Before I wind up my coverage of the 2016 Chelsea Flower Show there are two posts I feel compelled to write. The first is a follow-up to my preview post describing the Royal Bank of Canada Garden designed by Hugo Bugg. The second will be a compilation of delicious delights from the Great Pavilion, including lashings of irises, alpines and hepaticas.

Despite the slightly gloomy design renderings, I was pretty confident that Hugo Bugg would claim a second Chelsea gold for his Royal Bank of Canada Garden, inspired by the plants and landscapes of Jordan. Sadly it wasn’t to be. Instead this interesting, conceptual garden, like its neighbours heavy on symbolic stonework, landed a commendable, but doubtless disappointing, silver gilt medal. Had this been the same award as Andy Sturgeon’s Telegraph Garden I might have kidded myself that I understood the RHS judges decision-making, but it was not: Andy claimed both gold and Best Show Garden. Given a choice between theses two similar but different gardens, I think I’d have chosen Hugo’s. Why? Because for me the concept was clearer, the execution stronger and the planting more artful.

Instead of the anticipated gloom, Hugo’s naturalistic scheme cast a sunlit Mediterranean spell over its gently sunken plot. Elements I was afraid might be oppressive – the huge Aleppo pines (Pinus halepensis) and black basalt “mounds” – were warmer and brighter than I’d expected. On top of that a lively palette of ephemeral looking plants, including intense blue Lupinus pilosus (surely destined to become a star plant at future Chelsea Flower Shows?), shocking yellow Asphodeline lutea and pillar-box red corn poppies (Papaver rhoeas) gave the composition an energy boost. A sparing use of primary colours against a monochrome background put me in mind of Mondrian’s abstract artwork.

Continuing to highlight the Royal Bank of Canada’s committment to protecting the world’s natural sources of water, Hugo’s design aimed to demonstrate how a beautiful garden could exist in an area of minimal rainfall. The geometry that guided the scheme radiated from the core of an icosahedron, the polyhedron with twenty equal triangular faces identified by Plato as the symbol of water. At this point the garden’s mythology started to veer towards its neighbour, the superb Winton Beauty of Mathematics Garden designed by Nick Bailey, although it ultimately developed its mathematical themes more subtly.

The only perfect triangle in the garden was held within the heart of a central, basalt rock feature, representing the sanctity of water. A gentle, almost imperceptible current kept the water’s surface moving, although not free from the dreaded fluff shed in abundance by surrounding plane trees. It amused me to watch a rather earnest looking assistant using what looked like his girlfriend’s stockings to clear the mirror-like surface of unsightly flotsam. It was a thankless and ultimately futile task.

Following the BBC coverage of Hugo’s garden, every visitor wanted to get a feel of the goat hair material that had been woven to order by women of Jordan’s Bedouin tribes. It was rich, dark and coarse, forming a strong belt around the perimeter and covering a series of faceted, fluff-catching shapes along the garden’s boundary.

Hugo Bugg went to great lengths to guarantee the authenticity of his planting, taking time out to visit Jordan to collect seed from the dry, limestone Dibeen landscape in the north-west of the country. For those, like me, who thrive on the discovery of new plants there were rare treasures on show including Tabor’s delphinium (Delphinium ithaburense), Jordan thistle (Onopordum jordanicolum) and inky-black Iris nigricans, the national flower of Jordan.

Now that the show is over the Royal Bank of Canada Garden will move to a permanent home in the grounds of a not-for-profit hotel and conference centre in Guernsey, where it will be open to the public. It will form part of a new floral trail through the Island’s capital, St Peter Port. Given the absurd cost of staging a Chelsea show garden the relocation of all or part of a scheme has become fashionable and increasingly expected. It will be interesting to see how this Middle-Eastern extravaganza translates to the middle of the English Channel.

Strongly designed and sensitively planted this was a handsome, modern garden, perhaps better suited to a public space than to a private garden. Hugo Bugg is slowly but surely cementing his position as one of the UK’s most exciting, forward-thinking garden design talents and will surely be back at Chelsea again soon.

PLANT LIST

TREES

• Pinus halepensis

PERENNIALS, ANNUALS, GRASSES & BULBS

• Acanthus spinosus
• Melica persica
• Adonis annua
• Moluccella laevis
• Ajuga genevensis
• Nepeta curviflora
• Anchusa azurea
• Nepeta italica
• Artemisia sieberi
• Onopordum jordanicolum
• Asphodeline lutea
• Origanum syriacum
• Cerinthe palaestina
• Papaver rhoeas
• Crambe hispanica
• Phlomis cashmeriana
• Delphinium ithaburense
• Ranunculus asiaticus
• Echium angustifolium
• Salvia judaica
• Echium glomeratum
• Salvia napifolia
• Eryngium maritimum
• Scabiosa prolifera
• Euphorbia myrsinites
• Silene aegyptiaca
• Ferula communis
• Silene vulgaris
• Fibigia clypeata
• Stipa tenuissima
• Foeniculum vulgare
• Teucrium chamaedrys
• Geranium tuberosum
• Teucrium creticum
• Hordeum vulgare
• Trifolium annua
• Iris nigricans
• Umbilicus rupestris
• Knautia integrifolia
• Urginea maritima
• Lupinus pilosus
• Verbascum sinuatum

