RHS Flower Show Tatton Park episode 1 : Joe Swift and Jo Whiley are hunting out ideas for your gardens at the RHS Flower Show Tatton Park.
In the first of two programmes, Joe and Jo are joined by experts Carol Klein, Adam Frost, Frances Tophill, Nick Bailey, Arit Anderson and Mark Lane. They meet some of this year’s finalists for the RHS Young Designer competition, take a first look at some of the iconic Back to Back gardens and celebrate the stunning high-summer colour plants in the floral marquee.
RHS Flower Show Tatton Park episode 1
RHS Flower Show Tatton Park held at Tatton Park, near Knutsford, Cheshire, first began in 1999 by the Royal Horticultural Society. The show houses the RHS National Flower Bed Competition, Young Designer of the Year Award and a wide range of inspirational show gardens, smaller ‘Back to Back’ gardens, visionary gardens and a number of marquees displaying prize plants and flora exhibits. Other key features of the show are the floral marquee and plant plaza, the arts and heritage pavilion, and the floral design studio.
By the mid-1990s the Society’s confidence in its abilities at staging regional shows had improved, and Council was considering the creation of purely RHS shows in the more far-flung regions. By 1996 negotiations were under way with Tatton Park in Cheshire, and with Strathclyde Council in Scotland. The Island, a 19-acre (77,000 m2) site between the River Clyde and Strathclyde Loch, in Strathclyde County Park, southeast of Glasgow, was chosen as the site for a show. Stephen Bennett was quoted as saying, ‘We have long known that Scotland has enormous potential for a show of international standing, and response to the concept has been overwhelming’. The target was 50,000 visitors in the first year.
Scotland’s National Gardening Show was launched in 1997, and billed as the largest flower show in Scotland since the Glasgow Garden Festival of 1988.
