Category: RHS Malvern Spring Festival

ENERGY AND ENTHUSIASM ON SHOW AS THE DESIGNERS OF TOMORROW PREPARE FOR THE RHS MALVERN SPRING FESTIVAL

The Showground was buzzing with energy on Thursday 17 March when it played host to children from schools in the three counties taking part in the RHS Malvern Spring Festival School Garden Challenge.

The Challenge? To build a show garden to reflect this year’s theme of ‘Celebrate the Queen’.

The aspiring garden designers were treated to a workshop by Chris Collins, former Blue Peter gardener and Schools Garden Champion. Chris discussed designing, building and selecting plants for their gardens, passed on tips and techniques for a great show garden and answered all their questions.

In the hands-on part of the day, the children learned more about outdoor planting and paper pot planting. All were engaged and excited and their laughter and chatter was a joy to hear.

The theme of ‘Celebrate the Queen’ may be the same but the designs range from Balmoral to Buckingham Palace and corgis to crowns…  With no formal training, the children have produced incredible designs and, coupled with their energy and enthusiasm, there’s literally no stopping this new generation of gardeners and designers!

Chris Collins, School Garden Champion said:

“It was a fabulous day. The children were full of ideas and imagination and it is a privilege to help them to achieve their designs. Today was a great example of the power, positivity, education and health benefits of gardening on show for all to see. And we could all do with harnessing some of their energy and vitality!”

The schools involved are Bredon School, Primary Quest Multi-Academy Trust, Royal Grammar School Worcester, WCG Pershore, Woodfield Academy and Wye Forest Federation.

The School Gardens will be on show at RHS Malvern Spring Festival, 5-8 May 2022, on the Festival Green.

Please contact Jayne Unwin on jayne.unwin@threecounties.co.uk for more information.

Pots of inspiration, from wellbeing to rest and relaxation, will be dispensed by the show gardens and new feature gardens at this year’s RHS Malvern Spring Festival, taking place at the Three Counties Showground between May 5 and 8.

TV and radio presenter and keen gardener Jo Whiley has been working with Alan Williams from Landform Consultants, whose Parsley Box Garden won the People’s Choice Award at RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2021. Together they have created the event’s first RHS feature garden, the Vitamin G Garden, which will demonstrate the mental, physical and social benefits to be had from growing plants in and around the home.

The pair have liaised with Professor Alistair Griffiths and Dr Lauriane Chalmin-Pui of the RHS Science team to bring their evidence-based research to life in the Vitamin G Garden, which will be a walk-through garden set against the borrowed landscape of the glorious Malvern Hills.

Built by Gloucestershire-based Graduate Gardeners, the design will reflect the idea of gardens serving as calming and relaxing oases but also exciting spaces that inspire social interaction, as evidenced by RHS health and horticulture research.

Visitors will also have the opportunity to take part in ongoing RHS science research in which they’ll be asked to indicate their preferences for flower colour and petal shape, helping to inform a planting blueprint for wellbeing gardens.

There will also be codes that can be scanned for information on the plant combinations used with links to nurseries selling them within the showground.

Carrying the principles of the Vitamin G Garden through to everybody visiting the show, ‘Affordable Gardens’, designed by Show Lead Jess Russell-Perry, will demonstrate what can be achieved on a transparent budget of between £500 and £1,000. Jess is hoping to inspire visitors with three feature gardens the same size as typical front, back and side plots.

Houseplants have enjoyed a renaissance in recent years, particularly among millennials, and they will have a show garden dedicated to their leafy loveliness at this year’s festival.

RHS Malvern favourite Peter Dowle of LEAF Creative in Newent, will be making use of two giant clear domes to demonstrate different habitats and provide inspirational ideas for visitors to take home in his ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ garden. This immersive, walk-through experience will bring a real wow factor to the festival, transporting visitors to a place far away and providing a taste of the exotic.

Three Counties is celebrating the Platinum Jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen with a new permanent garden filled with both the Sovereign’s favourite plants and several that have been named in her honour, including a new bloom bred by David Austin Roses as a tribute to Britain’s longest-ruling monarch.

