The Power of Purple
Updated: Sep 11
Summer 2025 and Alison says to me, “Why didn’t we do Chorley Flower Show?”
Oh, the flashbacks. 2021, single handedly building a community plot at RHS Tatton Flower Show, taking it down again, rebuilding it at Chorley Flower Show. The exhaustion, the stress, the heat, the threat of divorce form both my husband and my Mum if I ever even mention doing it again……
My response to Alison? “Let’s do it next year.”
Divorce was avoided – just – by the reasoning that it is just one show, lovely and local, there will be a small team of us and I won’t be on my own. I even suggested doing Tatton when it returns in 2027 – and got away with it…..I think.
The theme for the community plots this year was Hollywood Blockbusters, and we chose the classic film, “The Colour Purple”. We decided to use this title as a way to tell the mutual story of our group members and everyone living with dementia.
Did you know that purple is the international colour for dementia? No, neither did I. The thing about dementia, as with any diagnosis, it is not a one size fits all disease. Not only are there many types of dementia, but each person’s experience also is unique. We all have different backgrounds, histories, values, priorities, characters……we are all unique, so why would one individual experience life with dementia the same as anyone else?
To echo this, we selected plants with a wide range of different shaped flowers, spiky ones, umbrella shaped ones, daisy like ones – all in various shades of purple. We also chose plants with purple leaves, stems and even seed pods. Over a couple of months, we potted them on, deadheaded them and managed to keep them watered through heatwave after heatwave.
But here is the most important element of our design – we had yellow, orange and white flowers all representing the person before they developed dementia. That person is still very much there if you look hard enough, shining out beyond their diagnosis. These were planted under two chairs, symbolising the person living with dementia and their loved ones.
The creation of this garden was a real team effort.
· Our members sowed the seeds of many of the orange and yellow plants
· Our Friday Friends members teamed up with 30 children from Year 1 at St Michael’s Church of England Primary School, Grimsargh to paint pebbles to be strewn throughout the garden
· Our gardening group spent time in Longridge Library painting birdfeeders and putting messages on wooden plaques to help build our backdrop.
· Tim, our newest director and an original member of our Young Onset group, to which he brought his lovely wife Mary, helped with the building of the garden and manning the stand on the Saturday.
· Our two wonderful husbands were chauffeurs and general labourers for us, making our job so much easier.
Now for a bit of the reality – you know the bits you don’t like to share but are so important in creating an honest, believable story that does not leave the reader thinking ‘I couldn’t do that’. Both Alison and I were in a lot of pain throughout this process, each having injured a knee. You couldn’t make this up, but we had, within a couple of weeks of each other, individually hurt one knee each, one of us on a first aid course, the other buying a pint of milk! I will put my hand up and admit I was a bit grumpy……yes, really! Alison was all up for enjoying her first experience of building a small show garden and I just kept mumbling, ‘we won’t win anything, everyone else’s is better, blah, blah, blah’. Well, we did win something, we got a Gold Medal and have been told were one point off perfection. Did that make me happy? ‘I wonder what we lost that point on? Lots of people got a Gold, we aren’t special, blah, blah blah…..’
How she didn’t sack me I don’t know, but all credit to her, she tolerated me. By day 2 I had got over myself, given myself a bit of a talking to and reminded myself what this was all about. And then I realised what an awesome thing we had all done.
The highlights?
· The input from so many people in our own groups and beyond, reminding folk that dementia does not stop you doing exciting and creative things.
· The people who stopped to talk, so many of them sharing their stories, their raw emotion and their kind words about the garden and the work we do as Rosemary and Time.
· The messages of encouragement that visitors wrote on our little plaques, that have now been distributed to our members.
· The number of bees on our garden.
· The atmosphere of the event, the genuine camaraderie and support amongst all the exhibitors.
However, I have 2 Gold Medal memories.
The first is meeting up with Neve, the granddaughter of one of our original members, Christine. This little girl remembered us, came up to speak to us and wrote the most beautiful message on a plaque, her own words. That made me a little emotional.
The second is sitting with my fabulous partner in crime, Alison, eating an ice-cream, sharing her crutches and realising what a team we are, who else would put up with Mrs Grumpy at such a special event?
So, what happens next?
Mrs Grumpy told her husband on the way home one evening that she had decided she didn’t think she could do Tatton again after all, it was all too much hard work. He offered up a visible prayer of thanks.
The RHS have just announced that Tatton Flower Show will indeed return next year and I have had an idea………
Comments