Crocus - the first flowers of spring 2008
Robert Nyman
Like, flowers
Nice violete flowers
Asim Shah posted a photo:
It's always interesting to earwig on conversations at a flower show, you can't really help it when there are so many visitors, and everyone's got their own ideas as to what makes a great show garden or exhibit. One comment I hear time and time again is how inspiring the gardens are and how they're going to try to copy 'that' colour scheme or 'this' style of planting. The thing that I'm going to take away and copy from this years show is not plants but paths.
The back to back gardens are very good for hard landscaping ideas and I spotted a brick edged path in-filled with pebbles stuck into concrete, much like a mosaic. Or, there's a stone path with grass instead of mortar and something more contemporary, a metal grid suspended over a bog garden - almost like a bridge. However, the one that I'm going to copy at home is the path in 'The Garden for Bees'. It's a gravel path planted with an informal drift of thyme, which smells as good as it looks. The good news for me is that I've already got a gravel path, all I have to do is add the 'thyme' and once the flower show is over, I'll have the 'time' to do it. 
Flower - mbk3g0.gif
Robert Nyman
Like, flowers
Children are always very inventive and their imaginations know no boundaries especially when it comes to gardening.
As Joe Swift mentioned earlier, the Children's Quirky Container Competition was a great example of this. Schools across the Cheshire area have submitted an amazing range of interesting and unusual containers to be judged by visitors to the show. I had a look through and was really surprised by how good they were, from small scale exhibits like the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, entered by Bexton Primary School, Knutsford to a large scale container made from a Piano. 
Created by Park Royal School, Macclesfield, this was entitled Keys to Health and Happiness! (get it!) It looked spectacular although I can't help wondering what the music teacher thought? There is one container that I know will particularly appeal to my colleague Louise. St Anne's Fulshaw, Church of England School created a chest shaped container overflowing with bright nasturtiums and other bedding plants, entitled
Ooh Arrgh Pirate's Treasure (She's from Cornwall you know). The RHS are very keen to encourage children to get into gardening and are actively campaigning for it to be added to the school curriculum, with young minds as inventive as this, it can only be a good thing. Also as part of the Tatton tenth anniversary celebrations Children under 15 get into the show free this year. Info from:
Private Club
