20 July 2022

Every year in about mid-July we have a visit from the Britain In Bloom judges, as this garden is part of the Leighton-Linslade entry for the competition.

A year or two ago we checked the criteria against which entries were marked, as the RHS ‘Garden’ magazine has mentioned that environmental aspects were going to have more weight. We were delighted, as we’ve always tried to garden sustainable, for example making a lot of garden compost and leaf mould to improve the soil and hold moisture in it; growing appropriate plants in the right place; and watering selectively and only when necessary.

It seems a bit churlish that when the garden’s always been awarded a Gold, we’ve still felt disappointed that the judges have mainly been concerned with how many flowers there are in bloom when they come round. And we try hard to see that there are, which is tricky as the main June flush is usually over, while the plants that will flower well into autumn won’t have started yet. But we’ve always managed it, and always been a bit disappointed that the long-term, environmental things we do haven’t really been commented on.

sometimes it’s felt as if we should just go out and buy loads of bedding plants, and never mind about sustainability and pollinators!

So this year, it was a very welcome shock when the first question we were asked was about how we were watering in the drought, and the rest of the conversation showed that they really understood and wanted us to be the things that are just part of the way we garden here. But we were so surprised that we forgot to mention most of them – I remember muttering something wishy-washy about how we grew mainly perennials, and only watered selectively (that at least would have been obvious – we’d been round there at 7 that morning watering the plants that really needed it, so they’d be fresh for the judges; and the marks on the ground showed that we weren’t just watering indiscriminately.

We’ll know in a few weeks how the judges assessed us; but in the meantime, those conversations have sparked a lot of thinking about what we should be growing here, now that droughts are more frequent and particularly, now we’ve had the kind of temperatures we had this year. Sadly, we’re going to have to let some plants die – but we’ll learn from it, and replace them with even more appropriate ones.

Watch this space!