This feature, designed by Show Lead Jess Russell-Perry, will support the learning of two apprentices at the Three Counties who are preparing and planting it as part of their coursework for their studies at Pershore College.

Six show gardens showcasing the talents of designers will complement the festival’s feature gardens.

Jamie Langlands’ ‘A Peaceful Escape’ is created with a young couple in mind, providing a space away from the ‘home office’ in which to relax and unwind. The garden provides seclusion and privacy, intrigue and relaxation and peace and quiet.

The design incorporates a secluded, relaxed seating area and structured views. A spine of evergreen plants provides year-round interest with texture and forms, which prolongs the use of the space into winter. Oxfordshire-based Jamie also makes use of water to boost the sense of tranquillity, and a focal sculpture that draws the eye into the space.

A paradise garden for a young couple returning from travels is the theme for Rhodri Wilson’s ‘Home and Dry’. It contains all the things they could wish for: warmth, shelter and dryness underfoot and is easy to maintain. It provides space for working, relaxing, entertaining whatever the weather and is in marked contrast to the surrounding monocultural wilderness of the farmland surrounding it, represented by a strip of flax. The design incorporates a canvas-covered shelter made from steam-bent coppiced ash that mimics the frames used in Mongolian yurts. Planting resembling a mixed wildflower meadow contrasts with the uniformity of the flax.

The Cancer Research UK Legacy Garden by Karen Tatlow is a contemplative space that draws inspiration from many generations and includes some plants used in research into the treatment and cure of the disease. The design incorporates a moongate screen, which draws on a story that’s personal to Karen, from Lichfield, who has lost a family member to the disease. After the festival this garden will be relocated to St Catherine’s Hospice in Preston.

Emily Crowley-Wroe’s The Hide Garden is designed for a woman who works long hours, has a small outside space on a new build estate and misses the countryside she knew when she was growing up. Naturalistic planting along with a shallow pebble pond evoking a river, feature tree, living wall and decked area all contribute to a rural ambience. Gloucestershire-based Emily worked in publishing and marketing before attending the Cotswold Gardening School and changing careers to became a garden designer.

The Longcroft Press Garden was inspired by designer Laura Ashton-Philips’ family and is a space to harvest and celebrate both the produce of the orchard and garden and the joy of being together and doing simple tasks, such as apple pressing. Laura, who is based in the Forest of Dean, will be using recycled and reclaimed materials when constructing her garden.

Rick Ford’s calming, contemplative space in the Abigail’s Footsteps Garden seeks to offer support and comfort to parents after the loss of their baby. Designed as a series of interconnected spaces that reflect the transitions the parents experience, the garden features soft textured and scented plants, raised beds and reflection pools to further enhance the feeling of security and calm.

Alongside the show gardens, on the Festival Green, are six gardens designed and built by local school children. The RHS Malvern Spring Festival School Garden Challenge is a wonderful opportunity for local schools to get outdoors and enjoy gardening. Pupils will be assisted by ex-Blue Peter Gardener Chris Collins in a series of workshops to help them create a garden to reflect this year’s ‘Celebrate the Queen’ theme.

For Alan Williams from Landform Consultants, this year’s RHS Malvern Spring Festival will provide a dose of Vitamin G for everybody. Alan commented: “Everybody knows about the mental and physical benefits of gardening, but there’s a big social side to it too.”

“I feel very honoured to have been asked to create The Vitamin G Garden at what is for me, my home show. It’s a beautiful show with a beautiful setting. My heart will always be in Malvern.”

The RHS Malvern Spring Festival in association with My Pension Expert will have plenty to celebrate when it makes a triumphant return on the 5-8 May 2022 after a two-year break.

This four-day extravaganza is the trailblazer for the RHS flower show season, a seed bed for emerging talent and an opportunity to learn from some of the country’s best-known gardening personalities.

Held at the Three Counties Showground in Worcestershire, with the beautiful Malvern Hills as a backdrop, the 35^th festival promises to be greener, healthier and more joyful than ever.

