RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival 2023 - Show Gardens Featuring CED Stone
Post date: 24 Jun, 2023
It's almost time for the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival, the world's largest annual flower show, and social media is abuzz with posts from suppliers shipping out materials and designers and landscapers busy with the show garden builds.
The show takes place from the 4th to the 9th of July and promises pavillions, talks, demonstrations, floral marquees and, of course, show gardens; we are delighted to support some of the fantastic gardens getting built at this year's show.
The Lunar Garden
The Lunar Garden is designed by Queenie Chan, her 2nd show garden in as many years, having a garden feature at last year's RHS Tatton Flower Show.
Inspired by the moon, the garden and all elements within it have a lunar theme with circular shapes featuring throughout and flower beds representing the different luna phases, using Oriental and Western planting in tones of white and silver to suggest moonlight.
An atmospheric setting, the Lunar Garden has subtle light features that enable visitors to the garden to spend time there after dark, allowing it to be enjoyed from day into night. In Queenie's words, 'A place to sit and star-gaze, this garden is a living love letter to the moon.'
The garden is being built by Topoforma Ltd, with Botanically Ryan drafted in for help with the planting, much of which is drought tolerant and attractive to pollinators.
Queenie visited our West Thurrock Depot at the beginning of the year to look for products complementary to the garden's theme. She tells us,
It was a very enjoyable visiting the CED Stone Yard. Howard and Kerry were so friendly and helpful to show me around, introducing me to different types of stones. When Howard was helping me to choose the suitable stepping stones for my The Lunar Garden, I could see he is very passionate about the products. What impressed me the most was his open-mind and willingness to collaborate with designers on their creative project. Thank you so much CED Stone for helping make my dream come true!
Black Basalt Cropped Setts were selected; These will be laid in a circular pattern at the main seating area with the natural stone curved bench. The pathway will feature our Meadowgrass Marble Aggregate with Grey Paddlestone stepping stones. We also supplied a couple of granite centre circles for placement within the garden.
Queenie Chan at our West Thurrock Depot
We are proud to sponsor The Lunar Garden and wish Queenie and the team the best of luck. We're sure that the garden will be out of this world.
The Oregon Garden
Designed by Sadie May Stowell, sponsored by Travel Oregon and being built by SM Corporate Events Ltd, The Oregon Garden showcases the beauty of the natural landscape of the state of Oregon with its rugged mountains and scenic gorges.
Our Gabbro boulders and Weathered Limestone will be used for the backdrop of the garden, creating rocky outcrops to represent the mountains with Conifer trees giving a feeling of height and scale.
These boulders and rockery have been selected for their rustic look, slightly somber with atmospheric shades of mid to dark greys and browns, they will look like they have been in situ forever. Water will cascade down the rocky outcrop into a natural pool at the bottom. The planting colour palette consists of deep reds, creams and pinks, with plants chosen for their insect attracting qualities and gnarled grape vines representing the wine-growing regions of Oregon.
We are no stranger to Sadie May Stowell's designs, having previously supplied her 'Great Gardens of the USA' in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, and we are delighted to have our natural stone materials feature in what we know will be another outstanding show garden by the designer.
Sadie May Stowell, RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival 2017 - The Oregon Garden
America's Wild, presented by Trailfinders & Visit The USA
Sponsored by Visit The USA and Trailfinders, America's Wild is an enriching and immersive experience. The garden is designed by Inspired Earth Design and its theme is North America, offering inspiration for travellers to explore America's great outdoors.
The garden being built by Yoreland Design incorporates natural landscapes associated with North America: desert, forest and prairie. Each see planting fitting to that area; succulents will feature in the desert area, aspen trees in the forest area, and the prairie area will be planted with grasses and wild perennials. A large waterfall will feature in the garden giving the impression of a vast landscape, while film screens will be used to create expansive vistas. The planting used is both evocative of the USA and accessible to the UK gardener enabling the design to be replicated at home. The team visited our West Drayton Depot and hand selected Gabbro Boulders to feature in the garden.
Korea LH Garden (garden with land)
The Korea LH Garden (garden with land) has been designed by Danbee Kim to promote communities around resident-friendly public gardens. The inspiration for the design is Incheon, a city in Korea.
The city is surrounded by mud flats and forests and as the area is being reclaimed for development, Danbee's garden looks at the question of ownership of communal spaces.
Within the design Danbee symbolizes how people can live harmoniously with nature with the growth of plants blooming between the concrete paving. A box structure which surrounds the paving represents architecture which is itself enveloped by a natural forest.
For this garden, being built by Crowton Rowarth Ltd, our West Drayton Depot have supplied, Gabbro Boulders, Highland Cobbles and Barley Quartz Aggregate.
Hurtigruten: The Relation-Ship Garden
The Relation-Ship Garden highlights the long-standing relationship between Hurtigruten cruises and the dedicated Norwegian coastal farmers who have supplied their ships for 130 years.
The garden, designed by Maximillian Parker-Smith, focuses specifically on one of Hurtigruten's fruit farmers who after years of hard work on the family farm, created a lakeside garden for his personal enjoyment.
The garden features a reclaimed timber boardwalk which was designed with modern Scandinavia in mind and a terrace constructed of reclaimed granite setts allows a view over the lake and various pathways through the garden.
The planting is inspired by the productive nature of his land with various edible plants features alongside ornamental flowers and trees. And for the hard landscaping, contractors Living Landscapes have quite a lot of our materials to play with including several sizes of Grey Green Granite Aggregate for the pathways, Gabbro Walling and 19no Gabbro Boulders, and some fantastic Norwegian reclaimed steps.
The Devil's In The Detail
Head over to the APL's demonstration garden, 'The Devil's In The Detail'. Two similar projects, one flawlessly built the other with six common issues that can be found in some projects, can you spot them? Members of the APL will be on hand to advise why these issues happen and how they can be avoided.
CED were invited to supply UK Stone for the garden and of course we never miss an opportunity to promote British Stone so our West Drayton Depot Manager Ralph Allen will be on hand at the garden all week to talk everything stone.
Dont miss this interactive, informative and educational feature by the Association of Professional Landscapers.
Thanks And Good Luck
We love the involvement we have in supplying to such a prestigious event and it's a pleasure to work with so many designers both up and coming, and the heavily decorated so a big thank you to inviting us along for the journey. We wish everyone the very best of luck and we look forward to seeing what we're sure will be magnificent show gardens.