RHS Flower Show Tatton Park is finally here! And we’re taking you on a tour of some of the highlights. We’re speaking with young designers like Camellia Hayes and Nathan Webster, exploring the new Sensory Long Border displays, and taking in the extraordinary RHS Nocturnal Pollinator Experience. But that’s not all! Because it’s the final flower show we’re covering on the podcast this summer, we’re putting all the emerging trends we’ve noticed at Tatton in context with themes from the other shows we’ve covered this year. 

Links:

Discover RHS Flower Show Tatton Park

Seeking Resilience Garden

Sensory Long Borders

RHS Nocturnal Pollinator Experience

Off the Grid Garden

This week, we’ll be exploring a few of our cultivated genera and species that, for a variety of reasons, have gone out of style. We’ll hear about Plant Heritage’s Threatened Plant of the Year competition, take you to the beautiful garden of horticultural legend Roy Lancaster to get a tour of his most-cherished aucubas, chat with Wisley curator Matthew Pottage on why we should give Parthenocissus a chance, and finally, take a trip down memory lane with author Naomi Slade. Naomi will be telling us all about the history of the lilac’s bumpy ride in the popularity stakes. 

Links:

The Plant Review

Plant Heritage

RHS’s National Plant Collections

Lilacs: Beautiful Varieties for Home and Garden

It’s the 30th anniversary of the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival and it’s looking better than ever. There’s a magnificent Floral Marquee filled with displays from over 80 nurseries, a Festival of Roses boasting several exciting new cultivars, models of allotment growing, creative show gardens, and star-studded talks all week long – to name but a few of the features that make this festival an annual favourite among gardeners. For this week’s episode, we’re bringing you the highlights. We’re chatting with imaginative designers like Zoe Claymore and Jo Thompson, and we’re taking you inside the Floral Marquee and Festival of Roses to get advice from the UK’s best nurseries.

Links:

RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival 

RHS Wildlife Garden

The Wildlife Trusts: Renters’ Retreat

David Austin Roses

The Harkness Rose Company

It’s peak summer – a time when many of our flowers are flourishing, adorning our gardens with bright colours and sweet, rich fragrances. We’ve gone from nurturing our gardens to flipping the switch – sitting back and letting them fill us with joy. So, this week we’ve decided to celebrate that with an episode dedicated to flowers. Author and gardener Ben Dark will be explaining why Verbena bonariensis is our horticultural salt, writer and lily-lover Naomi Slade will be sharing her favourite Lilium varieties, and finally, botanist Barry Clarke will make the case for including flowering dogwoods in our gardens. 

Links:

The Grove: A Nature Odyssey in 19 ½ Front Gardens

Lilies: beautiful varieties for home and garden

The Garden magazine

Sir Harold Hillier Gardens

Ungardening isn’t the antithesis of gardening – instead, it’s about taking a new perspective on what tending to the earth can look like. And that’s a fitting theme for today’s show, as it’s chock full of stories that force us to look at things with fresh eyes. We’re getting handy and slightly unusual tips from RHS advisors on June grow-your-own problems. Then, we’re heading to RHS Garden Wisley’s orchard to hear the latest on their brand new fast-growing habitats. And finally, we’re chatting with Garden Museum curator Emma House about how artist Jean Cooke explored the concept of “ungardening” through her paintings.

Links:

Jobs to do in June

Trees! What are they good for?

Jean Cooke: Ungardening

As we get closer and closer to the official start of summer, the fragrances of our favourite flora are reaching a fever pitch. So for today’s show, we decided to focus on the many smells of our June gardens. In this aromatic deep dive, we’ll chat with renowned garden designer Isabel Bannerman on crafting a balanced but sweet-smelling summer plot, we’ll hear about the favourite Lathyrus cultivars of sweet pea supremo Roger Parsons, and finally, we’ll end with a mystery. Urban naturalist and author Bob Gilbert is back on the show to discuss the curious story of how a favourite scented flower of the Victorians lost its hallmark smell. 

Links:

Scent Magic

Lathyrus: The Complete Guide

The Missing Musk: A Casebook of Mysteries from the Natural World

It’s June and our gardens are now in full swing. It’s a wonderful time of year – that perfect sweet spot where we can start to take in the fruits of our spring labour, while still looking ahead to the wonders yet to come. And so this week, we’ll be focusing on what you can keep on doing to ensure your garden flourishes all summer long. We’ll be chatting with Alessandro Vitale about the plant that inspired him to grow – chillies, hearing from entomologist Seirian Sumner on the surprising benefits of wasps in June, and checking in with Caroline Williamson at RHS Garden Bridgewater on how we can keep our soil happy and healthy this summer.

Links:

Rebel Gardening: A Beginner’s Handbook to Organic Gardening

Endless Forms: The Secret World of Wasps

How to care for your soil 

In this special episode, we’re branching off from the regular content of the show to zero in on what we can make when using flora as both our inspiration and our medium. It’s about art – where the greenery of our landscape is the lens through which we create. We’ll be travelling to RHS Lindley Library to get some expert insights into the secrets of the world’s finest botanical art, getting the inside scoop on what to grow to produce natural dyes ahead of the WOVEN festival in Kirklees, and finally, chatting with academic and author Elizabeth-Jane Burnett about writing poetry about moss. Plus, you’ll get a rundown from RHS Chief Horticulturist Guy Barter on what you can do in your garden this week.

Links:

RHS Botanical Art and Photography Show

WOVEN 2023

Twelve Words for Moss

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2023 is finally upon us! And this week, we’ve brought you an episode recorded amongst the hustle and bustle of designer gardens, best in class floral displays, traders, talks and exhibitions, and more. We’ll catch up with a few of the big designers – including Tom Massey, Cleve West, Charlotte Harris & Hugo Bugg – explore the RHS Chelsea Plant of the Year Competition, and get a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on at the show. 

Links:

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2023

The Royal Entomological Society Garden

The Centrepoint Garden

Horatio’s Garden

Project Giving Back

For this week’s show, we’re delving into the natural world of cities – looking at how best to grow our favourite plants with limited space and to treasure the diverse flora and fauna of our cityscapes. Author Ben Dark shares his love for the wisteria embellishing urban front gardens. Urban farmer Alessandro Vitale – you might know him as Spicy Moustache — takes us through all his tips and tricks for growing vertically in whatever space you’ve got. And, author and amateur urban naturalist, Bob Gilbert, gives his thoughts on the sounds of London’s trees. But that’s not all – we’re ending the show with a touching tribute from Daisy Payne on what she’s doing in honour of Celebration Day on 28 May.

Links:

Rebel Gardening: A Beginner’s Handbook To Organic Urban Gardening

The Grove: A Nature Odyssey in 19 ½ Front Gardens

Ghost Trees: Nature and People in a London Parish

“The Susurration of Trees” BBC Radio 4 programme

Make the most of your urban garden