Yesterday, I visited one of my favourite annual flower shows: the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival. Despite the sweltering UK temperatures, the flower show battled to keep the blooms watered and looking their best for the thousands of garden enthusiasts who will attend this week to obtain gardening ideas and source timeless garden design inspiration for their own outdoor spaces at home.

All of the photos in this post were taken on my iPhone at the festival (where the sun was so bright it was hard to get a good shot), but here are just some of the clever ideas and garden trends that I took away from the show.

Romantic gardens are back

Romantic, traditional gardens went out of favour for a while in place of modern landscaping, but with the return of whimsical decor and Cottagecore, romantic gardens are firmly back in fashion. Large vintage metal gazebos and obelisks were full of scented pink English rose climbers, while planting included dusky lilac hydrangeas, and pots contained soft pale pink lavender (a favourite discovery of mine) and sweet peas.

Reuse and recycle

I find that the RHS flower shows always contain a large element of sustainable design and environmental innovation, but it was the subtle use of reclaimed materials within the show gardens that really caught my eye this year. At Susie Kennedy’s ‘The Garden Of Simples’ - showcasing the practice of beekeeping - Susie used reclaimed wood doors for the structure of the bee hut that was adorned with hanging dried lavender.

Over in the Floral Marquee, wine boxes and crates had been lined to use as planters. These were very aesthetically pleasing and this is an easy idea to replicate at home.

I keep seeing skips full of broken bricks near my home recently from multiple local renovations, so I was really interested in this garden seating design that used the support of broken bricks contained in wire. I thought it was a resourceful, alternative idea to laying a brick seating area made of perfectly formed brick.

Small Space Garden Ideas

What I love about Hampton Court over the Chelsea Flower Show is that there is much more of a focus on small, realistic garden spaces. With most of us not having huge acres of land, the designers and stylists at Hampton work hard to show what can be achieved when you push the boundaries.

The Posh Shed Company sells modest-sized sheds, and they showcased how they can be used as working rooms (rather than just as storage spaces). I adored the sewing shed: a compact yet calm area to sew outside of the home.

I was also really drawn to how to bring a water feature into the garden on a budget, without an electrical connection or installing a huge pond. One small half drum of water was the perfect focal point in the border garden design below, while a large zinc planter full of water and rose petals created the most calming, interesting feature in the ‘Healer’s Hollow’ garden.

Yellow Plating Schemes

Buttercup yellow is currently a key colour within interiors, so it was no surprise to see that yellow planting schemes were really popular at Hampton Court this year. Yellow had been mixed with a lot of purple and also pink for a vibrant, eye-catching planting arrangement. If you’d like to bring some yellow into your own garden, try some Achillea 'Credo', or some yellow Eremurus, both seen in the images below.

Making The Most Of The Balcony

As we live in smaller spaces and balconies are commonplace, I always enjoy looking at the balcony show gardens to see how the most can be made out of a small city outdoor space. ‘More is More’ is definitely in for balconies this year, with lots of tall and wild green planting in and around the balcony, as well as including as much as possible: seating, lighting, even an outdoor bath!