It’s a good sign when the Royal Horticultural Society show schedule is growing rather than shrinking. Last year an early summer London Rose Show was added to the programme; this November the inaugural London Urban Garden Show will introduce gardeners to a host of tropical and subtropical plant growers; and next year we have an all-singing, all-dancing flower show at Chatsworth to look forward to. It promises to be “a platform for design revolutionaries”, with a new category of show gardens called “FreeForm”. Here, daring designers will be encouraged to push the boundaries of garden making, showcasing ground breaking ideas. A new, contemporary show on the scale of the RHS’s other regional events is a genuinely exciting prospect: combined with the Brownian setting of Chatsworth it promises to be a cracking day out.

If you’d like to go along, the show will take place from June 7-11 2017 in the grounds of the Devonshire’s “big house”. Be prepared though, tickets go on sale a full year in advance, on Tuesday June 7 2016, with RHS members invited exclusively on the first day of the show. Unlike Chelsea, the show will run until Sunday.

Back to London now, and during a frantic Friday at the office I manage to sneak out for an hour to enjoy the second London Rose Show. Quite how the RHS show team recover themselves so quickly after Chelsea I don’t know. They must be made of stern stuff. Far removed from the gloss and glamour of its predecessor this was a simple, unfussy show focussed firmly on roses. A select band of nurseries and rose growers, including Harkness Roses, which has been growing roses for more 125 years; Apuldram Roses, a Chichester-based family run business; and Peter Beales Roses, which has been awarded 22 RHS Gold medals at Chelsea, were on hand to give advice and sell plants.

The Lawrence Hall was a much more calm, pleasant environment in which to shop for roses than either Chelsea or Hampton Court. I was delighted with my exquisite Rosa “Jacqueline du Pré”, purchased as a gift for a colleague from Harkness Roses. A simpler, more beautiful rose it would be hard to imagine.

Neither of our gardens is well suited to roses, and Him Indoors isn’t a big fan. Our roll call of varieties extends no further than Rosa banksiae “Lutea”; a rather diseased burgundy hybrid tea that came free with Polegate Cottage and a wild rose that makes an occasional foray into the garden from next door. This pains me greatly when I recall the joy roses gave me as a child – “Iceberg”, “Frencham”, “Queen Elisabeth”, “Peace”, “Fragrant Cloud”, “Masquerade” and “Albertine” were as much part of my younger years as friends, family and Roald Dahl. However, presented with an opportunity to buy Rosa “Bengal Crimson” at the Chelsea Physic Garden the previous evening, I had already let my plantaholic tendencies rip with another purchase I have no space for.

In their wisdom the RHS invited the fragrant Rachel de Thame to co-curate this year’s London Rose Show. I am sure her celebrity endorsement will have attracted a few more punters but after she’d shot me a couple of sour looks I thought better of saying hello. Nevertheless, the show plainly displayed a woman’s touch, being well organised, attractively laid out and, naturally, rose-scented. Mercifully the cavernous hall was fairly quiet after lunch on Friday but had been busier at the start of the day.

The Chelsea School of Botanical Art set up a popular, pop-up classroom where those with time on their hands could learn the painting techniques that inspired Pierre-Joseph Redouté. RHS historian Brent Elliott’s newly published book The Rose: The history of the world’s favourite flower in 40 roses was available with a generous discount. Since I am still allowing myself purchases that relate to my new library I felt compelled to indulge.

Floral design workshops were run by RHS London in-house florist, Helen Cranmer, but I was more excited by my discovery of the Electric Daisy Flower Farm who brought along a dazzling selection of flowers grown on an acre of fertile land at Bradford-on-Avon near Bath. The real flower movement is really gathering pace in the UK which is so exciting for flower arrangers and lovers of beautiful blooms. What’s more Electric Daisy have commissioned some stunning photography to promote their enterprise and furnish a calendar, one such image I’ve featured below. I hope to pay a visit to this vibrant new flower farm soon.

