Almost exactly this time last year Mum and I were sitting on a train bound for the gorgeously leafy suburbs of Richmond, to help out on what turned out to be the Best in Show garden at The Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. We did a day’s work helping to prepare the plants for the Ecover garden… and I will never look at Lamb’s Ear the same ever again!
Aside from being able to say that I’ve worked on an award winning garden for the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, we were also able to see all the gardens on Press Day, freshly landscaped and planted in, ready for a few days of exhibition. There were some truly inspirational planting schemes and ideas – plenty of which lent themselves to my sustainable/wildlife-friendly ethos – and I came away revved up to put my own plans into action here at The Smallest Smallholding. If you want to witness bundles of creativity, I would recommend Hampton Court Palace over Chelsea any day – more room, less intense crowding (although it still gets very busy) and a wide variety of areas where you can indulge in all things horticulture, from the traditional to sustainable to the utterly insane and wacky.
Rich has been pestering me about going back again this year, so we are looking to head down to Richmond again. For us, it’s a fairly easy drive around the M25 (ho ho), or sitting on a train and making a change at Victoria Station in London. Getting around the whole site means that we’d need to get there relatively early and make a day of it. Last year, we were a little pushed for time and couldn’t stop and take in each garden as much as we wanted to… so if you’re planning on going, get yourself there as early as possible! I also feel that we were lulled into a false sense of security, as outside of press day, if you’re driving the traffic can be ludicrously busy. When we left the grounds on Press Day, we saw the traffic for just the evening gala… and all I can say is thank goodness for press passes!
So one other option if you’re thinking of heading down, or already have tickets, is to get there early and book into a hotel. It could transform your whole experience and mean you don’t spend hours queueing for the car park. Trust me, it’s a big consideration.
You could try the Holiday Inn London – Sutton, which is also close to Wimbledon (we were on our way home last year when the tennis crowd spilled onto the train, exhilarated after Andy Murray had got through his quarter final match). The hotel is in the heart of Sutton and is just a short taxi or car drive from the grounds of Hampton Court Palace and is ideally situated for other attractions such as Chessington World of Adventures, with good links into central London.
Alternatively, if you’d like to make a few days of it and tag on some London sightseeing after you’ve been around the flower show, there’s also the Holiday Inn Kensington Forum Hotel. Both hotels are bright and airy, with modern leisure facilities, a choice of restaurants and bars to choose from (I can personally recommend, we sometimes eat at our local Holiday Inn near Cambridge for business lunches and catch ups with work friends, and the food is actually really good!) and crucially, staying at either will make the journey to the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show a lot less painful.
You can find out more information about the upcoming Hampton Court Palace Flower Show here… tickets are from £19 for a half day, or £30 for a full day – and well worth every penny. I cannot recommend the show enough and I hope that we will be able to go along again this year and find some more wildlife-friendly and vegetable growing inspiration for The Smallest Smallholding.
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