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Hampton Court Flower Show

The great and good admire our bumblarium
I'm just back from a busy but fun three days at Hampton Court with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust and our bumblarium. The bees behaved beautifully, and the only hitch was the wet, which gave us some problems with condensation. We had gazillions of folk through the bee tent, which we shared with the Beekeepers' Association and the RHS, who were promoting their Plants for Pollinators campaign. It was handy to have a bumblebee colony and honeybee observation hive next to each other so people could appreciate the differences between them, and to have the balance of the native flowers in the bumblarium together with the list of traditional garden plants the RHS recommend. The punters' increasing awareness of gardens as habitats was really encouraging, as was their evident pleasure in seeing the bees. All good stuff, and much of the show was very on message this year. I was particularly pleased to see Mat Byway's Applebee garden, which we'd supplied some flowers to and which had been put together at breakneck speed. The Floral marquee had the usual stunning display from one of our suppliers, Downderry Nursery, from whom I'm buying lavender for the landscaping project here. I think we might feature lavender in the bumblarium next year. I also had a chance to wander around the roses by way of planning my rose bed at Hookgate, which will include some real beauties. I've got a lot of favourites to squeeze in, but I also wanted to include some less familiar, bee friendly single roses like Sweet Pretty and Dainty Bess, which I found at the Pococks Roses stand. My only regret about the show was missing Mark "Otter Farm" Diacono's offer of free bucolic cocktails, but if he doesn't run out I'm sure he'll be delighted to serve you at his stand in the GYO section. Cheers!