Today I met a friend at Scotland's Garden Show at Ingilston. She has suggested that we do a show garden there next year and we were there to see exactly what was involved and decide whether it would be a good idea.To be honest I was really disappointed - there were hardly any show gardens and most were quite derivative with plants stuffed in so that they looked like a garden centre shopping trolley after a colour co-ordinated shopping spree.
I was rather glum and hot footed it over to the floral hall where the nurseries exhibit. And there - lo and behold - was the innovation, high quality construction and beautiful planting that was missing in the outdoor show gardens. Unfortunately the lighting isn't great within the hall and I didn't have my big flash so the photos are really bad but this garden was by far my favourite. It is part of the Binny Plants Stall and is a co-operative venture with the Biggar based garden design and construction company Landmarkers (LandmarkersScot@aol.com) and the metal artist Andrea Geile.
Binny Plants is one of my favourite nurseries - they grow their plants well and hard, they don't feed them junk to puff them up for shows and as a result they transplant well into the rigours of a Scottish garden. Their paeonies are second to none for the Scottish garden.
The garden was a gently tiered construction of rusted steel and drystoned slate with a sheet of vertical water at the back and beautiful, effective, natural, zippy and eminently copyable planting throughout. The colours were dark reds, purples and whites like many of the stalls - why fight against nature? - but had a vibrant streak of bright orange which sparked the whole composition up.Many of the plants that I coveted - like this Troillus x cultorum "Cheddar" had already sold out but I have them written down in my notebook for next year.
This garden made my day. I'm just sorry that the photos are so bad.
3 comments:
The show sounds worth seeing - nothing like that here, except for the Seattle show in February and that is more geared to selling garden gear and decorative items.
I tried the trick with the poppies yesterday and they are starting to open this morning. They're the big orange Icelandic ones.
We will forgive you the photographs - which aren't that bad!
Stella and I had a similar disappointing experience at a Stitches Show – rather than find inspiration and gorgeous notions it was all card making ephemera and beads……
In a way it isn’t surprising that type of show was a disappointment – you can hardly say what you are doing is mainstream – not that you would want to I’m sure; I find it quite soul destroying sometimes not being able to source the simplest of things because they are not universally used I can’t get what I want….
Those plants are lovely; shame the outdoor stuff was a bit disappointing. Have been catching up this morning - love the greenhouse!
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