By Press Release
IW Observer gardening columnist, Darren Everest, had to settle for a silver medal award at this year’s Hampton Court Flower Festival.
After a challenging winter and spring, with the weather causing havoc with extremely cold temperatures, Darren’s plants were around two weeks behind where they should have been and have never really caught up, despite the recent warm weather.
Darren increased his growing area this year, with the hope to have plenty of blooms to choose from; however, as the weeks progressed, he realised that it was going to be touch and go whether he would have enough.
Needing just 45 blooms for his display, he initially planned on having around 80 blooms to choose from; however, on the day he was only able to cut 47 blooms and not all of these had the quality which he really wanted. Despite this, Darren, and his wife, Dawn, were able to put up a quite
impressive display and were blown away by the reaction from the public.
Thousands of visitors flocked to Hampton Court and filed through the enormous floral marquee, filled with superb displays by many nurseries, national collection holders, specialist plant societies and growers alike.
Darren said: “We did the best we could with the blooms we had. Of course, it’s disappointing to not be able to put up a top-quality display, so must try harder next year. However, the reaction from the public was incredible with so many telling us that they would have given us a Gold! We do our displays for the visitors’ enjoyment, so that is always lovely to hear.”
Mal Butler