Shot! The 2024 RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival
Despite the presence of The Lion King, the lack of show gardens and anything especially memorable, meant this year’s festival was far from a roaring success
I’ll come straight out with it. Based on my visit on Press Day, this was a really poor show by the RHS. Devoid of anything memorable, there was an absence of anything innovative, a dearth of show gardens, it was bereft of celebrities and there was a palpable lack of atmosphere. And, what’s worse, it was all so predictable.
For years now, Hampton — the Royal Horticultural Society’s second most prestigious annual event after Chelsea — felt like it had been in decline, that it had lost its mojo and there were no signs of getting it back. All ’n’ all, it was a sad state of affairs for what is often billed as being the world’s biggest flower show.
But what do I know?
Well, I’ve been coming to Hampton Court every year since 2011. With Covid putting paid to 2020, that’s thirteen times. What’s more, I’ve also been to the last thirteen Chelsea Flower Shows. If nothing else, that gives me lots of experience to judge the current state of both events and most importantly, to compare things to how they once were.
Looking back, my reviews of Hampton were sprinkled with portentous commentary. And, for those not familiar with the event, which sprawls across 31 acres of Henry VIII’s palace by the Thames and attracts around 120,000 visitors over its five public days, I think some of those words are worth repeating here.
Back in 2015, on the show’s 25th anniversary, I wrote:
“It’s a showcase for new talent and, for the lucky few, a stepping stone to the big one, Chelsea.”
I also pointed out two of the biggest differences when comparing Hampton to Chelsea:
“When it comes to show gardens one should point out that two things are especially challenging at Hampton Court. The first is actually finding them, as rather than being grouped together as they are at Chelsea, they’re rather annoyingly scattered across the site. The other is coming to terms with how some define ‘a garden’. This is a show where the word ‘installation’ is often a better description.”
Two years later in 2017, I was noting a significant decrease in the number of show gardens. In 2016 there were some of 40 gardens at the show.
“By my reckoning, there were around 25. All I know is this year’s show felt strangely empty.”
And each year, the RHS also seem to tinker with the show’s format, adding new categories such as Gardens for a Changing World, then dropping them for something else entirely. Not only that, to add to the confusion, they began relocating the gardens among the trade stands.
“Whatever their intentions, the effect was less than positive, diluting the visitor experience. The show gardens were not just harder to find, but compared to previous years, way less impressive to look at.”
I also noted that the RHS had disingenuously started to refer to every garden, no matter what its size or budget, as being a ‘show garden’.
“Personally, I think this is a huge mistake. Big budget show gardens are what people come to see. Calling everything a ‘show garden’ just devalues that whole notion.”
I also made reference to the reliance on charities and tourist boards to provide the funding, which meant that virtually every garden had a story to sell.
I concluded by stating that 2017s Hampton Court gardens were modest not only in size, but in ambition.
“I may be a tougher critic than most, but for me there was no one stand-out garden this time. Indeed, this was the least impressive Hampton I’ve been to.”
The following year, however, I wrote that the show felt bigger than ever.
“There seemed to be more gardens than previous years and more exhibitors than I can recall seeing before.”
But I also reiterated my concern about the growing dependence on charities to fund the gardens.
“Show gardens should impress with their creativity, landscaping and planting alone, without the added need to tell a story to satisfy their benefactors.”
In 2019, the RHS rebranded what for 26 years was known as the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show to a new name: the Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival. But I reflected on less positive trends:
“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.”
With no show taking place in 2020 thanks to COVID, the event returned in 2021:
“This year there were no less than 17 show gardens. That sounds a lot, but walking around one had to really seek them out or stumble across them. Many were truly minuscule in size and all were scattered among other exhibitors rather than grouped together by garden category.”
Once again, I expressed my concern:
“Personally, I don’t think this works, and I can only believe the RHS’s intention is to create more traffic for the exhibitors, of which there are far more occupying Hampton than Chelsea. Whatever the rationale, the end result makes the overall event actually appear less impressive.”