Throughout its four-day run it will celebrate the positive physical and mental benefits that gardening has given us during the lockdown period. A series of show gardens, feature gardens and container gardens will provide plenty of inspiration alongside a new ‘Nurture Area’ looking at the many ways that horticulture can positively affect our wellbeing.

The Vitamin G Garden created by BBC presenter Jo Whiley, designer Alan Williams from Landform Consultants, will be the first Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) feature garden to appear at Malvern. It will demonstrate the benefits to be enjoyed from a dose of Vitamin G – gardening – and is based on research conducted by the RHS’ Director of Science, Professor Alastair Griffiths.

The celebration theme will mark the Platinum Jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen with the 70^th anniversary of her Coronation taking place a month after the festival. The event will feature giant eye-catching installations at each of the main entrances, school gardens to honour her reign and a new permanent feature garden – The Jubilee Garden – planted with the Sovereign’s favourite flowers and shrubs and the many cultivars named after her. Three Counties Showground’s gardening team, including young apprentices currently studying landscape and design at Pershore College, will plant and maintain the feature.

The re-imagined Floral Green will showcase an array of beautiful blooms from British cut flower growers and florists. Here visitors can immerse themselves in all things floristry, with regular demonstrations and unique photo opportunities with supersized suspended floral headpieces.

Some of the UK’s finest nurseries will make sure that The Floral Marquee and open-air Plant Arcades will be filled with tempting things to buy, and the shopping experience continues throughout the large retail area, offering a one-stop gardening emporium.

In addition, visitors can sample some of the best food and drink the region has to offer, complemented with world food cuisines and be inspired by demonstrations from TV chefs in the new Nourish Area, hosted by Mark Diacono, with Raymond Blanc, Valentine Warner, Jeremy Pang and Sabrina Ghayour due to take part.

The Festival Theatre promises a timetable jam-packed with special guests and inspirational speakers and will host the much-loved Gardeners’ Question Time. Monty Don, Frances Tophill, Jo Whiley, Arit Anderson and Jonathan Moseley will all be joining James Alexander Sinclair to present lively talks and fun and informative demonstrations.

Shows Manager, Jane Edwards commented; “We look forward to welcoming visitors back to our 35^th festival for a celebration of the spring season and our shared joy of gardening. This year’s RHS Malvern Spring Festival will be the greenest yet, with a new sustainability policy seeing water bottle refill stations laid on around the showground and visitors are being invited to bring their own shopping bags for the floral marquee. These measures will join existing initiatives such as a free shuttle bus to and from Great Malvern Station.”

RHS Malvern Spring Festival 5 – 9 May 2021 Cancelled

It is with much regret that we can confirm that this year’s RHS Malvern Spring Festival will not take place due to the ongoing impact of the pandemic.

With fantastic support from our garden designers, nurseries and traders we had hoped to go ahead with reduced numbers and the addition of an extra day but it has become clear with the current level of uncertainty around outdoor events that we are not going to be able to create RHS Malvern Spring Festival this year.

We would like to offer ticket holders the opportunity to roll over to next year or receive a refund. We will be contacting all ticket purchasers within the next 14 days so please refrain from contacting us as this will only slow our processes down.

Public health and safety remains our number one priority, for the sake of our staff, visitors and for our wider community.

Our shows team is working hard to deliver a very special Malvern Autumn Show later in the year on the weekend of 25-26 September. By then we hope to see the vaccination programme fully rolled out and infection rates under control and we will of course continue to follow Government advice.

We would like to thank our visitors, exhibitors, sponsors and all who support our shows and we remain hopeful of better times ahead.

Media Contacts

For interviews, contact:

Diana Walton, Head of Shows / M: 07901 791617 / E: diana.walton@threecounties.co.uk

In the first of a new series of exciting open-air gardening events, passionate plant and garden lovers got a socially distanced gardening fix this weekend, at the sell-out, Malvern Plant and Garden Fair.

