Demystifying judging as we look at the Hampton Court fabulous show features. Plus: the flower border design course continues

It's a bumper week with an inside look at the flower show, planting design tips and tricks, flowering shrubs, and another dream garden item.

This week, it’s the next part of the flower border planting design series, with some favourite plants for that all-important colour and structure.

We’re taking also taking a look at the RHS judging process at flower shows, and there’s a peek at some of the fabulous show features on display at the 2024 RHS Hampton Court Flower Festival.

Zinnias and echinaceas sizzle and merge together to create one of those feasts for the eyes that we could stand and gaze at for ages, basking in the feel-good factor that good colour and textural combinations create

What’s in this water tank in the Money-Saving Garden at RHS Hampton Court? Find out below

In this week of the RHS Hampton Court Garden Festival, it’s a bumper time in the gardening year, and so we’ve got a bumper post to keep you going until Saturday!

Traditionally the week of the Hampton Hack-Back (you can find out more about this in our regular What To-do/No-to-do coming at the weekend), the chances are that we’re looking at our gardens and wondering just how how to keep them looking good for the rest of the month. There are more ideas on how to keep your garden looking great for July here; in the future, a plan for your beds and borders will really help with this upcoming Main Monochrome Moment, when the garden suddenly starts to lose its wonderful June colour. Today we’ll be looking at how to make that plan.

I’ve just come back from a weekend of judging gardens at Hampton Court, and as I know many of you are desperate to understand more about the judging process, we're also going to be taking a peek at that, as well as a look at some of the features at the show, including a Money-Saving garden and the wonderful world of daisies.

As a judge, I can’t of course single out any of the gardens that I’ve judged, but there are some wonderful show features to look out for, and I’ve used one of these as an example to demystify the whole judging process.

Let’s get back to flower border design:

Does your flower border look good one month and then terrible the next? Do you look at it and look at it and end up just completely confused as to what to do? Does everything all merge into one and you’ve no idea what you’re supposed to be doing?

If so, there’s an easy way which will help you figure out what’s going wrong. It couldn’t be simpler; all you need to do is