Walking in sunshine at the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show 2018

There’s no getting away from the heat at this year’s RHS Hampton. From the relentless sun, to show garden planting and conceptual ideas, everything shouts sunshine.

Matthew Childs’ garden showcasing new downy mildew-resistant busy lizzies for B&Q seems particularly apt. The ‘Imara Busy Lizzie’ range are mixed with foliage plants, palms and cannas in an outdoor entertaining space with a distinctly tropical feel that fitted perfectly with the blue skies of press day.

I asked if he’d known we would be in the middle of a heatwave when the firm approached him to do the garden back in February.

“I did a little sun dance,” he said with a smile.

What was particularly interesting about the planting was seeing the often rather brash busy lizzies toned down by copious amounts of green foliage and reveling in the shady spots of the design. Some have even been grown taller than usual to show their normal size in East Africa forests.

“What I really wanted to do was change perceptions of busy lizzies because previously they’d got this really 1970s personality where they were planted in hanging baskets or mass planting,” Matthew explained.

“I wanted to show them in a different way so I looked to where they grow naturally in East Africa and I was surprised to find that busy lizzies actually grow best in shade.

“Where they actually grow all the foliage is palm-like, exotic and I think by pairing the green with the busy lizzies it softens them and they look right.”

The RHS Hampton judges also liked this garden and it won gold, Best in Show and the Best Construction awards.

Joseph Gibson’s ‘Garden for a Changing World’, which highlights the threat meat production poses to rainforests, transports visitors to the Amazon with lush planting and birdsong. It got Best in Show in the Garden for a Changing World section.

Heat slightly closer to home is suggested by Rose McMonigall’s World Gardens design, inspired by the coastline of northwest Spain.

A fisherman’s cottage, a boat pulled up into a cove and naturalistic planting all combine to create a garden packed with atmosphere.  A nice touch is the background wall of shells.

And Alan Rudden takes us to the vineyards of Chile with some great colour combinations between planting and hard landscaping.

An added feature was a wine artist painting with red wine.

Even the RHS Hampton Floral Marquee has a touch of the heat with two new introductions, Crocosmia, Firestars ‘Scorchio’ and ‘Hot Spot’, on the Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants’ stand.

Meanwhile, the prime RHS Master Grower spot is this year taken by Hampshire Carnivorous Plants with a stunning display of pitcher plants, Venus flytraps and other slightly sinister bug-eating things.

Somewhat ironic given the weather is South West Water’s garden showing how gardeners can manage excess rainwater to avoid flooding through measures such as permeable paving.

There’s a great water-saving idea on the Grow Your Own garden – an RHS and Raymond Blanc Gardening School collaboration.

On a year when designers and their teams were endlessly watering, the water features on so many of the designs were particularly appealing.

There was also some good planting.

There’s a good mix of colour and texture on the RNIB Community Garden by Steve Dimmock and Paula Holland.

And also in Tom Simpson’s planting on the South West Water garden.

I particularly liked the cool tones of Alexandra Noble’s Health and Wellbeing Garden, which would look really good in low light. It was one of the Lifestyle Gardens, a new feature this year at RHS Hampton.

Naturally, the plant combinations in Piet Oudolf’s walk-through border are stunning. He’s the first in a new RHS initiative to celebrate ‘Iconic Horticultural Heroes’.

There’s also a mass planting of Verbena bonariensis along the Long Water offering another chance to immerse yourself in plants.

Elsewhere, Franchi Seeds and the Eden Project have joined forces to create The Borough Market Kitchen Garden to inspire visitors to grow vegetables.

And there’s nostalgia in the land of Mr Men with a garden showing how children deal with cancer.

While it’s always better to visit a flower show in the sun, it did make for a tiring trip and near impossible conditions for photography. By the end of a long, hot day me and Raymond Blanc’s chard weren’t the only things wilting at the show.

• RHS Hampton Court Flower Show 2018 runs until July 8. More details on the website.