* I was provided a pair of tickets to the Gardeners’ World Spring Fair and therefore are marking posts from my visit as 'Ad’ - as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.
The Secret Garden by Hillier was a central feature of this year’s Spring Fair, inspired by The Secret Garden. It promised to be enclosed by high hedges, and the entrance was through part of this hedge, the design was said to encourage visitors to get up close and personal with the plants displayed, and that was the case, as much as you can at these kind of events.
Unsurprisingly it was a popular feature of the show and it was pretty busy when we visited but generally people gave each other space to enjoy and explore the garden which was absolutely full of plants.
On the right as we entered was the border containing the Himalayan Birch trees and hostas, which was getting much less attention than the border opposite. This area was designed to be more contemporary and included the low-maintenance brilliant white trunked trees. The hostas among the trees represented a ‘sea of foliage’ as a contrast to the colours opposite.
It was nice, but quite understated and in complete contrast to the larger section of the garden, which as you can see, was a lot more interesting.
The border full of herbaceous perennials and shrubs start with whites and purples and go through the spectrum of colours, the idea for the design was to move through the softer, delicate colours to intense and vibrant shades to depict the sun’s movement during the day.
One of the plants stealing the show was the bright pink Judas tree - isn’t it stunning? I think we’ll see more of these, and I’ve already spotted that some of the RHS Chelsea gardens are using them. I know I’d be happy to have one in my garden!
Along the back border the colours changed to the more intense and vibrant colours, with fiery reds and oranges and yellows, representing a bright sunset, and a beautiful end to the day.
Looking back at these photos it’s much more obvious than I remember at the time, though this is most likely because of sharing the space with more people than you would normally share a garden with, so it was much harder to look at the garden as a whole. However the photos allow that, and the planting is really rather special.
My other hot tip is shallow pots complete with pebbles and water - we saw these in more than one garden at the Spring Fair, and it’s something that’s easy to replicate at home, so I think we’ll see more simple water features in our gardens, and that can only be a good thing.