Thursday 2 May 2013

Hampton Court Palace Flower Show 2003

Exactly 10 years ago in May 2003, I was making frantic preparations to exhibit a small courtyard garden at the world's largest flower show at Hampton Court Palace along with my friend Janet Johnston.  I had been a visitor to the show since it started in 1990, marvelling at changing designs, fads and at times downright wacky gardens on display.  My favourite stand at the show is always the cacti displays by Southfield Nurseries of Bourne, Lincolnshire where I would stand gawping for ages before deciding on a purchase, they always seemed to win gold medals and rightly so since their displays were immaculate.  Southfield is definitely worth a visit for any cacti enthusiast.

Here is my very first cacti purchased from the Southfield stand in full flower last year (2012)
The original size was that of a golf ball, now it's almost football size
The key to cacti flowering:  Between October and March let them rest and provide plenty of light

Echinopsis Pseudolobivia hybrid
 
I also spent inordinate amounts of time near the Fir Trees Pelargonium Nursery stand and would always buy the little angel pelargoniums or the nutmeg scented leaved varieties, trying to keep them going in my greenhouse from one year to the next.  One I fail to keep and seem to buy every year is Black Prince seen below.

Pelargonium Black Prince
I kept a small diary of our HCPFS garden design mis-adventure between May 2002 and July 2003, this being originally uploaded to my Fleuriche website (no longer in use).  I am sharing a copy of the original blog here today below.  I should point out that I also managed a trip to Venice late in May 2003 for four days as well!