Harlow Carr, Yorkshire

Borders at RHS Harlow Carr, Harrogate

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Things are picking up again today. The weather forecast says the worst of the weather has gone and the risk of serious flooding is subsiding. They are also promising the best day of the week, so I’d better make the most of it.

I head off today with my brother to visit the RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) gardens as Harlow Carr. I offer to pay the admission when we get there, but sadly the gardens have also suffered from the recent heavy rain. Parts of the garden are currently fenced off, so they’ve halved the ticket price. We soon realise that flooding rivers were not to blame; most of the damage has been caused by excess water flowing down the hilly site and washing away paths and flowerbeds.

Still none of this really detracts from the visit. There are plenty of exuberant borders, exploding with colour and form. There are interesting experiments taking place too. One area in particular puzzled me. There was nothing but swathes of overgrown grass, studded with large birch poles arranged in tepee shapes. Then a wide curving path of bare earth snaked its way through it all. An information panel revealed that the bare earth has been planted with prairie wild flowers and the poles would indeed be covered to form tepees. Presumably by the summer it will be riot of colour flowing through the meadow.

Edwardian style garden, RHS Harlow Carr, Harrogate

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Just beyond this were the gardens designed by Dermid Gavin as part of a recent television programme for the BBC. The idea was to create a series of small gardens reflecting different styles and techniques from the mid 1800s until the present day. This was to celebrate the 200^th anniversary of the RHS. We’d seen the programme, so it was interesting to take a look at the gardens. They were all very different but I suspect my favourite is one shared by many – the Edwardian garden. It celebrated the much loved style of Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens. It just epitomises a typical English garden that still inspires designers to this day.

What really impresses me with the RHS is that they don’t sit on their laurels. Whilst gardening might be perceived as a hobby for older or retired people, they definitely want to get the younger generations involved too. In addition to the tepees mentioned earlier, we found a huge monster with bloody teeth hiding in the woodlands. He had been created by innovative planting of an earth mound. Later on we also found a wild flower meadow imitating the sea, with woven willow whales, pirates and mermaids dotted between!