RHS Flower Show at Tatton
Took my gran to Tatton Flower Show on Friday (a belated birthday present) and a lovely time was had by all. There’s lots to see and it doesn’t half help to be organised …..
First of all, wear decent shoes. Even though it only rained once, (perfectly timed since we were already in one of the large marquees) it’s still very soggy and/or muddy underfoot. Wearing gold grecian sandals or flipflops might have seemed a good idea to some of the ladies at 9am, but it wasn’t such a good look when combined with mud-caked toes and splashed ankles at noon.
Get there early – even as we arrived at 10am, there were queues to get in. We’d pre-ordered our tickets but there were long queues to purchase them on the door. And it tends to get busier in the afternoon.
Take a picnic – there are lots of eating places including champagne areas, the brasserie, fish & chips and numerous ice cream/coffee/burger stalls but they can be pretty expensive. We bought ice creams mid morning but then went back out to collect our picnic which was nicely chilled in our cool box. (Your hand gets stamped for re-entry). Some visitors were even better organised – we saw several parties picnicing at tables, with large glasses of wine, around their cars.
There was a free plant creche where you could leave your purchases without trailing them around with you all day. It does get pretty crowded and I heard more than one lady mutter malevolently when she banged her shins against the little wheeled crates everyone was using to herd their purchases around.
Overall, Tatton really is well organised and everyone is friendly; happy to share plant hints and tips. The only slight disappointment to me was that there didn’t seem to be lots of places selling plants!! There was one section that was full of ‘stall holders’ who were absolutely bombed out with customers and then a long marquee jam-packed full of exhibitors (and visitors) at the other end of the grounds. But surprisingly little in between. Of course there were the show gardens and exhibits but most of the other sales areas seemed to be peripheral stuff for gardens, as well as landscaping, conservatories, etc.
Nevertheless, it was a great day out and I did restrain myself from buying too much. I came away with a few nice new plants and shrubs to add to my garden – and of course got a big thank you hug from gran for taking her.
Tags: Tatton Flower Show