British Flowers Week 2018: Canterbury bells

After a couple of years of nurturing and patience, my Canterbury bells, which I grew from Hardy's Cottage Garden Plants seeds, flowered this year.

I used campanula for Mother's Day a few years ago - you can read about their symbolism here, and why they are a lovely flower to give to someone.

And here they are now with scented roses and pink escallonia from the garden.

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!

RHS Hampton Court Flower Show 2014: Blue is the warmest colour

I visited the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show yesterday on a day that started off with bright, warm sunshine, but ended up with a very cold thunderstorm. Having seen the weather forecast, I thought it best to visit the gardens first, and then go for lunch when the rain started. As the rain was off and on for the rest of the day, I spent a lot of time taking photos under an umbrella. Occasionally, there was even beauty to be found when the umbrella matched the garden!

This is the gold-winning Vestra Wealth's Vista by Paul Martin. Such a beautiful garden with cool blues and whites but warm textures. There were tall showstoppers such as agapanthus, angelica and hydrangea, and lower-level beauties like the silver-leafed Brunnera macrophylla 'Jack Frost' (which I also spotted in Claire from Plantpassion's flower farm earlier this year).

I was intrigued by the NSPCC Legacy Garden by Adam Woolcott and Jonathan Smith. As well as having a beautiful design, gorgeous plants, cute toys (hello Peppa Pig!) and messages from children in jars, it featured a timeline spanning the charity's 130 year history. 

I loved the prettiness of the 1920s-inspired herbs, pink roses and achillea (a very popular flower in gardens and displays this year), the vibrancy of the 1970s-inspired bright dahlias, snapdragons and kniphofia (red hot pokers), and the sophisticated blues and purples of the 2014 agastache, agapanthus (another popular flower) and Geranium 'Rozanne'. 

I'm fairly sure Geranium 'Rozanne' was in the gold-winning Hardy's Cottage Garden Plants display. You can see it here with Escallonia 'Golden Carpet', bred by Neil Alcock.

Essence of Australia by Jim Fogarty won a gold medal and best show garden, and featured, as you might expect, lots of blue-green eucalyptus. I'm so used to using it in floristry that I forgot I first heard about the foliage as a child, when I learnt that pandas eat bamboo and koalas eat eucalyptus (but I never learnt about British trees or flowers, which was a shame).

Untying the Knot: The Bounceback Foundation Garden by Frederic Whyte won a silver medal. It has a gorgeous colour scheme that shows how to warm up blues and purples by contrasting them with sunny oranges. There were lupins, echinops and eryngium thistles, achillea and lavender.

Lavender was used in many gardens, and Downderry has a beautiful, gold-winning display again in the Floral Marquee. I overheard someone there saying that one variety had sold out because it was exclusive to their nursery (I assume it was one of the unusual, pretty pink or lilac varieties), so make sure you visit the stand early if you want the best selection to choose from!

Finally, a taster (with more to come later) of the Flowers from the Farm stand in the Roses and Floristry Marquee. This was their first year displaying at Hampton Court and, with the help of their network of flower growers and the florist Martin and the Magpie, they put together a stunning display.