I also wrote that Hampton lacked genuine innovation:
“None of the show gardens broke new barriers, indeed, there was a sameness about their planting style and choice of plants.”
Come 2022, when there were twenty show gardens, I was once again pointing out the lack of innovation:
“It’s not just the plots that are pocket-sized, so is the ambition of the designers.”
Talking of pocket-sized plots, 2023 saw the introduction of a new micro-garden category, although I couldn’t understand why they weren’t judged:
“Just confounded that this new category was not judged, so no medals were awarded.”
But my bigger issue was the lack of show gardens:
“Each year there seems to be noticeably fewer show gardens as the event continues to change from being what was once predominantly a flower show, to now becoming a far more commercially-focused garden festival.”
I could only describe it as being a lacklustre event.
“What was once a ‘junior’ version of Chelsea, nurturing garden designers, has morphed into a festival with a somewhat confused identity, where the emphasis is increasingly on selling than showing.”
I concluded my review with a word of warning:
“Without the wow-factor of truly impressive show gardens, and with no headline sponsor, can it continue to attract the crowds and remain a financially viable event? Only time will tell.”
Now, twelve months on, had things got any better? The answer to that question was easy: no, they had not.
2024 saw no big name garden designers at Hampton, not one. Not surprisingly their absence was evident in the quality of the eight so-called ‘show gardens’ that were on display. None more so, than The Lion King garden designed by Brighton-based Juliet Sargeant.
It was the first show garden I saw and the first impression I had of this year’s event. It did not augur well.
Even though it’s been running for 25 years in the West End, I’ve not seen The Lion King stage show, so the garden’s visual cues were largely lost on me. But take the planting away, and I have to say, it more resembled a backdrop a school might’ve knocked up for an end-of-term play than a show garden worthy of any accolades.
Its backdrop was a colourful sunrise made of strips of material set within a roughly hewn arch.
In front was a circular area with some yellow African-ish stools and at the front edge of the plot were eight leaping wooden antelope that to my eyes looked like larger versions of souvenirs visitors might purchase at Jo’burg airport.
I have to say I was taken aback when I saw that the judges had named it Best in Show and bestowed it with a silver gilt medal as well as giving it the Innovation Award.
I was among a small crowd who got to watch a troupe of colourfully dressed singers do their thing in the circle and now knowing it had picked up three awards, when they left I checked out the garden in more detail.
Had my first impressions got the better of me? Was I missing something? The answer to both was no. The planting was predictably yellows and oranges, with kniphofia (aka red hot pokers), heleniums and echinacea ‘Harvest Moon’ (Coneflower) and echinacea ‘Flame Thrower’ all set among various grasses.
To be honest, the most visually interesting thing was the use of wooden stakes for what was described as the ‘boma’. In Africa, a boma is a fenced enclosure used to protect livestock.
In Juliet’s original rendering there were many more of these stakes, rather than the more spartan approach seen on the finished garden which was built by Gardenlink using stakes sourced from Sussex coppiced wood. And, if my eyes haven’t deceived me, there were definitely no antelopes!
The ground covering as well as the planted areas were intended to invoke the dusty red earth of Southern Africa, but in truth looked more like what they were — crushed red bricks than genuine rooigrond. The aforementioned antelopes just looked naff, particularly as they were all exactly the same. And, surely, if you’re going to have any wildlife on this garden, wouldn’t they be lions?
I may be nitpicking, but there was also some discrepancy about the garden’s name. While the pamphlet called it The Lion King Community Garden, the sign at the show named it as The Lion King Anniversary Garden.
In the pamphlet (or ‘special magazine’ as they described it) it acknowledged that structural elements in the garden’s design “directly echo the stage production” including the sun and those antelopes.
Beyond the planting, and her Tanzanian roots (she was born in the country where The Lion King is actually set) I’m not sure what Juliet brought to the party.
As a former Chair of The Society of Garden Designers, a gold-medal winner at Chelsea (for her Modern Slavery Garden in 2016) and someone who is now on the RHS’s selection panel for show gardens as well as being an RHS judge, I would’ve expected a lot more.
