JULY is the month for flower shows.

RHS Hampton Court Flower Show opened to the public on Tuesday and finishes on Sunday and it's been a good year for us with Fryer’s Roses awarded a Silver Gilt or its ‘Stop and Smell the Roses’ display.

Hot on its heels is the RHS Tatton Flower Show, held at Tatton Park in Knutsford, which starts on July 18 and runs until July 22.

The show is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, so the show is bound to be extra special.

RHS Flower Shows are a great place to find inspiration for your next gardening project, to buy a newly launched plant or to relax with friends, soaking up the feeling of wellbeing that gardening brings.

Fryer’s Roses will be displaying and selling some beautiful roses, including the new releases, Eirene, Sarah Elizabeth, Elizabeth Ashbrook and the 20th anniversary rose at the RHS shows.

Visit us at Stand TP 369 in the Plant Village at Tatton.

The weather has certainly been perfect for relaxing in the garden but perhaps not so for strenuous gardening. A quick and simple way to inject, low labour-intensive, colour into your garden, is to buy pre-planted hanging baskets and containers.

Roses too look fantastic in containers and are suitable for any size garden or patio.

Just keep them well-watered and dead-headed for continual blooms well into September.

Other popular plants to buy in July include clematis. They are great climbing plants and make an effective wall covering or can be trained over pergolas.

Clematis come in a wide range of colours and flower shapes and sizes.

Look out for the newly launched ‘Sarah Elizabeth’ clematis, launched by Raymond Evison at RHS Chelsea.

Hardy fuchsia, is another gem of a plant, amazing in summer containers and hanging baskets but being the ‘hardy’ variety, also has the resilience to be able to survive the eventual winter frosts.

Rudbeckia, part of the sunflower family, known commonly as ‘black-eyed Susans’ and ‘Coneflowers’ are an interesting addition to any garden this month.

These are herbaceous plants, most commonly, perennial.

Think bright yellow with a prominent brown or black, cone-like, raised centre.

What is especially great about these plants, is that they thrive in dry, hot weather, having originated from the dry, Savannah Grasslands of North America.

Echinacea, a group of herbaceous plants belonging to the daisy family, also love the sun.

These, along with rudbeckia, add a great splash of colour to the garden.

Look out for echinacea ‘summer cloud’ and echinacea ‘summer cocktail’ to name but a couple.

Another lover of dry, hot conditions are plants which belong to the sempervivum family.

Meaning ‘always living’, these succulent perennial plants make for a great ground over plant or statement in any dry, sunny position.

Look out for the amazing ‘column cactus’ and ‘cereus euphorbia’, both drought loving plants. For a bit of the exotic, consider the ‘red hot poker’ plants (kniphofia).

Colourful, vibrant and flowering from March to November, these add a wow to any garden.

So, grab that sun hat, smear on the factor 50 and enjoy what the RHS show and your garden has to offer.

Happy gardening

JILL KERR

  • For more information about the RHS Flower Show Tatton Park visit rhs.org.uk/tatton-park