malvern spring show

Today was a wet, cold and miserable day, but despite the weather conditions we've had a nice family day out at the Malvern Spring Show. We had a good look at the show gardens, but failed to get any decent photos of them due to the amount of fellow onlookers gurning in the background. For those of you watching this weeks Gardener's World our favourite Mark Eveleigh's Recovery and Wellbeing garden. A kind of small holding with amazing attention to detail, including stinging nettles behind the chicken shed!

However the RHS Floral Marquee provided plenty of photo opportunities. It protected us from the wet and wild conditions outside and deffinatley brightened up our day. I loved the colours these tropical looking green plants which caught my eye as I entered the tent.

Whilst there were many different species of flowers I homed in on the flowers I like, it was just great to see so many varieties, all in show condition. Peonies are one of my all time favourite flowers, the ones in our garden are just about to pop open and I can't wait to have some in the house.

The Clemetis were beautiful too. We have one climbing over our stable door and it has just started to flower. It's a fantastic cascade of flowers for a few weeks. We've never done anything to it and it just gets better each year.

We've also have loads of common Aqualegia in our garden, it spreads well, attracts the butterflies and looks good in a cottage garden bouquet but the selection on show was outstanding, and the flowers were so big.

One plant I've always liked but have never grown is Auriculas. I thought this display of them in simple terracottta pots was really striking. In fact I think that maybe I've never grown them because they look so good in pots, en masse and perhaps would be rather lost in our totally crammed and wild garden. But I'm still feeling that maybe I should have bought one!


My favourite stand was of the The Walled Gardens in Somerset. As the self sufficient, allotment culture seems to be so popular these days it was great to see so much delicious and attractive looking produce. Their display was well really well done, they had thought hard about the containers they used to show their plants in and the use of potatoes very original!



And finally, if not already uplifted by the huge array of plants and colours there was an enormous stand of Tulips which couldn't have failed to lift everyone's spirits. I adore tulips, from the simple red and yellow kind to the most exoctic of Parrot Tulips. A vase of tulips anywhere is enough to make my day fulfilled!