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| Photo 1: The Great Plant Pavilion Empty - the calm before the storm. |
Hardy's nursery has gone from strength to strength. It started from pillaged plants from their own gardens, friends and families, selling at car boot sales to many times Chelsea Gold winner in the plant marquee. Their stands has always had a garden layout element to it anyway, so it makes sense that they have progressed to doing a show garden. They are known for being good at publicity (Rosy Hardy is a good speaker and does many talks plus they have a PR/ publicity person). Other nurseries give plants to them for free in the hope that they would help bring attention to their plants and their business. They take part in most shows.
Now they have sponsorship from Brewin Dolphin, it was a last minute request for design submissions. They were able to fit their brief by coming up with a show concept that connects what they both do. A spherical structure made of cast iron is a coccolith - minute calcite shells deposited by coccolithophore - a micro organism that makes chalk, which is the soil that their nursery is on. The water from River Tesk which is also near them, was used at Laverstoke Mill, for printing the first bank notes - Brewin dolphin are one of the first stock brokers. Also they wanted to highlight the importance of water from chalk aquifers. They have used plant species based on the ones found along the river but modern cultivars of. The gabion cylinders represents the structures that break the flow of the river. The path that winds around at a raised level is the 'silver link' - what is printed on money (another Brewin dolphin connection), the path was covered during the build - but is of colourful 'bling' resin.
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| Photo 2: Build has been going on for a week already - structural plants like the hedging and hazels put in place. |
The gabions are filled with flint, also indicative of the geology there. There is also a background gabion wall, this has a red brick pattern that reflects the silver link path. The planting goes from shady woodland at the back to dry gravel garden at the front where the standing gabions are. There is a pool and water that flows below the path also.
Rosy decides the planting as she goes - the palette is naturalistic (Dan Pearson last year probably helped pave the way even more for the acceptability of this kind of planting - it contains a lot of natives, including a wonderful Acer campestre hedge and stools of Coryllus avellana. Nothing is too bright and bold, even cultivars chosen are soft and soothing. She has dug up sections of her lawn with dandelions and all.
She has specific planters, and people like me go behind them and mulch after them. Rob her partner works on the inside marquee floral stand. I was helping pass him paving and bricks for the path. This will display key Hardy's plants including ones bred by themselves e.g. Cirsium 'Frosted Magic', a white one that 'dies well'. They grow all their plants in peat free - Sylvamix from Melcourt. Rob says that this is better during winter, as the pots don't freeze over and they have less plant loss. Though they have to watch the watering and maybe have to do more in summer.
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| Photo 3: Inside the Great Plant Pavilion - the pathway for Hardy's stand - a fox has been through it overnight. |
There are also contractors on site for the garden for all the hard landscaping - gold winning Bowles and Wyer - doing the heavy work of moving stones, using machinery like JCBs and painting.