Check out a Very Hungry Caterpillar’s garden

Tatton Park’s Very Hungry Caterpillar Garden will feature at the 2019 RHS Flower Show which runs from 17^th–21^st July.

This year, Tatton Park’s garden team have created a colourful back to back suburban fruit garden to highlight the global decline of invertebrate life. 

Inspired by the 50^th anniversary of Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ book, the garden has been designed to be insect-friendly and to demonstrate simple changes we can all make to our gardens – big or small – to help slow down the decline of invertebrate populations. Original book illustrations help delve deeper into the story, with a sensory tree to encourage visitors to see, hear, feel and ultimately discover fascinating facts about invertebrates such as butterflies, ants, worms and bees, a unique glimpse of the historic butterfly collection belonging to the Last Lord Egerton of Tatton, and gigantic ‘Very Hungry Caterpillar’ peep through’s for visitors to use as selfie opportunities!

All the plants in Tatton’s ‘Very Hungry Caterpillar’ garden are from the northern hemisphere in recognition of a recent ‘Plant for Bugs’ RHS survey which shows that insects thrive on plants native to Britain and do less well with exotic planting: the body of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ is planted with swirls of Ilex balls interwoven with ornamental sedges, ivy and summer-flowering plants such as Echinacea, moth-loving prairie plants and Buddleia. The garden’s predominantly purple and white colouring, created by plants such as Red Russian and Nero Kale, produces a vibrant, atmospheric garden that showcases what can be achieved in a North-West facing garden. With its low sedges and a reflecting pool, to encourage birds and insects, the emphasis throughout the garden’s planting and design is to encourage observation and stimulate conversation about the insect world and its preservation.

For over 14 years, Tatton Park has exhibited back-to-back, show gardens and flowers and has won over 20 medals in a number of categories.

Simon Tetlow, Head Gardener at Tatton Park said, “As usual a lot of hard work from all the garden team and volunteers have helped create this back to back garden. We hope that it will inspire visitors to this year’s show to think about how they can create insect friendly spaces within their gardens to help sustain the environment’

The RHS Flower Show at Tatton Park runs from 17-21 July 2019 rhs.org.uk/tatton