The hugely anticipated open-air event sold out of the limited number of pre bookable tickets, which were restricted by 25% of the normal capacity, to ensure visitors had plenty of space to roam within the 90 acre, Three Counties Show Ground in Malvern. The event was blessed with glorious autumn sunshine and visitors were able to buy and be inspired by over 200 plant and bulb nurseries, gardenalia stalls, delicious food offerings, spacious picnic areas and entertaining gardening speakers.

Visitors were treated to the pick of the season’s plants from Asters to Acers, Peonies to Palm Trees and Camassia bulbs to garlic sets, with many leaving the showground with bags laden and happy faces.

Vibrant with plants-people and gardening royalty, the alfresco Picnic Theatre, dressed by Form Plants, Torc Pots and Kate Rees, was hosted to autumnal floral demonstrations created by flower arranging virtuoso Jonathan Moseley, and talks and lots of floral fun and frolics from gardening greats including Carol Klein, James Alexander Sinclair, Mark Diacono and award winning garden designer, Mark Gregory.

Villagio Verde created a postcard view of their Greek Taverna Cove garden, a design that they will bring to full life when they return for the RHS Malvern Spring Festival in May 2021.

With Autumn on the horizon and the gardening year drawing to a close, plant nurseries were delighted to have the opportunity to meet customers, share growing tips and sell their carefully grown stock.

Rob Hardy, from multi-award-winning nursery Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants said, “This was a superb event, brilliantly organised with safety in mind. Nice to have some normality with visitors very so happy to be here and really keen to buy plants. Thank you to all visitors for supporting us.”

Designer Florist Jonathan Moseley who wowed visitors with his demonstrations throughout the weekend said “As the first and last flower show of 2020, Malvern magic permeated the show from start to finish. There was a good balance of wonderful plants with a generous dose of inspiration to make it a show that appealed to each and every visitor.”

Diana Walton, Head of Shows, Three Counties said, “We have been overwhelmed by the support shown to us by exhibitors, contractors and visitors, it has been a heart-warming experience to put together a two day extravaganza on our beautiful spacious outdoor site, which has given a haven of opportunity and excitement to all.”

The Three Counties Showground has been awarded the VisitEngland ‘We’re Good to Go’ industry charter mark. This verifies that the showground meets the Government and public health guidance on COVID-19 and that they have all the required health and safety processes in
place to ensure you have a safe and enjoyable visit.

Villaggio Verde would have celebrated their 10th consecutive RHS Malvern Spring Festival appearance in 2020, held at Three Counties Showground and attracting over 100,000 people annually.

When the cancellation of the show was announced, Villaggio Verde made the decision to build a spectacular virtual garden instead and have teamed up with Concepts Conveyed who produce immersive 3D renders and animations.

Named The Taverna Cove, Villaggio Verde show garden features pine and olive trees which surround a Mediterranean-inspired cove, with the structure of a family-owned secluded Greek Taverna, only accessible by sea or coastal path. The garden features Cork oak and bottlebrush trees and bright coloured Geraniums giving an authentic Greek feeling.

Villaggio Verde are releasing a series of visuals starting with breaking ground through to the official launch of the show garden on 7^th May when you will be able to complete a virtual tour of the finished garden.

What is really special about this garden is the fact it incorporates waste and litter which has been cleansed from the sea by British fishermen.

Jason Hales Director of Villaggio Verde said “This year would have been very special for us and despite the challenges we are all having to deal day to day we really wanted to be able to bring our show garden to life and share it with the world.”

Head of Shows, Diana Walton, said: “The show gardens are our most popular destination at the festival. Villaggio Verde are true trailbazers pulling out all the stops to create a virtual experience that can be shared for the very first time with RHS Malvern visitors, followers and supporters.”

The virtual garden will be an active cove where water ebbs and flows. Small beaches around the cove leave evidence of fishing activities both from the past and present with small moored fishing boats in the waters and washed up lobster pots.

To add in some extra family fun Percseus the seagull will be making appearances during the build – so keep a look out for him!