Space is the place for this year’s RHS flower shows, if early notice of exhibits is anything to go by.

Garden designer Sarah Eberle, who was awarded an RHS Gold Medal for her garden last year, is creating a terrestrial space garden located on planet Mars. Situated within an assumed dome, ‘600 Days with Bradstone’ belongs to an astronaut on a 600 day tour. The garden was researched for eight years with input from the European Space Agency and studies suggest that all the plants could grow on Mars.

A TARDIS will take centre-stage in The Great Pavilion in Cardiff County Council’s Doctor Who themed exhibit. ‘A Garden in Time’ contrasts a 1960s urban garden (when Dr Who was first on our screens) with a modern day garden, with emphasis on sustainability, recycling and climate change.

‘The DHL Sun Chariot Garden’ includes a large semi circular oak seat that swings into the sun or shade at a press of a button. This roof garden is a celebration of the Sun Chariot, a 3,400 year old bronze statue, which depicts the belief that the sun was pulled across the heavens by a horse drawn chariot.

Other small gardens that continue the space crusade include ‘The Transit of Venus’, where the shape, plants, colours and features relate to astronomy, light and science and ‘Ad astra per aspera’ (To the stars through adversity), which is a roof top observatory designed to pursue an interest in astronomy. In the garden accessories section of Chelsea, Telescopes of Vermont is blending fine art with stargazing with a bronze reproduction of the Porter Garden Telescope, which made history when it was created in the early 1920s.

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