Although I am not seriously in the market for roses, I enjoyed the Englishness and simplicity of this bijou event. It’s great that the RHS are constantly seeking to expand their repertoire and have chosen to reinvigorate the London shows, which at one time seemed destined to become a thing of the past. The Lawrence and Lindley Halls are extraordinary and little known venues outside horticultural circles and deserve to be shown off. As I left, feeling hot, bothered and the wrong kind of fragrant, I was stopped in my tracks by a new, scarlet, single-flowered floribunda called R. “W.B. Yeats”. A new introduction, it will available in garden centres this autumn. I think perhaps it’s time I made more room for roses.

remaining 2016 Show dates

• RHS On Tour at Columbia Road Flower Market: 19 June 2016
• RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show: 5-10 July 2016
• RHS On Tour at Lambeth Country Show: 16-17 July 2016
• RHS Flower Show Tatton Park: 20–24 July 2016
• RHS On Tour at Marylebone Farmers’ Market: 11 September 2016
• Malvern Autumn Show: 24–25 September 2016
• RHS London Harvest Festival Show & Harvest Festival Late: 4–5 October 2016
• RHS London Shades of Autumn Show: 28–29 October 2016
• RHS London Urban Garden Show: 12–13 November 2016
• RHS London Christmas Show: 17-18 December 2016

Hasn’t the whole EU Referendum campaign been ghastly? I’ve just wanted to run and hide in the garden until its all over. There’s no Boris in my bushes or Cameron among my calendulas. Farage hasn’t tried to deport my dahlias and Osborne isn’t insisting that I economise on echeverias (perhaps he should?). Gove most definitely isn’t to be found in my greenhouse. The garden is my sovereign territory and they are having no jurisdiction over it either way. As far as I’m concerned the whole lot of them belong on the compost heap, where they’d still be some use to humanity when they rot away, assuming politician decompose like the rest of us. Whatever the outcome on Friday, there are certain politicians that have descended to depths from which they will never rise in my estimation. Farage was down there already. It’s all been a little bit tawdry and embarrasing: not the greatest advert for Brand Britain.

In an inspired, tongue-in-cheek attempt to bring levity and beauty to polling day, GROW London have commissioned the wonderfully bonkers Fiona Haser Bizony from Electric Flower Daisy Farm to create floral headdresses representing the two opposing sides: “Remain” (the European flag) and “Leave” (the Union flag). They will be on show at GROW London from tonight until Sunday 26 June.

Personally I am “in”, although I also understand the heartfelt arguments for “out”. However, if I were to make a choice based on Fiona’s creations I’d have to vote “leave” just to enjoy the novelty of having conifer and spirea for sideburns. And who would not want love-in-a-mist woven into their barnet? I wonder if it’s an accident that “Remain” looks everso slightly Napoleonic?

Whether you’re in, out or shaking it all about as you watch us Brits trying to decide if we’re European or not, I hope you enjoy this light hearted tribute to today’s historic vote. I’ll be at home preparing my compost heap for some new high nitrogen fodder.

GROW London, the contemporary garden and lifestyle fair on Hampstead Heath opens this evening for a charity preview and runs until 26 June 2016. For top-notch nurseries, trendy tools and gorgeous gardenalia, I’d heartily recommend a visit.

All photography by Alma Hazer

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I am not a negative individual by nature, but I had misgivings about this year’s Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. Some of the design drawings on the RHS website looked positively ghastly and I am still scarred (or should that be scorched?), by the furnace-like temperatures Helen of Oz and I had to endure last year. Happily it turns out that this year’s garden designers are much better designers than they are draftsmen. The show gardens, so numerous that I gave up checking to make sure I had seen them all, are diverse, interesting and, unlike Chelsea, packed with ideas one might readily try at home.

My only criticism of the show is that the standard of construction and plantsmanship is, with a few notable exceptions, a shadow of what one sees at Chelsea. Make no mistake, Hampton Court Palace Flower Show is as good as it’s ever been, better perhaps, but it is moving firmly down a populist route, leaving its sister show to deal with matters of high horticulture. This is fine, because Hampton Court is bigger, brighter and bolder than ever with a lot of space to fill. In addition the public want to shop, in a Brexit free zone, and boy, did they shop today. There was nary a trolley without a corkscrew stake, a sunset orange zantedeschia, a gimmicky hydrangea or a coral-red delphinium in it. Some nurseries definitely had a good day; how many of plants purchased will still be alive this time next year is another matter. With Chatsworth coming on board next year, I wonder how the RHS will differentiate yet another show – the subject of a future post perhaps.

Meanwhile the Hampton Court show organisers have clearly decided that more is more, creating no fewer than five show garden categories and inviting 43 designs to compete. Relatively speaking the standard is high, as is the amount of innovation. Unfortunately one or two gardens, and I will not name names, are not quite up to scratch, which is surprising given the RHS’ rigorous selection process. There are plenty of water features, although the number of shallow metal bowls filled with inky or swirling water, or a combination of the two, gives the impression that someone, somewhere has been offering a good deal. There is a lot of yellow, mainly of the sulphur variety, paired with blues and purples (pleasing) and with burgundy (not so pleasing). Sunshine shades, starting with pale yellow and moving through orange to poppy red, certainly seem to be in vogue, as do all the blues. In the Floral Pavilion, which has taken steroids since 2015, there are more salvias and ferns than I have ever seen, but fewer grasses and foxgloves.

I have two favourite gardens. The first is the Bowel Disease UK Garden for Crohn’s Disease which, despite its unattractive title, is a garden after my own heart. Designed by Andrew Fisher Tomlinson and Dan Bowyer it has more joie de vivre than any of its neighbours, as well as a fabulous plant list. It richly deserves a gold medal and Best Summer Garden award. More on this design in a future post.

