RHS Hampton Court Flower Show

Hampton Court Palace from the rose garden: the palace gardens were looking splendid: I hope visitors to the show took time to enjoy them too...

In the Floral Marquee: Downderry Lavenders in the foreground.

A gold-medal winning display of Campanula by Bellflower Nursery.

A delightful display of Salvia, Penstemon and grasses by Foxgrove Plants, though only awarded a silver-gilt.

Trifolium ochroleucum and Campanula 'Sarastro' on the Hopleys stand.

It was good to see Dahlia Karma 'Maarten Zwaan' in the 'Recent Introductions and Plants of Interest' display: I have rated it highly for years.

A witty feature in the otherwise dull 'Edible Busstop' garden.

'Bridge over Troubled Water' designed by Anoushka Feiler was adjudged best garden; this vertical planting was effective, but I didn't care for the planting on the bridge itself. The gardens this year generally seemed to be of a lower standard than usual.

Nilufer Danis won best 'Low cost, High impact garden' with this well-thought out space, entitled 'Our first home, our first garden'. Nice detailing with scaffolding planks!

'Chaos' - a conceptual garden by Tony Smith looks at first like an exercise in precision brick-laying, but the effect of perspective on the lines of bricks from any one viewpoint gives it surprising power. Horticulture is provided by the soup of duckweed (Lemna) in the water between the blocks.