RHS Wisley Flower Show 2014

I'm doing some new year tidying up, and I can see that I have several half-written blog posts that haven't been finished or published. Here is the first! I went to the RHS Wisley Flower Show in September, which feels like ages ago now. I took far too many photos, as usual.

This magnificent floral cake was made by Simon Lycett. If, for some awful reason, you had to choose between cake and flowers for a wedding, it would be a great way to combine a show-shopping wedding cake with beautiful wedding flowers - you could just order a simple kitchen cake for people to eat!

I bought some seeds from Hardy's, and was pleasantly surprised to be served by Rosy Hardy herself! One of the packets was sweet rocket seeds (aka Hesperis matronalis), and I sowed them straight away - too late, according to the growing instructions, but hey. They appear to be doing well, and will hopefully provide sweet-smelling flowers in the summer. The Hardy's display was a lovely mixture of cottage garden flowers, including some I've been growing myself - cleome, ammi, and sedum, and one particular variety that I want to grow one day: Cosmos "Antiquity".

This striking display of apples and "Sapphire" gentian caught my eye on the Harperley Hall Farm Nurseries stand.

More flowers for foodies: Echinacea "Tomato Soup". (As ever, I've been rubbish at keeping tabs on which photos belong to which stand. If you recognise a particular display, let me know!).

And for film-lovers: Echinacea "Fatal Attraction" (I saw the play with the amazing Natascha McElhone and Kristen Davis last year, and unlike most of the critics, preferred it to the film).

Beautiful, floaty sanguisorba.

Gorgeous gladioli in ice cream colours at Bridgend's bulb kings, Pheasant Acre Plants. Morrissey would have loved it!

The Priorswood Clematis display was ever so pretty.

Panicum "Heavy Metal" has a great name, but also looks wonderfully dark and fairy dust-like.

There was a NAFAS floral art competition, and entrants showed some wonderful skill and an eye for floral details.

There was a display of competition dahlias, which was bright and colourful. Below is the story behind the first trials of dahlias as garden flowers. I'm pleased to see it all started in Swansea...102 years ago!

Here are some of the dahlias, and some facts about them.

The rest of Wisley was beautiful. Full of gorgeous grasses and colourful flowers.

Finally, there were stunning, scented roses. The following are "Young Lycidas" and "Young Princess". Because of the mild winter we've had so far, I am still seeing roses in flower in other people's gardens. Lovely to look at, but it does feel rather wrong!

HRH Helianthus annus

Bowing down to sunflowers at Wisley last month.

The Day of the Triffids

I mentioned the mammoth cosmos in my little flower patch last month. Well, here I am on Sunday next to cosmos which were transplanted from greenhouse-grown seedlings into a trough, with shop-bought compost...

...and next to cosmos in the flower patch that was filled with homemade compost. Probably a bit too much.

Look at those stems...if there was an apocalypse, these would be triffids!

Of course, cosmos are lovely flowers, and not carnivorous; unlike these plants that I saw on the Hampshire Carnivorous Plants stand at the RHS Wisley Show at the weekend.

RHS Hampton Court Flower Show 2014: Deadly sins

The conceptual gardens at this year's show were all themed on the idea of the seven deadly sins. The first thing I saw when I walked in was Sheena Seeks' garden "Sloth: Quarry of Silences". It won a gold medal and best conceptual garden.

Each tool was different and represented a person. There was a huge golden rock at the top (each person's goal), but if you went around to the back, you could see that there were three graves to fall into, representing the mind, body, and soul.

There didn't seem to be as much planting as I'd have liked, but I did like the wild landscape around the quarry.

Then there was "Lust", designed by Rachel Parker Soden. It won a silver medal, but I think it deserved better.

As you walked through the garden, you peeped into the glasshouse. There was a red sofa, exotic red and peachy flowers such as gloriosa lilies, anthuriums and orchids, and a red neon sign that said "Peep Show" at the front (and "Live Show" at the back). I loved it - it reminded me of two things I adore: Marion and Ted's secret relationship in The Go-Between, and the sit-com Peep Show. Even Sam Bain, who writes Peep Show with Jesse Armstrong, appreciated the "Lust" garden's sofa.

The planting outside was beautiful. There were roses in pretty pinks and passionate reds, dark brown chocolate cosmos, red and pink achillea, and tactile plants including fluffy grasses and delicate ammi. There were also succulents, kniphofia, and a river with a crossing.

A brilliant conceptual garden was "Pride - The Stonewall Garden: Breaking Down the Barriers" which got a well-deserved gold. Designed by Amanda Miller, it was inspired by her troubles growing up as a gay teenager in a small town in Australia.

I thought the smashed wall, and the black and white painting at the back were powerful images.

The garden itself was beautiful, with gorgeous, colourful planting.

Katerina Rafaj created a Pop Art style garden called "Gluttony: E123", showing the excesses of food consumed and discarded in some countries. It won a gold medal for its Andy Warhol-style tins of food, giant jelly beans, and the planting which included roses, and a pond in a sardine tin.

A conceptual garden that really drew the crowds was "Wrath: The Eruption of Unhealed Anger". It won a gold for designer Nilufer Danis. Inspired by volcanoes, with occasional eruptions of smoke or water, it was a fantastic garden to take in all at once. The stunning red echinacea, yellow kniphofia, and orange achillea looked amazing, and certainly evoked strong emotions. As a trainee counsellor as well as a florist, I enjoyed this garden a great deal - the idea of quiet anger simmering away and then erupting is a powerful one that was well executed here.

A silver-gilt winner was "Greed: Dichotomy Garden" by Sara Jane Rothwell and JoanMa Roig. It was a garden in two parts, and as such, I couldn't really connect with it. One side was supposed to be the judge's garden with neat box hedging and a throne, and the other was wilder as a result of the "sinner's greed". There was a wall with a small mesh partition to see into the other side of the garden.

The "Envy: The Grass is Always Greener" garden was inspired by the idiom "The grass is always greener on the other side" and won a silver medal for the designer Marcus Green. I couldn't see inside the green Perspex box (apparently it housed an artificial lawn), but I did love the grasses growing outside it.

I love the texture and movement of grasses - there's something quite primal and childhood-evoking about them - so I took several photos of grasses at the show. Partly for my own enjoyment, and partly for Sara Willman of My Flower Patch, who loves grasses too.