The second garden to tickle my fancy is John Warland’s reprise of his design for World Vision, first staged at Chelsea. At Hampton Court the RHS has granted the charity a much larger and more prominent spot, allowing the designer to let his undulating turf strips fly across a blousy meadow of ox-eye daisies. This is both a stimulating and show stopping garden. After two strong years, I can’t wait to see what the World Vision has in store for 2017.

The summer gardens are the most consistently high in standard, so much so that I went back to see them three times during the day, each time witnessing them bathed in a different light. Simple yet beautiful is the Japanese Summer Garden designed by Saori Imoto. This elegant, paired-back garden demonstrates the principle of ‘less is more’ with great deftness. The lavender blue hydrangeas remind me of Cornwall, pulling hard at my sense of belonging.

At the opposite end of the fussiness spectrum comes Kate’s Garden, designed by Carolyn Dunster and Noemi Mercurelli. In this compact little plot the flowers are almost falling over themselves with enthusiasm, as are the lovely people giving out plant lists and information. The garden has been made to raise awareness of lymphoedema, a painful side effect of breast cancer surgery. It shows how to grow cut flowers in a small space, and champions seasonal, locally-grown blooms. Dried seedheads on display show the cyclical nature of life. In this garden the obligatory round, metal water feature, this time filled with floating dahlia flowers, represents the flow of the lymphatic drainage system. Not something one normally considers in the garden, but worthy of consideration nonetheless.

A Summer Retreat is the ultimate crowd pleaser, sending huddles of ladies of a certain age weak at the knees. Those that don’t require the attentions of the St John Ambulance can enjoy a garden inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement. Designers Amanda Waring and Laura Arison have created a garden awash with delphiniums, nepeta and roses in front of raised summerhouse. Naturally the central water feature is a) round , b) full of inky black water and c) bowl-shaped. Perhaps the RHS are awarding extra marks for these attributes in 2016? Meanwhile, I suspect many a husband will be pestered for a petite black and yellow summerhouse over a bedtime sherry tonight.

On the windswept plain that is the blank canvas for the Conceptual Gardens a couple of designs stand out. My favourite, the Near Future Garden designed by Arit Anderson, depicts a scenario where rising temperatures radically alter the plants we can grow in an English garden. At the centre is a swirling black vortex symbolising our oil resources draining away as we use up all our fossil fuel resources. Sobering stuff. Arit has employed some very tempting plants, including Salvia lanceolata (rusty sage), Bulbine frutescens “Hallmark” (burn jelly plant) and Bituminaria bituminosa (pitch trefoil), so called because the leaves smell of bitumen. Three dramatic wooden sculptures representing sun, wind and water implored visitors to harness these natural energy sources to power the world sooner rather than later.

Nearby, The Red Thread is a garden inspired by an ancient Chinese myth which says that when we are born the gods tie our ankles to all the people whose lives we are destined to touch, using a red thread. This thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break. I liked this garden very much and felt a similar structure of wooden pillars and red rope (other colours are available) might make an interesting boundary, plant support or climbing frame in a family garden.

Sadly the vision presented by UNHCR Border Control is all too familiar to us Brits, which makes it especially poignant and politically relevant. This is not a pretty garden by any stretch of the imagination, but a thought-provoking, perhaps chilling one. Visitors enter through a forbidding turnstile to be greeted by the message “Nobody Left Outside” imprinted on the floor of the central building. Thankfully the water feature here is a moat: circular, yes, but not bowl-shaped or brooding. Thank heavens! I feel the garden achieves very effectively what it sets out to do, highlighting the plight of refugees and the risks many take to find shelter somewhere welcoming.

The big show gardens are, well, big. They struggle significantly to rival anything we see at Chelsea because they lack a decent backdrop and are not grouped together. Honestly, I didn’t like many of them, except the Dog’s Trust Garden designed by Paul Hervey-Brookes taking a gold. It’s the first garden I’ve come across that’s designed specifically for dogs and their owners, which poses the questions why, when so many of us have dogs as pets? John’s design includes tunnels and sniffer tracks playfully woven into the colourful herbaceous borders. A cosy pavilion retreat rests at one end of the garden enabling “dogs to survey the landscape with their human guests” – a nice way of looking at things.

With 43 gardens to cover, a few less if you exclude the ones I didn’t get to, I think it’s time to take a break and come back with more over the next day or so. If you are visiting Hampton Court Flower Show during the next week you are in for a treat. It’s perhaps the best ever. Be sure to wear comfy shoes and sun block (I didn’t) and have your route home planned as you’re going to be buying a lot of plants. Happy Days!

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Being a man of the world, it takes quite a lot to impress me. Yet Dave Parkinson’s display of South African disa orchids at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show never fails to take my breath away. The shocking vitality of the shades displayed in the flowers of these remarkable little plants is off the scale. Be it magenta, coral, tangerine, sunshine yellow or lipstick-pink there’s a diminutive disa to belt out every saturated, eye-popping shade one can imagine.

