The Village Garden Show

Every June I clear my weekends and head out into the country to seek out the local village shows, game fairs and county shows. There’s nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon in the heat of summer than hang out at a big show, watch the daredevil airshows, the falconry displays and shop for a new pair of good wellies for the autumn. But my favorite by far are the village shows where true horticultural genius lays.

I’m an RHS judge and over the years I’ve come to realize that if people know this when you go round their open garden, they steer you away from the parts that they think are the below part. But it's just those parts that inspire better things in me and make me feel not so bad about my own garden failings. Indeed, I carefully hide that role so that I can get unfettered access. At a village show I feel like a secret shopper, spying on the best blooms and comparing them to my own efforts without anyone knowing it.

It’s very unusual that I feel I can compete because the exhibits in our village shows are the cream of many hours labor producing some of the most perfect vegetables and blooms. I sometimes grow dahlias and I have a few roses in my garden; but I don’t devote my life to them. So, I will never match the perfection of the show exhibits but I do get inspiration for my own garden next year. The vegetable displays are amazing, not the biggest leeks, carrots and pumpkins but the artfully arranged and presented onions, the baskets of fruit and the miniature gardens made in seed trays by the local children. Even the big city flower shows both here and North America will have a harvest show where you can see the same miniature displays and champion fruit and veg.

I once designed a Surrey garden with a rose garden full of Rosa ‘Margaret Merill’ a superb white tea rose that my client promptly entered into. Her local show and won the rose category, much to the chagrin of the gardeners who’d been winning for many years. I feel I had a small hand to play in that by planting the roses myself.

And then last year we moved back into Surrey and opened a new Chobham garden office. If you’ve never been to Chobham then let me tell you it’s the perfect English village. Lots of common land, picturesque church, high street and a great community spirit that means we have several big village events each year including a carnival and the Chobham Village Show in September. It’s often cited as one of the best places to live in England and it sure knows how to put on a great show. Indeed, the office is already buzzing with what categories to enter, whether it’s the plant displays, baking or the dog show (and everyone has a dog so its pretty competitive!). I’m tempted to enter one or two plant categories but with a garden full of foliage and trees I’m not sure that the few early roses I have nor the sweet peas from my Wimbledon garden will still be in bloom so it might have to be my crab apple jelly that makes it into the show.

Whatever happens, I’m expecting to have a great time and if my blooms are all finished after this early summer, and my preserves are not ready then I’ll just sit back and enjoy the dog show.