The old central bandstand and food court area is gone, dispersed into at least four areas around the show. We noticed more restaurants and drinks stands, and there's a substantial grassy area between the floral marquee and the Long Water that's been set aside for picnickers. For the first time ever, we managed to snag tables at several times throughout the day. The breaks gave us the energy to stay until the very end (7:30), discovering that the last hour is a glorious time to linger, talk to exhibitors and buy plants, since the bulk of the crowds have gone.The other significant change is that the majority of plant sales are now gathered near the Stud Gate car park entrance. This means that if you drove, you can buy your plants on your way out, rather than hauling them around the show ground all day.
All this added comfort and convenience was particularly prized this year, as we managed to make our annual visit on the hottest July day ever recorded in England. Given how many years we've attended wrapped in Barbours, squelching through mud, we were delighted to have glorious sunshine. But it did make mid-day a bit of an endurance test for both visitors and flowers. Exhibitors were watering madly, but there's no denying things looked more bedraggled than usual. (Including us.)The show gardens are more widely dispersed around the grounds and there are now five categories: the existing show, conceptual and summer now joined by world and historic. I confess to liking the last two additions best. World gives foreign organisations a chance to show off the merits of their countries, and is heavily sponsored by tourist boards. Normandy brought one of Monet's Giverny paintings to life, Turkey gave us a sumptuous ... and best in category ... courtyard garden worthy of a Sultan's palace.
I suspect "historic" addresses the long-standing conflict between the public's taste for classic English gardens and the judges desire for cutting edge design. They can love the conceptual gardens, making bold statements with giant guns and henges of driftwood in gravel. The crowds gathered around cozy gardens with traditional plantings and Hobbit House-like sheds.
If there's one drawback to the additional categories, it's that there are now so many show gardens that they all start to run together. My trend-spotting for this year:
- After a bit of a hiatus, purples and burgundies seem to be back as the favourite dominant planting colour.
- Garden walls and roofs are big, presumably for all those keen gardeners who are running out of space.
- Hydrangeas seem to be experiencing a come-back, with all sorts of new colours and forms; it seemed like every fourth person was carrying one to the car.
- An increasing number of gardens in every category are sponsored by charities. I think this is becoming the defacto standard in charity branding.
The heat did more than just wilt flowers. Though food and drink outlets have expanded significantly, and there's a great new food court with more gourmet options, vendors told us their sales had plummeted from last year. It was simply too hot for people to want to eat much beyond ice cream, and nobody wanted to carry home cheeses, luxury pies or artisan sausages. The craft tent was emptier than we've ever seen it; few had the fortitude to try on clothing or jewellery. Overall, people were definitely buying less, because it was simply too exhausting to carry much around. We made 80% of our purchases in the last hour, in the section closest to the exit.
This raises a possibility that rather than the new design spreading people out and making things feel less crowded, it was simply the heat driving people away that made the place less crowded. Whatever the case, the combination of sunshine and less congestion made it a particularly enjoyable year. I suppose I'll find the answer next year when it will, undoubtably, be cold and rainy once more.
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