Disas are terrestrial, moisture loving orchids, native to Table Mountain where they are found growing near springs and streams with their roots in cool water and heads in the clouds. Flowers, each with three prominent petals, appear to be upside down and are held singly or in clusters on short stems, depending on the species. The leaves are elongated and grassy.

Should you fancy growing disas at home, the first piece of advice is to forget everything you know about growing other kinds of orchids. Disas will die if they dry out and do not like to be too warm. On Table Mountain disas are sometimes found completely submerged in water, or at the very least in places where they are constantly wet. In the house or cool greenhouse they must be watered at daily and with pure, soft, unchlorinated water. They can be left standing in trays of water without any ill effects. However, disas cannot stand hard water and other pollutants, including concentrated fertilisers. Any plant food must be delivered highly diluted.

Dave Parkinson suggests planting in a mix of 60% coarse peat and 40% super coarse perlite and warns against any form of pre-mixed orchid or potting compost which is likely to be far too rich. Disas like to be cool but cannot withstand subzero temperatures: they need a frost-free greenhouse or unheated spare room with good light. Disas make ideal gifts for anyone who collects rainwater, is stingy with heating and a bit heavy-handed with the watering. Me? I am happy enough to leave all the hard work to Dave Parkinson and simply enjoy having my socks knocked off by his incredible display once a year.

To find out more about how to grow dazzling disa orchids take a look at Dave Parkinson Plants’ website.

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Autumn has truly arrived when it’s time for the RHS London Harvest Festival show. This annual event comes at a busy time for me, falling just before I embark on my annual buying trip to India and China. But it’s a good opportunity to reconnect with my inner kitchen gardener and stock up on apples, garlic and chillies to fuel Him Indoors’ prolific chutney making. A short walk from my office, through the mansion block of Victoria, bathed in warm sunshine and with crisp London plane leaves crunching under foot, I am quickly at the Royal Horticultural Society’s magnificent Lindley Hall.

The fact that the Harvest Festival show is all about fruits and vegetables, rather plants and flowers, makes it one of my favourite events of the horticultural year. And as a regular visitor I am always on the look out for new exhibitors. I was fascinated to learn about the medicinal and herbal properties of birch sap from Lisette and Bernadette at Priestlands Birch. The sap of the humble silver birch has been used for centuries to detoxify the body and stimulate the metabolism. It can only be tapped for about 4 weeks a year, just as it rises through the tree in early spring, but before any leaves unfurl. Fresh water is drawn up through the roots, gathering stored nutrients as it goes. Hence the sap is packed with Potassium, Magnesium, Calcium, Vitamin C, Zinc, Phosphorus, Sodium, Iron, Manganese and Amino Acids.

Through the ages the crystal-clear liquid has been used to treat skin, kidney and rheumatic conditions and applied as a first-aid treatment for burns. It can also be drunk as a re-hydration tonic and administered as a hangover cure. Like milk, birch sap does not keep unless refrigerated, so the drink I tried was served from a bucket of ice, having been frozen since it was tapped. I was advised that a small cup would give me the midday boost I was craving. I can’t say it had a noticeable effect, but it was certainly very refreshing.

Long term followers of this blog will recall my delight in the eccentricities of this venerable show, including the annual duel between their Graces the Dukes of Devonshire and Marlborough for the honour of producing the finest grapes in the country. This year both Nobles were usurped by a Mr and Mrs Davidson from Alnwick, who swept the board with a section of stunning home-grown bunches. The quality of the Davidson’s ‘Madresfield Court’ black table grapes and ‘Muscat of Alexandria’ white grapes was head and shoulders above the competition, winning first prize in every category.

The other competition that can’t go unnoticed is that for the largest pumpkin. This year’s winner was grown by Ben Ben-Eliezer and weighted an incredible 566kg (1247lbs), equivalent to two Shetland ponies. The unattractively obese fruits entered into the ‘battle of the bulge’ took centre stage in the Lindley Hall and wore their prize rosettes with pride.

Whilst on the subject of fruit I was keen to get some advice on which quince (Cydonia oblonga) to grow against the wall of our new house. Pennard Plants recommended three Russian varieties that are resistant to quince leaf blight, a disease I didn’t know existed and can now hopefully avoid. These included pineapple-flavoured ‘Aromatnaya’; ‘Miagkoplodnaja’, which can be eaten raw; self fertile ‘Konstantinopeler’; and another from Europe, ‘Serbian Gold’, aka ‘Lesschovach’. Pennard Plants offer bare root plants from November and potted plants at other times of the year.

