Royal Horticultural Society

Garden your way to a healthier lifestyle

Grow your own, gardening in a changing climate, healthy living and making the most of your life outdoors are just some of the main attractions at this year’s show.

Bring the taste of the good life into your home with the extensive Growing Tastes feature. This takes you from plot to plate with 14 grow your own exhibits displaying giant garlic bulbs, herbs from around the world and a variety of English as well as exotic fruit and vegetables. Cookoo Box Nursery’s Munch Your Way Through Lunch no-waste display proves that you can even produce a meal from deadheading! The central feature is a family allotment, which is bound to fuel the nation’s appetite for grow your own.

In the Cookery Theatre chefs cook up a storm and give a range of demonstrations using seasonal produce, as well as emphasising natural, organic, locally-sourced and British dishes.

The new sustainable garden category promises to offer environmental initiatives and clever ways to be greener.

"Last year's show was the event for grow your own, and this year we’re building on that success with even more foody features and good life attractions" explains Mandy Almond, RHS Show Manager for Hampton Court Palace Flower Show.

Welcome to Henry VIII’s Tudor court!

Hampton Court Palace was the favourite residence of Henry VIII, and to celebrate the 500th anniversary of his accession to the throne, the RHS has given the show a Tudor theme.

The Tudor Rose Festival is themed like Henry VIII's Tudor court with a dramatic red and white Tudor Rose symbol taking pride of place. The marquee offers, as always, an abundance of rose varieties and their accompanying heavily scented atmosphere, but unfortunately you won’t find anything there like the Tudor Rose, which doesn’t actually exist botanically!

Henry was famous for his wives and they each get their own garden this year: Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Catherine Parr all had very different personalities, each of which has been translated into a small garden by up-and-coming designers.

The South Pacific comes to the South of England

This year, get a taste for the Legends of Fiji, as villagers from the Fijian islands bring a tropical garden paradise, displays of tribal dancing and singing, and traditional Fijian crafts to the show.

Gold Medal-winning designer Claire Whitehouse will be recreating a lush Fijian garden with colourful, tropical planting such as palms, hibiscus, bougainvillea and orchids. Interspersed with this planting are carved orchid roots, traditionally used to depict the ancient stories of the country such as ‘the Legend of Degei the Snake God’ and ‘the Legend of the Sacred Turtles of Kadavu’.

The islanders share their traditional ways of living with show visitors, including building bures (huts), weaving mats, carving coconut jewellery, singing island songs, teaching meke (dance) and sevusevu presentation, which is a traditional Fijian ritual. In addition to all of this, the Long Water, which runs through the centre of the show, hosts a number of traditional Fijian rafts.

Calling all scarecrows!

The RHS is calling for pre-schools and primary schools in the South East to get creative and enter the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show Scarecrow Competition for the chance to win £200 worth of garden centre vouchers to be spent on plants and tools for a school garden.

To celebrate the 500-year anniversary of Henry VIII accession to the throne, the schools, which must be registered with the RHS Campaign for School Gardening, are challenged to use plant and recycled materials to create a Tudor scarecrow. It might be Henry VIII, one of his wives, an ordinary Tudor person or anything with a Tudor slant – anything goes!

Last year’s Scarecrow Competition was a huge success with 64 entries. Mrs Rosemary Bunce of Claygate Primary School, Surrey, which won first prize in the 2008 competition said: "Making a scarecrow is a great way of getting children outdoors and encourages them to think creatively about how to use plants and re-cycle all sorts of household and garden materials. The children are looking forward to entering again this year."