The Show Gardens

I have hundreds of photos of the show gardens and getting them down to a handful of key photos has been tough. I have allowed time to wittle them out for me and so the photos I've included here are of the gardens that for some reason keep popping into my mind. So, first up is Satoyama Life by Kazuyuki Ishihara in the Artisan gardens.

Although the garden is very small, there was so much going on. I don't mean that in a bad way. You could split the garden into a myriad of different items,such as the building, water feature, path and plantings and then further divide each one, so looking at the sections of the garden was like looking at a mandala. Each part was exquisite and beautiful in its own right but also and perhaps most importantly all of the elements fitted together harmoniously and even in the hustle and bustle it seemed peaceful.

The Bradstone Panache Garden by Caroline Butler. I loved the movement in this garden and the vibrant colours in the soft woodland planting. I love the muted colours on the wall picked in the planting and the sculpture.  The tree forming the organic backbone to the sculpture is perfect.

I think I may have been living in the PNW too long, because on seeing this garden I caught myself thinking "now there are some nice pieces of cedar". Once I'd recovered myself, I was taken by the easy style of the garden. The beautiful rusty tones of the cedar were picked up in the irises, verbascum and bark of the Prunus 'Amber Beauty', leading you through the garden.

I love the simplicity of the lines in this garden shown here in the photo by the path and water feature. I've noticed the water features are overrepresented in my photos of the gardens - maybe because it was hot day?