Among the most colourful exhibits were those staged by the RHS trials team with a dazzling array of sweet peppers (Capsicum annuum). The range of shapes and colours was mind-blowing, starting with inky-black ‘Midnight Dreams’, not-so-lilac ‘Lilac Belle’ and elongated ‘Violetta Lunga’; moving through brown (‘Mini Blocky Chocolate’) to more familiar reds, oranges, yellows and greens. The colour spectrum was echoed by Sea Spring Seeds, from whom I purchased a bag of chillies labelled ‘Russian Roulette’: I like to live dangerously! Here the variety and beauty of chillies (also Capsicum annuum) was illustrated with aplomb. A multi-coloured variety called ‘Fairy Lights’ grabbed my attention, as did ‘Tinkerbell’ with distinctive fruits the shape of a friar’s hat. These little chillies, stuffed with mincemeat and baked, would make perfect canapés.

Nothing goes to waste at the Harvest Festival Show. When the doors close, all the fruit and vegetables go to an East London restaurant which uses up food that would otherwise go to landfill. The establishment’s chefs create top-notch dishes which are paid for on an ‘as you feel’ basis, ensuring everyone in the community can afford to dine together.

As Britain’s longest leeks are sliced and sautéd, its mightiest marrows stuffed and seasoned, and prize pears peeled and poached, it’s time for me to pack my bags and head east …… far east.

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It’s day three of my involuntary, lurgy-related incarceration. As you can imagine, I am not coping with it well. Yesterday, having taken until midday to generate sufficient energy to get myself showered and ‘ready’, I decided I should venture outside to check the greenhouse before the rain set in again. It was not a brilliant idea. I was freezing within 5 minutes, which was not long enough to complete the tasks I’d set myself and left me feeling rather downcast.

Comfortably back indoors, looking forward to lunch (happily my appetite is unimpared, a good sign surely?) I had in front of me a jug of small, very ordinary daffodils. They clashed horribly with all the furnishings in the library, but studying them gave me greater pleasure than anything else in the room. Commercial cut flowers are such a different race from those we grow in the garden. It does not matter what’s going on below the waist, so long as their elongated upper portions are crowned with a bounty of bright, long-lasting blooms. Gerberas are a case in point. Their particular needs – steady warmth, good drainage and abundant ventilation – make them quite needy house or greenhouse plants. Most of us encounter them only as cut flowers, parted from their unspectacular foliage, with their naked, fuzzy stems terminated by daisies of improbable, almost artificial perfection.

Since Volkswagen decided to plonk plastic gerberas in test tubes on the dashboard of their new Beetle in the 1990s, the Transvaal daisy, as it’s otherwise known, has been languishing somewhere between naff and passé in the flower fashion stakes. Despite that, gerberas remain the fifth most popular cut flower in the world, after tulips, carnations, chryanthemums and roses. Those cultivated as cut flowers are the result of a cross between Gerbera jamesonii and Gerbera viridiflora, both plants from South Africa. They arrived in the UK in 1887 but proved better suited to commercial cultivation on the French Riviera and, latterly, under glass in The Netherlands. Whilst our heads have been turned by hydrangeas, gladioli, dahlias and peonies, the Dutch have been busy ‘improving’ the gerbera, with some eye-catching results.

Last week at Floradecora in Frankfurt, growers from The Netherlands mounted spectacular displays of the newest cut flower varieties, including roses, lilies, tulips, bouvardia, lisianthus and, of course, gerberas. I was most taken by the more free-form gerbera introductions, such as ‘Pasta Rosata’ (below) and finely fringed ‘Pink Springs’ (bottom of post), perhaps because these looked least like conventional gerberas. Closer inspection of individual blooms revealed incredible complexity, variation and subtlety of colour, possible only because each gerbera ‘flower’ is actually composed of hundreds of smaller florets which can be manipulated by the breeder to create endless variety of size, form and shade.

The gerbera’s colour spectrum starts with white, moving into yellow, orange, red and pink, ending with magenta and deep, velvety red. There are simple single blooms alongside dense doubles and ‘specialities’ with pincushion centres surrounded by longer ray florets. Improvements in breeding, cultivation and treatment before the blooms reach the end consumer mean that gerberas now last longer, look better and stay more upright in the vase than they did 10 years ago.

Popular flowers like gerberas, dahlias, chyrsanthemums and roses must constantly evolve and reinvent their image if they are going to remain at the top of their commercial game. By introducing a softer colour palette and looser shapes, gerbera breeders are responding the same trend that brought dahlias such as ‘Labyrinth’ and ‘Café au Lait’ to the fore.

Having spent a few happy moments browsing the displays, I was once again won over by the cheer-leading vivacity of these champion cut flowers. Am I persuaded to attempt growing gerberas at home? No, thank you, but next time I stray into a florists I shall certainly cast my disapproving glances elsewhere.

Love them or loath them? Either way, I’d love to hear your thoughts about gerberas.

The RHS London shows ought to be a pleasure for me to visit; they take place just five minutes from my office and are genteel, polite affairs, quite unlike the scrum of Chelsea or the hassle of Hampton Court – just how I like my flower shows. However, they are timed in such a way that they always seem to clash with a business trip or manic day at work. So, if I get to visit at all, it’s always in a hurry. The 2017 Early Spring Plant Fair was no exception.