I’m also mystified that it won Best in Show when the judges only gave it a silver-gilt. In fact, not one of the show gardens received a gold medal, which I think says a lot about the standard of this year’s crop. I may be mistaken, but I can’t recall that ever happening at Hampton throughout the year’s I’ve been covering the show.
For me, the one positive was the orange background which really made the planting pop. But one only has to look back to last year’s Best in Show garden (The Over The Wall garden by Matthew Childs) that also featured the same colour backdrop and a circular theme, to be reminded that we’ve seen much better show gardens in the past.
Speaking of which, Blue Diamond had a display in the Floral Marquee that celebrated Anne-Marie Powell’s Olivia Hill show garden which won the People’s Choice Award at this year’s Chelsea. If I didn’t already know, it just reminded me of how much better Chelsea show gardens are compared with what Hampton serves up.
With that being said, perhaps it’s no surprise that next year will be the last show before Hampton becomes a biennial event. The RHS announced a few months ago that going forward it will alternate with other venues beginning with Badminton in 2026.
Judging by my visit to this year’s show, I have serious doubts as to its long-term future. Apart from what I’ve already spoken about, regards the quantity and quality of the show gardens, there was just so much missing this year. It felt like the RHS had seen the writing on the wall and already decided to pare back the budget.
For example, what happened to the iconic horticultural hero garden? And where were all the interesting exhibitors? It was obvious many previous regulars, including the likes of Carrie Anne Funnell, Jon O’Connor and Matt Maitland, had pulled out.
I have no idea whether visitor numbers were down on previous years, but certainly there seemed to be a lot less media attention on the show than in years past.
And not for the first time, the public disagreed with the judges when they voted for their favourite. The People’s Choice went to Nilufer Danis’ The Way of Saint James garden which even the judges felt only deserved a silver and I thought was pretty unremarkable.
For the most part, it was a naturalistic representation of a verdant Galician forest and pond. And whilst you can admire the skill involved in making it look so natural, the problem is we’ve seen so many similar ‘gardens’ before. Last year’s Hampton for example featured a couple that were a lot better and even this year, Sadie May Stowell’s Oregon Garden was more impressive. (I’ll be giving my thoughts on that one shortly.)
Five years since the show changed its name from flower show to garden festival, it’s suffered what can best be described as an identity crisis. Add to that, the constant format tinkering from one year to the next by the RHS the noticeable lack of wow factor gardens as well as the decision to go biennial and you can only conclude that Hampton has been on something of a slippery slope for some time now. Whether it’s moribund or can be brought back to life, only time will tell.
Behind the shot: All these images were taken handheld mainly with the iPhone 14 Pro and a few with the Olympus OM-D E-M1. As always, it was all about looking for interesting compositions and waiting until there were no people in the frame. Photographed at Hampton Court Palace on 1 July 2024.
About the author: Based in Sussex-by-the-Sea, on England’s south coast, Gary is a creative writer and image-maker. He specialises in creating out of the ordinary portraits of musicians and people with interesting faces, as well as photographing some of the world’s finest flowers and gardens, not forgetting an array of automotive exotica.
On the writing side, he has used his research skills to author deep dives into some noteworthy songs beginning with Bryan Ferry’s ‘These Foolish Things’ ‘Ghost Town’ by The Specials, ‘Real Wild Child’ by Ivan and ‘All The Young Dudes’ by Mott the Hoople.
He has also written a biography of Robert Palmer and the stories behind Whitesnake’s blatant Led Zep rip-off, ‘Still Of The Night’, Harry Styles’ anthem to positivity, ‘Treat People With Kindness’ and the little known Queen track ‘Cool Cat.’
Most recently, Gary has penned the fascinating story behind George Orwell’s dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four.’ as well as ‘Believe It Or Not’ a look into the rise of fake news.
All these can be found here on Medium, along with his reviews of gigs and events and chats with musicians including the likes of Royal Blood, Joe Satriani and Wolf Alice.
