HARTLEY BOTANIC AT HAMPTON COURT GARDEN FESTIVAL

English Glasshouse and Greenhouse manufacturer Hartley Botanic will be returning to RHS Hampton Court Garden Festival this year with a stand which celebrates and showcases its business through the decades. The show stand will communicate the Greenhouse manufacturer’s heritage and reputation – built over 83 years – with five handmade Hartley Botanic structures, each representing different eras in its trading history.

Hartley Botanic’s 2021 Hampton Court stand designed by Llevelo Garden Design. The stand will be built & planted by Stewart Landscape Construction.

The show stand traces the manufacturer’s incredible legacy using its beautiful handmade structures – from a 1950s vintage Semi-Dodecagon Greenhouse to a modern-day Hartley 8 Planthouse. The stand has been built and planted by Stewart Landscape Construction with design and styling by Llevelo Garden Design.

Hartley Botanic’s RHS Hampton Court Garden Festival show stand will feature a vintage Semi-Dodecagon Greenhouse (built in the 1950s,) a Wisley 8 (representing the 60s), Hartley 6 Grow and Store (the 70s), Victorian Terrace (90s) and a Modern Horticulture Hartley 8 Planthouse (present day). The structures have been dressed to represent the relevant decades using planting schemes, garden tools and accessories typical of each decade.

A vintage 1950s V&N Hartley Ltd Semi Dodecagon 9 greenhouse

From the 1950s Semi-Dodecagon Greenhouse with its hydrangeas, pelargoniums, straw boater, deck chair and sparse accessories (which would have been typical post-war) and the Hartley 6’s beginners’ ‘grow your own’ edibles, busy lizzies, hanging baskets and abundance of plastic capturing the 70s, right up to a modern day Hartley 8 filled with herbs, a palm and trendy hanging houseplants planted with peat free compost in biodegradable pots, the show stand is truly a journey through Hartley Botanic’s legacy and the history of greenhouse gardening as a whole.

Hartley 8 Planthouse

Hartley Botanic was founded in 1938 by brothers Vincent (RHS fellow) and Norman Hartley following their ground-breaking aluminium Greenhouse design, the first time (it is believed) that aluminium had been used in Greenhouse construction and marking a huge improvement on its wood and wrought iron Victorian forerunners. The English manufacturer is an authority on Greenhouse design and use over the decades, having been making its beautiful and elegant handmade, made-to-order horticultural buildings for over 83 years from its original factory at the base of the dramatic Pennines’ Chew Valley in Greenfield, Lancashire.

A hugely respected brand within the horticultural world, it is the manufacturer of choice for leading organisations, institutions and designers with Hartley Botanic structures commissioned by the RHS, the National Trust, Kew Gardens, Glasgow Botanic Gardens, Massachusetts Horticultural Society, Oxford Botanical Gardens, Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Blenheim Palace, The Lingholm Estate and Hampton Court Palace…to name a few. Its entire product range is endorsed by the Royal Horticultural Society.

In April of this year, the manufacturer was awarded a prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the international trade category, thanks to the significant growth of its international business – driven largely by demand for its beautiful, handmade English Glasshouses and Greenhouses from customers in the United States.

For more on Hartley Botanic Greenhouses visit:

The RHS Hampton Court Garden Festival is from 6-11 July. For more information visit: RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival 2021 / RHS Gardening

Tony Flanagan