The RHS early spring shows are a shot in the arm for visiting gardeners, a reminder that in a few weeks our own gardens will be bursting with colour again. The focus is on flowering bulbs (particularly snowdrops), camellias, potatoes and early flowering shrubs and perennials. Some of the best and most respected nurseries in the country go along to show and sell their wares.

In recent years the RHS have started experimenting with evening openings. These are a blessing for office workers like myself and those who prefer perusing plants with a glass of prosecco or cold beer in hand. The more relaxed atmosphere is preferable to taking part in the scrum of eager beavers that can form during the daytime. Occasionally one even spots a celebrity quietly admiring the flowers. Whether these ‘after hours’ shows are lucrative for the RHS it’s hard to tell, but they are a lovely way to conclude the working day. This week’s late event was on Monday night, before the show opened officially on Tuesday.

For fully paid-up galanthophiles there was everything on offer from freshly dug bundles of Galanthus elwesii wrapped in damp newspaper, to rare treasures costing £40, £50, or £60. I didn’t indulge – there are many other flowers I’d make a collection of before I turned to snowdrops – but I had to admire Avon Bulbs’ gold medal winning display which included Galanthus ‘Moortown Mighty’ and G. ‘Trumps’. Harvey’s Garden Plants were awarded Silver-Gilt for a stand incorporating a particularly handsome form of G. elwesii named ‘Yvonne Hay’ bearing huge flowers above broad, silver-green leaves.

Jacques Amand staged their usual tour de force display of Iris reticulata, I. histrioides and their hybrids, earning them a gold medal. There were more introductions from Canadian breeder Alan McMurtrie. These were nice enough, and the colours were unusual, but the flowers did look very small against older varieties. Iris ‘Eyecatcher’ stood out from the crowd, as did I. ‘Frozen Planet’ with ice white and Wedgwood blue flowers, as pale and poised as a prima ballerina. Iris histrioides ‘Katherine’s Gold’ appeared to be a variation on I. ‘Katherine Hodgkin’, with only the faintest amount on blue on the falls and the rest of the flower suffused golden-yellow, fading to milky-white.

I didn’t expect to be suckered into buying succulents, but Daniel Jackson of Ottershaw Cacti staged such a maestro display that I could not help myself. Light years away from the dry, dusty arrangements of cacti and succulents that I’ve experienced in the past, Daniel’s display was packed with colour and vitality. Faced with a huge array of plants to select from, I chose Crassula ovata ‘Red Horn’, which has leaves the shape and colour of macaroni dipped in tomato sauce, and Echeveria pulvinata ‘Ruby Blush’. Both are unusual choices for someone with an aversion to variegation, but I put it down to it being the end of a very long day.

Elsewhere I picked up Streptocarpus ‘White Butterfly’ from Dibleys (also awarded gold) and Pleione grandiflora ‘White Hybrids’ from Jacques Amand / Living Colour Bulbs. Having done a magnificent job of saving money during January (even if I do say so myself), I decided it was high time for a miniature splurge.

The RHS have started charging members £5 for admittance to some of the London shows. I suppose this move was inevitable, but wonder how many people this might discourage. An ‘enhanced show experience’ was promised in return for my plasticised £5 note, but I can’t honestly say I noticed a difference. Asking politely if my ticket might allow me to return another day, I was told, equally politely, ‘no’. This struck me as a tad miserly: I would have spent more had I had the opportunity to return the next day for some of the other plants on offer.

Having left the office almost an hour after I had planned, I was in trouble for getting home late before I had even set foot in Vincent Square. Just 45 minutes after I had arrived, having covered both halls and an exhibition of this year’s Chelsea show garden designs, I was heading back towards the Victoria Line again. At an average of one plant purchase every nine minutes, it was probably just as well as I didn’t have a return ticket.

The good news is that the next event, the RHS Botanical Art Show will be free for RHS members to visit:

• RHS Botanical Art Show – 24–25 Feb 2017 – Free for RHS members and the public.
• RHS Spring Plant and Orchid Show – 29–30 Mar 2017 – £5 for RHS members (in advance and on the day), and £6 for non-members (£9 on the day).
• RHS Summer Urban Garden Show – 12 – 13 Jul 2017 – Free for RHS members and the public.
• RHS Harvest Festival Show – 3 – 4 Oct 2017 – Free for RHS members and the public.
• RHS Autumn Garden Show – 25 – 26 Oct 2017 – £5 for RHS members (in advance and on the day), and £6 for non-members (£9 on the day).

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Had I not been a landscape architect, gardener or fashion designer – all professions suggested by my school careers advisor, who was largely at a loss with anyone who didn’t want to be a teacher, lawyer or doctor – I might have been a botanical artist. As a student I possessed extraordinary patience and an unhealthy obsession with detail. My writing and drawing were painfully precise, reflecting the personality of an uptight and highly strung young man who needed to ‘let go’ more. (This has changed, in that I am now a middle-aged man who needs to ‘let go’ more!) I preferred pencils to paint and recorded every vein, sinew and shadow of my subjects with pinpoint accuracy. These days I still have the pencils, but neither the time nor patience to draw with them. Having visited the RHS Botanical Art Show in London last week I now wonder if I might have missed my calling.

