George Plumptre, Chief Executive of the National Gardens Scheme, shares his tips for the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show (3 – 8 July) and tells us all about his perfect English garden…

My love for gardens first bloomed…

As a child in the garden of my family home which first opened for the National Gardens Scheme when I was a teenager.

My recommended highlights for the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show include…

The new category of ‘Low Cost High Impact’ gardens: perfect for today’s straitened times, the Scarecrow competition is fun for kids and some of my favourite nurseries exhibiting in the plant marquee are Blackmore & Langdon, Madrona, Mandy Plants and Hopleys.

Book a ticket to the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show to see…

A great all round show in the setting of one of England’s greatest and most impressive historic gardens.

The garden designers really making an impression on me at the moment are…

Tom Stuart Smith, Arne Maynard and Cleve West.

If I were to visually plot out my perfect English garden it would have…

Different planted enclosures, some water, walls, hedges, an orchard and wild flower area and views to the countryside.

And the garden that comes closest to that is…

My favourite garden, Goodnestone in Kent, where I was brought up and is still my family’s garden. It’s the most quintessentially English garden in England. One journalist called it “Sissinghurst without the crowds”.

Gardening holds such a special place in the English national psyche because…

It has such a long heritage for all kinds of people and because having a garden you are proud of is an essential part of the home for English people far more than for others.

The future of the English garden is…

Definitely very rosy and the relationship between gardens and art will continue to develop with both innovation and novelty.

It’s so important for people to be able to have a wander through gardens and open spaces…

Gardens and plants are good for you, recuperative and healing in a manner not supplied by anything else. The pressures of contemporary life make the simple and natural pastoral pleasures of gardens that many people do not have otherwise in their lives, they are very important.

The Hampton Court Palace Flower show kicks off tomorrow, visit the website to find out more. And for the ultimate guide to England’s gardens, check out the National Garden Scheme.