The garden team at Rudding Park are putting the finishing touches to their fruit and veg competition entries ahead of the Harrogate Autumn Flower Show, being staged at Newby Hall, Ripon on 13-15 September 2024.
Last year Rudding Park entered a selection which included pears, kaffir limes, peppers, aubergine and garlic, all grown in its acclaimed kitchen garden. The team went on to win a raft of 12 awards including three first, five second and four third prizes.
Rudding Park has been entering the show since its kitchen garden opened in 2014. More than 500 herbs, salads, edible flowers and fruits are grown and new hotel staff are encouraged to work in the garden and help with collecting the fresh produce.
Head gardener at Rudding Park Sarah Owen-Hughes said:
This year has seen some challenging conditions for growers, with a profusion of slugs and moulds, vegetables slow to get going and pollination later in the wet and cool weather.
It’s all part of the joy of growing, leaning into seasonality and rising to what the weather throws at you. It’s a challenge we accept daily with the opening of our new immersive dining experience FIFTY TWO. With its ethos of seasonal eating, the chefs devise a menu around what’s best in the garden each day. We’re always looking for a fresh challenge to keep things interesting in the garden and this year we are growing seven different types of kale, as well as mangelwurzel which tastes like a more flavoursome swede and is proving to be slug resistant so far!
A former horticultural lecturer, Sarah moved into horticultural research during lockdown, before taking her first head gardener role at Rudding, just 18 months ago. Last year’s Harrogate Autumn Flower Show was her first experience of showing.
Sarah is supported by a team of 10 gardeners who tend the 150 acres of garden at Rudding Park, and kitchen gardener Emma Pugh.
Sarah said:
We check the garden daily but the two weeks before the show are even more focussed. Nearer to the show we will select the best of this year’s produce and choose exhibits in accordance with the judges’ exacting criteria.
The Harrogate Autumn Flower Show is a happy celebration of the end of the growing season. It’s about the joy of sharing and meeting with other like-minded people and our team coming together to enjoy the recognition of their often solitary labour in the garden. We want to impress upon everyone that you don’t need to be a large-scale grower or have an army of gardeners to grow some great produce. I love to see what others are doing and new varieties.
Sarah is also hosting the Human Gardener Theatre at the show, interviewing experts and ambassadors from across the horticultural world, exploring their passions for gardens, nature and wellbeing through a series of fun and engaging interviews. This year’s interviewees include the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, a librarian who propagates plants and donates the proceeds to the Harrogate Easier Living Project (HELP) charity, a teenage entomologist, a pest free compost researcher, nature inspired artists and Masterchef quarter finalist Owen Diaram.
Gardening is more popular than ever with more than 30,000 expected to attend Harrogate Autumn Flower Show. Taking centre stage this year will be magnificent floral displays, delicious produce, expert gardening advice and fiercely contested competitions, including for giant fruit and veg.
Billed as an inspiration for gardeners of all abilities, visitors to the show can also enjoy Newby Hall’s award-winning gardens, live talks and cookery demonstrations, great garden shopping and stunning floral art installations within historic Newby Hall itself.
The Harrogate Autumn Flower Show is one of two flower shows hosted annually by the NEHS, with the Spring Flower Show taking place in Harrogate in April. Last year’s Autumn Flower Show committed over £163,000 in support and promotion of the work of specialist societies and groups, and charitable horticultural organisations.
Tickets are £23 per person (until 27 August) available online from https://www.flowershow.org.uk/ and thereafter £28 (online and on the door). Admission includes access to Newby’s gardens which feature some of Europe’s biggest herbaceous flower borders, 15 stunning garden ‘rooms’ and family adventure garden.
