Winter Berries
Children are always very inventive and their imaginations know no boundaries especially when it comes to gardening.
As Joe Swift mentioned earlier, the Children's Quirky Container Competition was a great example of this. Schools across the Cheshire area have submitted an amazing range of interesting and unusual containers to be judged by visitors to the show. I had a look through and was really surprised by how good they were, from small scale exhibits like the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, entered by Bexton Primary School, Knutsford to a large scale container made from a Piano. 
Created by Park Royal School, Macclesfield, this was entitled Keys to Health and Happiness! (get it!) It looked spectacular although I can't help wondering what the music teacher thought? There is one container that I know will particularly appeal to my colleague Louise. St Anne's Fulshaw, Church of England School created a chest shaped container overflowing with bright nasturtiums and other bedding plants, entitled
Ooh Arrgh Pirate's Treasure (She's from Cornwall you know). The RHS are very keen to encourage children to get into gardening and are actively campaigning for it to be added to the school curriculum, with young minds as inventive as this, it can only be a good thing. Also as part of the Tatton tenth anniversary celebrations Children under 15 get into the show free this year. 
Parrot flowers - Flower.jpg
Flower with Jade Ring, On The Middle...
Flower - f3.gif
The back to back gardens are a unique feature of the flower show at Tatton Park and they are arranged in groups of four all over the showground, what I like about this is that as I walk around the show I stumble across a square of gardens and keep seeing ones I haven't seen before, also you can get a really good look at them because they're nicely spread out. Out of 27 back to back gardens at the show, five were awarded the coveted gold medal, best in show went to Reaseheath Alumni with '5 a day with hidden play' a garden dedicated to growing and eating plenty of fruit and veg.
'A garden for bees' (Gold) designed by Ness Botanic Gardens highlights the importance of our buzzy little friends. It's beautiful too and more than dispells the myth that wildlife gardening has to be wild and woolly. 'Butterfly Journey' (Silver-gilt) is another wildlife friendly garden at the show. 
It's packed with the sort of plants we could all try to grow more of, to attract native butterfly species into our gardens. I noticed a fair amount of black in the back to back gardens, 'The back to basics garden' uses black to dramatic effect as a backdrop and in the planting with two stunning Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy' and a generous sprinkling of Cosmos astrosanguineus, another garden which features this plant heavily is 'Urban retreat' (Silver) which also uses black as a backdrop but mixes acid greens through the dark flowers and foliage, a great combo. 
'Reflection' (Silver) uses colour but it's much more gentle here. The decking and fencing is stained a soft grey and is set off by touches of galvanised metal used as edging and in the form of poles used throughout the garden as a suggestion of a boundary. These double up as plant supports too, this is an idea I might well take away with me... 
A garden that addresses a very common problem is 'The scented walled garden' (Silver) and it speaks volumes that I had a good long look at the garden, admired it, made notes, took a photograph and still had not realised that it had been designed with wheelchair users in mind, it proves the point that a garden when well designed can fit a specific brief and be gorgeous too. Info from:
Private Club
