The RHS Flower Show Cardiff supported by wealth manager Brewin Dolphin will return to the Welsh capital with a celebration of spring from 12 – 14 April. The show will champion health and wellbeing and celebrate Visit Wales’ Year of Discovery theme for 2019 as it explores some of the finest in Welsh horticulture.
Teaming up with Perennial, presenter of the Sodshow Gardening Podcast, Peter Donegan will create a small private garden offering a relaxing space to enjoy and entertain complete with an outdoor kitchen. The Perennial Garden demonstrates what homeowners can achieve with a small, urban garden as it celebrates the organisation’s 180th anniversary of helping people in horticulture.
Designer Anthea Guthrie returns with a Show Garden following her Silver Medal in 2016. Inspired by ‘Bedtime Stories for Rebel Girls’, this gothic and ghoulish garden for a 10-year-old girl features a skull-shaped hut set in the bottom of a family garden where she can crawl through to a space to bury herself in books.
Returning for its second year, the Regeneration Gardens category welcomes two recent garden design and landscape architecture graduates designing affordable spaces that use unexpected, everyday materials. Brent Purtell’s The Urban Gallery will recreate a small public park in the heart of a city, combining recycled industrial materials with bold artworks from local artists for an enclosed escape.
Nature’s Take Over by Diego Carrillo highlights the beauty behind nature’s simplicity. The low-maintenance garden designed for an eco-friendly couple aims to attract wildlife to bring them closer to nature.
As a key show theme, features will highlight the benefits of gardening and outdoor spaces. The National Botanic Garden Wales’ Gardd Lles, meaning ‘Wellbeing Garden’ in Welsh, provides secluded seating areas for contemplation and mindfulness. Meanwhile, Grow Cardiff will also promote the benefits of community gardening with a vibrant display created by patients from the Grow Well project and local gardening group Billy’s Green Fingers.
Continuing the theme of community, a brand new Blossoming Beds Competition will offer community groups the chance to go head to head in creating colourful pockets of spring colour to inspire visitors. The ever-popular Wheelbarrow Competition also returns inviting local schools to transform them into adventurous creations using the Discovery theme as inspiration.
British wildlife is also embraced with Into the Nest by The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales which features a design from a bird’s perspective as it explores a variety of games to help visitors identify some of Wales’ iconic bird species. RSPB Cymru will be back with snail-friendly Maenor Malwen, made up of shell-like curves and circles as families can discover UK land and water snail species hidden within.
Other features include Bridgend College who will recreate the legend of Caerphilly Castle’s Green Lady and a vegetable plot for families to discover how to get growing no matter what age with Pennard Plants.
In addition, 12 nurseries in the Plant Village and 45 nurseries in the Floral Marquees will bring a bounty of colour and scents. In recognition of their achievements, R. & A. Scamp Quality Daffodils have been named as 2019’s Master Grower. The multi gold medal-winning daffodil specialist will create a show-stopping display featuring hundreds of varieties of daffodils and a woodland walk feature for a behind the scenes glimpse into their nursery life. Alchemy Ferns and Kitchen Garden Plants are amongst the newcomers to exhibit at the show.
The popular Floristry Bench introduced in 2018 will also be back with a brand new Living Art Floristry Competition, as experts such as celebrity florist Jonathan Moseley creates floral masterpieces alongside a variety of workshops.
