Royal Horticultural Society's (RHS) Hampton Court Flower 2008, Reckless Gardener's Coverage

Despite the dark clouds, Sandy Felton discovers plenty of bright spots at this year’s RHS Hampton Court

After the formality of Chelsea, Hampton Court bursts onto the gardening calendar like a naughty girl let out of school after detention.

The freedom, space and variety of themes at RHS Hampton Court make it one of the nation’s favourite shows – a show which really does offer stimulation and relaxation to the general gardening public with ideas and practical gardens which can be copied in a variety of contexts to suit every taste.

Nick Williams-Ellis in the Edible Playground (Gold) Best Show Garden

This year the Show was not blessed with good weather – it rained on my arrival and was raining on my departure, but in between there were times when the sun decided to pop out and I was able to fully appreciate the sight and smells of all those colours and shades so carefully chosen by the various garden designers.

RHS Hampton Court has successfully built on the themes of food and environment this year and several of the gardens once again brought delight and stimulation with their ideas and encouragement to ‘Grow your Own’.

So it was no surprise that the Best Show Garden (Tudor Rose Award) went to Dorset Cereals Limited for their ‘Edible Playground’ (Gold). Created to inspire schools across the UK to build their own vegetable gardens, the Edible Playground is just the vehicle the RHS are looking towards in their own campaign to get 80% of schools gardening by 2012.

Designed by Nick Williams-Ellis the garden incorporates many environmental features including a windmill to power the garden’s weepy hose watering system and a fully working wormery, not to mention the amazing variety of delightful edible plants offering colour, texture and taste for children and adults alike.

It is always difficult to pick a favourite at Hampton Court and this year was no different. I was really taken with the Homebase garden ‘Room with a View’ (Silver-Gilt) (left) designed by Philippa Pearson. The garden was created using Homebase products, making it possible for garden enthusiasts to easily recreate the look at home which for me is important.

Holiday Inn’s ‘The Green Room’ (Gold), designed by Sarah Eberle was certainly different. We were taken with the vertical herb wall, a green living wall planted with easy to grow herbs and garden perennials – the internal water feature pool covered with a glass floor was also innovative and once again here was a garden which took design into the 21st century. Sarah is one designer who can be counted on for something different and she did not disappoint.

‘The Sadolin Four Seasons Garden’ (Gold), designed by Helen Williams was delightful. Designed to look great all year round, the garden plays on the appeal of wood but with a contemporary twist. Stunning Agapanthus and Artemesia schmidtiana nama (Wormwood), alongside Hemerocallis ‘Pink Damask’ and happy Hosta ‘Cherry Berry’ played the supporting cast to a variety of carefully chosen trees and shrubs such as Carpinus betulus (Hornbeam) and Hebe ‘Red Edge’. A well-deserved Gold for a lovely and interesting garden.

Claudia de Yong’s ‘Romantic Charm’ (Silver) water garden for the Dorset Water Lily Company, reflected the romance and charm of the Mediterranean style. This peaceful garden demonstrated what you can achieve with plants chosen to thrive in our increasingly warm and mild seasons. Many of the gardens at Hampton this year featured Agapanthus but on Claudia’s garden they just seemed to jump to life – a perfect setting for these glorious plants with their intense blue shades.

One of the delights of Hampton is the stunning backdrop and the impact of the Long Water cutting through the show site. This year the water was brought to life with a floating Thai market and even in the gloom of a threatening downpour their bright boats and happy chatter lifted the whole scene, quite a tonic really.

I was taken with the ‘Fire and Iron Garden – whirling butterflies’ (Gold) designed by Fire & Iron in association with Castle Gardens. Again we have a garden which breaks the mould in respect of conventional garden design and shows what can be achieved when two different businesses team up together to produce a garden – in this case Lucy Quinnell’s Fire and Iron metalwork gallery and Nick Robin’s Castle Gardens. The Easter Island type figures were certainly an improvement on your conventional garden gnomes and were a big talking point.

The winner of the Best Small Garden award this year is the ‘Widex Hearing Garden: Celebrating Sound’ (Gold) designed by Selina Botham. Designed around enjoying sounds found in nature – wind rustling through leaves, water bouncing off pebbles – the garden featured an interactive listening wall and a rather unusual feature – a tree with ears hanging from it making it! Certainly different.

The Conceptual Gardens category has gone from strength to strength since it started a couple of years ago, and once again this year the Best Garden Award went to Tony Smith for his ‘Ecstasy in a Very Black Box’ (Gold). A visual representation of bipolar disorder, the stunning contrasts of black against the vivid green of planting is quite exceptional. (left)

The other Gold medal winner in this category was Ivan Tucker for ‘Forest2’ - The illusion of a forest is created in a tiny space using parallel mirrors and just 30 trees was just amazing with the added interest of being able to view the garden from the sides through portholes in the walls which gave a totally different dimension to the frontal view. Just sublime.

‘The Porsche Garden’ (Gold) designed by Sim Flemons and John Warland, Warland Design Limited, is a perfect solution to the front garden problem of parking without damaging the environment by ripping up the planting area. Located in the front of a typical London home the symmetrical design of cubes of box and a rippling granite water feature, hides the surprise of a car deck providing underground parking. It might be a bit minimalist for some but the design is a very clever concept.

As I wandered around I also liked David’ Austin’s big rose baskets in the Rose Pavilion - the Benecol Garden® (Silver-Gilt) and Emsworth Horticultural Society’s ‘Spot the Art in the Garden’ (Silver Flora). I was also taken with the beautiful stone landscaping spheres from Silverland Stone. 'The National Year of Reading Garden' (Silver-Gilt Flora) was also very entertaining and planted with a variety of colourful plants - a garden for the whole community, in which to read and celebrate the joy of reading with everyone.

It was good to see the children on site as well, plenty of excitement and lots of interest especially in the ‘Magic Garden’ (Bronze) where they were certainly making the most of the snow making machine. It was on this garden, designed by Francesca Cleary, that I found a most unusual wall made of tree roots – should have got a Gold for that wall alone!

The Festival of Roses marquee this year was the best I had seen it in some years, the blooms, smells and variety of roses was outstanding. (Right Austin's Summer Song English Rose.)

We ran into Richard from Guerrillagardening.org, who had put up a special display of how to garden with discarded and unwanted plants – they were arranged in a skip and believe me it was quite incredible to see what he had achieved with a load of cast-offs. The RHS now try and recycle as much as possible after flower shows and Richard was there to give inspiration as to what you can do to brighten up your environment without having to spend lots of money.

So another Hampton Court Show draws to a close and we take home more ideas, lists of new plants and new resolve to grow our own! We ooh’d and ahh’d at the Achillea, desired the Penstemons and longed for the Hemerocallis and at the end of the day the naughty girls let loose after detention had a great time.