Shot! The 2019 RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival

Seeking out the most fabulous flowers in the Floral Marquee at the world’s biggest flower show

Rather than remaining a plain old flower show, after 29 years the RHS decided it was time to rebrand its second-biggest annual event as the Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival, a title chosen no doubt to better reflect the size and diversity of the show.

With over 450 exhibitors across the 34 acre showground, the event attracts some 130,000 visitors, making it the world’s biggest flower show. It’s one I’ve been coming to for each of the past ten years.

With that being said, this year I decided to take a different approach to what I normally shoot on Press Day. What instigated that was my images from Chelsea a few weeks earlier where my focus was on ultra-tight compositions, rather than the usual wide landscape shots.

But getting distinctive — really distinctive — photos of flowers and plants is far from easy. Nowadays everyone photographs flowers, so standing out isn’t easy. In fact, it’s a continual creative challenge.

So this year I spent most of my time inside the Floral Marquee seeking out only the most visually interesting plants and flowers: the one’s that would make the most eye-catching images.

Whilst it may be the biggest flower show in the world, the floral displays aren’t nearly on the same level as Chelsea. Not only are there fewer exhibitors, but their displays are both smaller and significantly less ambitious.

Be that as it may, there were still many wonderful specimens on display — more than I could photograph in the few hours I was at the show.

First on my list was the alliums of Dutch grower W S Warmenhoven whose innovative Chelsea display had really wowed me. This time it wasn’t quite so stunning to look at, but still contained some superb alliums.

I was particularly enamoured with two very different specimens: the green and pink Sphaerocephalon aka the round-headed leek, and by contrast, the completely spherical baby blue variety, Blue Dean, neither of which I’d photographed before.

This year it was all about getting close, really close. I was inspired by the great shots I got of Andy Sturgeon’s gold-winning M&G show garden at this year’s Chelsea, which was almost entirely green foliage.

The resulting images certainly surprised me and got me thinking about just what you can achieve when everything in the frame is limited to shades of the same colour.

Leaving the alliums behind, I went in search of ferns and found two that caught my eye on the Fernatix display. The first — Blechnum Fluviatile — was from New Zealand where it’s known as the Kiwikiwi. The other one I really liked was Gymnocarpium Dryopteris ‘Plumosum’ which is also known as the oak fern.

Staying with interesting leaves, I spent some time at Dibley’s Nurseries impressive begonia display where my favourite variety was ’Jolly Noel’

From there I went to the display by the National Chrysanthemum collection. Chrysanths are another favourite flower of mine to shoot, although I wasn’t as enamoured with those on show this year in the Floral Marquee compared to last year.

I love the vivid green and pink Disco Club, a variety I’ve photographed many times before. Having done so, the challenge — as always — is to come away with different-looking images.

I’ve also photographed acers before, although always as part of a composition. What I hadn’t appreciated is quite how beautiful their leaves look up close — especially when you compare the colours of the different varieties, such as Laceleaf and Stella Rossa.

But I left the best to last when I came across a flower I’ve never shot before, one which ended up producing my favourite images of the entire day.

These were Tillandsias, the so-called air plants from South America. Part of the Bromeliad family, they are found in the forests, mountains and deserts of Central and South America. Andy’s Air Plants, a specialist grower from Cornwall, had a wonderful display of these stunning flowers.

With their delicate wispy petals, tillandsias look like they’ve been painted in watercolours rather than grown in a greenhouse!

So that was my 2019 Hampton Court experience, one quite different from previous years as I focused exclusively on the Floral Marquee. Looking at my images, I have to say it was a good decision!

The next day I learned that of the 100 or so exhibitors, some 42 had received gold medals.

I’ve said it many times before, but the RHS hand out far too many medals, especially golds— the ultimate prize at their shows. To me, it only diminishes the prestige of winning.

Ultimately, it’s lazy judging: a gold medal should only be given to the best of the best. Instead, it appears to be a reward for taking part as almost every exhibitor seems to win a medal of one colour or another. As far as I’m concerned, the more medals given out, the more they are devalued.

Finally, as I was leaving, I found myself stuck in a crowd surrounded by security. A few minutes later Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge appeared. As at Chelsea, she had co-designed a garden aimed at getting children back to nature and was about to show a bunch of school kids around. I was quite a distance away, but managed to get this great snap of her.

Behind the image: All these photos were taken handheld with the iPhone 8 Plus. Shooting in the Floral Marquee is not without its challenges. First, the lighting is far from ideal and second, RHS rules require each specimen to be prominently labelled. If like me you don’t want signage appearing in your shot, you have to work that much harder on your compositions. The one’s from the Floral Marquee this year are amongst the best floral images I think I’ve created in all the time I’ve been shooting flowers and gardens. Shot at Hampton Court Palace on 1 July 2019