Putting the finishing touches to RHS Tatton

With only days to go until the opening of the 2016 RHS Tatton Park Flower Show, garden designers are putting the finishing touches to their show gardens and exhibitors are getting ready to complete their nursery or trade stands in time for the Show’s opening on 20th July.

The theme running across this year’s show is health, happiness and horticulture and several gardens will be demonstrating the positive impact of gardening and green spaces on our health and wellbeing.

Designer, Carolyn Harden’s show garden, ‘Never Forget, Never Again’, is a place for ex-military personnel suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and their families. The garden offers a space for relaxation and contemplation away from the chaos of daily life.

RHS Tatton Park welcomes Cheshire’s HMP and YOI Styal for their fifth show garden ‘Pulling Back Time’ – a poignant design from the all-female prisoners focuses on how gardening can provide an opportunity to reflect on the future.

‘Ace Kids Spectrum of Genius’ – a sensory garden designed by Shea O’Neill is a calm space for children on the spectrum and to raise awareness of the benefits of horticultural therapy for people with autism. The garden is in the new Evolution category.

The popular Back-to-Back gardens will also be promoting the relationship between green spaces, gardening and health. ‘The Waiting List’ by Berkshire-based designer Alison Galer, features warm colours and gently flowing water for patients on the waiting list for kidney transplants. Local designer, Nathan Webster’s garden, ‘Sitting below the Mulberry tree’ highlights the benefits of an outdoor space as a place to escape the tresses of living with an illness.

Isobel Coulter, RHS Deputy Show Manager, said: “Plants do more good for the heart and soul than they are sometimes given credit for and the power of horticulture to heal is a message we want to get out to as many people as possible because in uncertain and challenging times like these, a garden can make us feel that little bit better.”

The show will run from 20 to 24 July, for further information, please visit: www.rhs.org.uk/tatton  

Picture credit: ©Mark Waugh; credit: Mark Waugh, Manchester Press Photography Unit. (Banner- Paul Walton from Stoke working on the Biddulph Grange display).