Anyone been to the Tatton Park flower show?

[LadyNellCardross]

Is it any good? DH has been given free tickets and I'm wondering what it's like. The weather is supposed to be awful but there's a plant pavilion...

I went. It was lovely. The pavillion is good. Lots of interesting specialist plant stalls. Depends what you like?

It's a lot of fun, although less so in the rain.

There are fewer big show gardens than there were ten years or so ago. However, they've switched to encouraging young designers, which is an interesting appraoch. The terrace gardens are the best for practical idea as they are on a more realistic scales. The Long Borders are very interesting too, with plenty you can adapt to a home garden. I love the various school gardens, they're alway cute.

Definitely take food and drink with you - it's extortionate and queues get very very long.

The marquees can be rammed during rain showers (understandably) so it's worth dressing for the weather and looking at the gardens until the throng eases off.

There are lots of interesting free talks in the Flower Marquee particularly, so it is worth looking at the schedule.

There is almost no mobile phone reception. Plenty of places to refill water bottles, plenty of toilets. If you buy plants and stuff you can put them in the "nursery" to collect at the end of the day.

Oh thanks so much. I'll be going tomorrow and I'm quite looking forward to it. Fingers crossed it's not too much of a deluge and I get to see everything.

It looked great on GW

I went yesterday as well I couldn’t get to members day, the weather wasn’t as awful as predicted, was it?
it meant that there weren’t huge crowds and you could get up close and chat to the exhibitors. I agree not so many show gardens, but I loved the planted Alley, such good ideas.
Quite muddy underfoot thought. I came back with two begonias thanks to Fridays GW and an obelisk. I actually think it’s my favourite RHS show as it has the vibe of the old fashioned village flower show. I also love seeing what others have bought.