquee
One of my favourite parts of any flower show is the nursery exhibits and there is plenty to see at Malvern.
I can always rely on Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants to have something lovely on their stand and they didn’t disappoint. I’d never come across this before but rather liked those pink flowers.
Anisodontea ‘El Rayo’ is a small evergreen shrub that hails from South Africa so needs a sunny sheltered spot.
Another shrub to catch my eye was Aronia x prunifolia ‘Brilliant’ on Green JJam Nurseries’ exhibit. It was covered in those dainty flowers.
A highlight of Malvern spring has long been the lupin display on W&S Lockyer’s display and there are some beauties.
On heuchera specialists Plantagogo’s display, I liked this tiarella as much for the foliage as for the flowers.
I’m not normally a fan of carnations, preferring the daintier pinks, but these on G and K Carnations exhibit stood out. I still can’t decide if I like them but they are certainly eye-catching.
Likewise, I’m not sure I like these daffodils, see on Pheasant Acre Plants’ stand.
Geum specialists East of Eden have several new introductions but this is the one that stood out for me. That limey green is really unusual.
There are a couple of good orchid displays but this on Laurence Hobbs Orchids Ltd’s stand captured the mood of the show.
And it’s not just the visitors who are enjoying the plants, as this arrival on Hare Spring Cottage Plants’ stand shows!
The RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2024 runs until Sunday May 12. For more information, visit the website.
Top picture: from the display by the Gardeners Delight Nursery and Plant Centre.
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Lovely to virtually visit the show with you, than you.
Great 😍
Really interesting – especially the new plants. My experience in chilly North Shropshire with Anisodontea ‘El Rayo’ was that it was far from small! It grew to 8ft, flowered like mad during the Autumn but then succumbed in the frosts of 2022-3. I’ll certainly try it again but will place it where it doesn’t overwhelm everything else – and take cuttings!
That’s interesting. It certainly sounds worth trying again.