A roundup of news from the flower show, including news of a Spring Flower Show next year.
On day two of the Rutland Flower Show among the many show gardens at the Rutland Showground, there's a gold award-winning one designed by Adam Frost in front of the Barnsdale Garden stand. Today would've been Geoff Hamilton's 90th birthday, and his son Nick runs the now visitor attraction.
Geoff died just before his 60th birthday on a charity bike ride in South Wales. He was laid to rest in Exton's churchyard. Adam Frost says working at Barnsdale as a 21-year-old inspired him to be the kind of gardener and presenter he is today.
"If you think, at 21 years old, I go and work for him. He's peat-free, he's organic, he's already talking about the destruction to our countryside, what's been sprayed on our food, our soils, all of that 35-plus years ago. And for me, if anybody set a moral compass as to how I was going to garden, it was him, you know? And yeah, I've had the privilege, I suppose, to pick the baton up and run for a little bit until they get rid of me!"
TV gardener and journalist Carol Klein came to the Rutland Showground on Saturday for the first time. She was hugely impressed with the scale of the show and the quality of what's on offer.
"It's full of enthusiasm, it's full of colour, it's full of plants, it's full of people who are telling you just what you need to know about the plants they're trying to sell you. And I do hope people are going to buy, buy, buy, because even though they can't put stuff in their garden straight away, it's very, very easy to look after a few plants in pots, you can water them really easily. I'm going to have a really good look at the show gardens because I'm told they're of an exceptional standard. I've seen the little Geoff Hamilton Garden, with his image, his little statue in the middle of it, which is just lovely.
You try keeping me away next show. It's just absolutely brilliant. I think it's a phenomenal show. I wish it every success in the future."
It's thought well over 20,000 people visited the Rutland Flower Show over the weekend, and at the end of the second successful year at the Rutland Showground, organisers have announced a sister event next April at Burghley House.
The Spring show will take the best elements of the Rutland Flower Show, and this brand new three-day event will look forward to the gardening season. It'll take place from 16-18 April, and we'll sit alongside the Rutland Flower Show, which itself is set to return next August.
Organiser Tom Mumby explains how this new event at Burghley in April will work.
"We are going to import all the best bits of the Rutland Flower Show. It's not going to be the same show because the spring show, what it's going to do is provide you with the best plants for planting for the rest of the year.
And then also we've got a unique seated dining experience as well, but from a very good company called Feast and Foliage, where you can pre-book a table and have a champagne lunch, walk around the show and treat yourself to honestly the best plants and nurseries in the UK. And then also maybe treat yourself to something other as well.
So super, super excited to announce that and it's just come off the back of the Rutland Flower Show. So I hope everybody's going to enjoy that as much as they do this one ."
Weekend sports round up
