RHS Badminton started as most first-time RHS shows do – with traffic jams, queues and some confusion over shuttle buses and entry gates. Anyone remember Chatsworth? That threw storm conditions and a quagmire of mud into the mix back in 2017. This time around, people took to social media to complain loudly about the length of wait to get there and get in, on a day when the mercury had easily hit 30C by lunchtime and people were already a bit hot and hassled. One can hope that these teething problems can be sorted as the week goes on.
Once into the showground, though, things were looking up, with more stands than you could shake a spade at. Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival, which Badminton is replacing for this year, was always the ‘shopping’ show, and that tradition has continued here in Gloucestershire with people trundling their colourful rolling crates up and down the metal boardwalks packed with tools, supports and, of course, plants of all kinds.
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The aforementioned heat was a concern when it came to the survival chances of show buys, however, and the Floral Marquee didn’t seem to be attracting as big a crowd as usual on opening day. “It’s usually teeming in here by now,” one grower told us. But the tent offered welcome shade for people on the baking hot, open showground, and was not as unpleasantly muggy inside as one might expect, thanks to a system of what the growers were calling ‘wind tunnels’ or air-cooling circulation fans built into the roof. Sales may have been slow at start of day, but many people explained that they would come back later to buy and collect on the way to the car, rather than drag plants around the show in high temperatures for hours.
Another tent that was getting lots of attention was the talks marquee, which had attractions including presentations and demonstrations by Joe Swift and Sue Kent off the telly, and, most importantly, seats. Talks tents are regular features of other shows such as Malvern, and even Chelsea has succumbed in recent years to live happenings for punters such as GQT recordings in the bandstand and DJ sets at night. It seems people come just as much for advice and interaction as installations and shopping, and the RHS is obviously embracing this approach more and more in various ways.
Outside, for the red-faced, flustered masses, there were picnic benches set out in the deep shade under Badminton Estate’s majestic old trees, water refill stations, and a few ice-cream vans to help cool down. On the show gardens, aside from a few scorched fern tips, you would never have been able to tell that these designs were built in circa 36C conditions over the past couple of weeks, so fresh and lush did they look. Everyone must be watering around the clock.
The grand attraction is Tom Stuart-Smith’s Julia Rausing Garden, an unjudged RHS feature that is the largest RHS show garden ever made. It sprawls out across the lawn in front of Badminton’s lake, with a view down to house itself, and features an outer ring of meadow, with an inner ring of perennial planting beds – each with some repeated and some different plants in – a blessed arrangement of light-canopied trees and a central resting space with huge water bowl and seating.
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There is also a second feature garden from another star designer, Jo Thompson, for Radio 4 show The Archers’ 75th anniversary, which was more in keeping with a general trend at the show of rustic charm and village fete energy, all wellies outside the door, Tottering by Gently roses, goats, tea and cake, sweet peas and plenty of ‘Easter eggs’ for hardcore Archers’ fans to spot.
The Artisan Gardens also revelled in this country-inspired vibe, harking back to an imagined simpler time on a rural nostalgia trip complete with crisp drystone walls, beekeeping, woven baskets and a thatched mini oast house. The colourful planting on the gold-medal winning The Split Hazel Basketry Garden by Henry Pope was a particularly joy, as were the artful log piles and neat dead hedges on the Best in Category winner Ruskin Mill Trust Woodland Craft Garden by Rachael Austin, with its arresting canopy.
There was one more stand-out pastoral garden, in the Young Designer category – in fact the winner of the category and the Young Designer of the Year prize: the Where Grief Goes Quiet garden for Blue Diamond Garden Centres by designer Sophie Leo. From the sweet handmade hurdle boundary to the trickling stream, woodland edge planting and stacked stone walls, it was a captivating piece of design that also won a Gold medal and Best Construction. All three Young Designers did astonishingly well for first-time show garden creators, and are obviously ones to watch.
The main judged Show Gardens were a mixed affair, and in very different styles, spanning from a shady woodland glade to a mini cricket ground, an orchard and a public sanctuary garden. Golds went to The Nascent Shade Garden for Macmillan Cancer Support by Elle Arnett and The Cricket Pavilion Garden by Stephen Moody, a quirky community-inspired space, which also won Best in category.
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One notable aspect of the gardens and exhibits this year is how many designers are making walk-through designs, allowing the public to wander into the spaces, rather than stare in from the outside. Tom Stuart-Smith’s whole garden is open to all, while The Nascent Shade Garden is one-way, and the supremely scented, walk-in Perfume Pavilions from Nicholsons, Juliana Greenhouses, Cath Kidston’s C. Atherley and Fibrex Nurseries was jam-packed all day. Though the crowds are sure to trample the edges of things, the deeper interaction and engagement with these spaces can only be a good thing, if well-managed.
The show is smaller than Hampton Court, and less frenetic, but overall, it still follows the same formula and offers what the RHS shows are best known and appreciated for, just transposed to the cosy setting of the Cotswolds. If you are looking for something completely new and different, perhaps this one’s not for you; but if you’re simply wanting to have a nice day out in a beautiful setting in the South West with some good gardens to ogle, a mosey around the shops and the chance to see a Gardeners’ World presenter on stage, this midsummer Malvern will be right up your street.