I seem to recall that the RHS Botanical Art Show was once combined with a flower show, and consequently I paid the art section scant attention. If so, that was a sad oversight on my part. This year, botanical artists from as far afield as Japan, New Zealand, Korea and the USA had the Lindley Hall to themselves, and what a joy it was to appreciate their work in that lofty space. The variety of styles and approaches to the genre fascinating to see. It’s some time since I have seen the Lindley Hall venue so packed: the shared pleasure and admiration of the crowds were palpable. Between the 30 or so artists exhibiting, the whole spectrum of plant life was observed, from eucalypts to anemones, onions to orchids.

Now, I am no expert, but I could spot the stand-out exhibit from a mile off. In a style reminiscent of the posters that used to gather cobwebs in my school biology lab, artist Mariko Ikeda had recorded specimens of the genus Pandanus in astonishingly beautiful detail. Painted on creamy-white vellum, spherical bundles of orange, green and yellow fruit leapt from the canvas as if they were there in front of me. Mariko’s work was, justly, awarded a gold medal and Best Botanical Art Exhibit.

Conincidentally, the artwork that won Best Botanical Painting, a representation of Beta vulgaris by Bridget Gillespie, was hanging directly opposite. Herein one could appreciate the particular skills and disciplines required to achieve botanical accuracy. Some of those are shared with other art forms, but the importance of representing a subject clearly and accurately was masterfully demonstrated in Bridget’s work.

Remarkable as some good pieces of botanical art are, I wouldn’t necessarily want them on my wall at home. I’d certainly have given house room to Vivienne Rew’s sublimely realistic renderings of an oriental poppy (Papaver orientale), depicted from bud to seed head. Vivienne’s large renderings on heavy white paper were achieved with a mind-boggling number of tiny brushstrokes and clever techniques, creating finished artwork that could almost be mistaken for photography.

Annie Hughes’ series of paintings depicting the Eucalyptus of Western Australia were richly detailed, as were Silvana Rava’s delicate sketches of Italian vegetables. Rachel Dein, an artist from North London, demonstrated how to turn flowers and foliage into intricate, spectral plaster casts.

This being the Royal Horticultural Society, botanical accuracy is paramount, especially when it comes to awarding medals. I overheard a judge explaining to one Japanese artist that she had lost marks simply for failing to correctly name the variety of clematis she had painted. Harsh, but them’s the rules I suppose. For the record, that clematis was Clematis florida var. florida ‘Sieboldiana’ and it was painted most elegantly, in my humble opinion, by Kazumi Yoshikawa. All of Kazumi’s paintings were of white flowers and I’d have been delighted to own a single one of them.

A drawback of the show set-up is that artworks are shielded from greasy fingers by clear plastic film, more or less professionally applied. This make it difficult to appreciate some of the finer details of the work, and might perhaps be better replaced by sheets of clear perpex set away from the panels, like those used by Mariko Ikeda to protect her precious pandanus portraits.

Is it too late for me to discover if I might have a talent for botanical art? I think not. There were a bewildering number of art schools and artists offering courses lasting from one day to several months, located in all manner of tempting places. And, judging by the average age of those attending the show, I still have a few years left to explore whether I have retained any of my youthful talents. In the meantime I am quite happy to admire the incredible artistry of those who can see, interpret, celebrate and record the wonders of nature for us all to marvel at.

For anyone interested to view or purchase botanical art, The Society of Botanical Artists will hold their annual open exhibition at Central Hall, Westminster, from October 13-21 2017.

Every visit to Great Dixter is a treat, but when the additional carrot of a plant fair is dangled in front of my face, that treat becomes an irresistible temptation. And so it was, having hauled myself out of bed at the crack of dawn to complete my domestic duties, I set off towards the farthest corner of Kent and across the border into East Sussex. Passing through Biddenden, Rolvenden and Tenterden, enjoying the gentle countryside in between, I quickly became part of the picture-perfect world of oasts, orchards and weatherboarded cottages which typify this part of England. 

Despite arriving a little early, I was not the first; not by a long stretch. Having been ushered into a parking space by Fergus Garrett, Great Dixter’s Head Gardener, I slid out of the car to the sound of people earnestly and eagerly buying plants.

Fergus, in a neon-orange hat, complimented me on my parking, which I thought was kind given we were in the middle of a field. Having not attended one of Dixter’s bijou plant fairs before I was not exactly sure what to expect, but my guess was that it would be a classy affair. I was not disappointed. The set up was so rustic it could almost have been the set of Darling Buds of May; all rough-hewn poles and sack-cloth awnings, hay bales covered in ticking and blackthorn branches for decoration. It was wonderfully low-tech and utterly delightful. Most of the fair-goers, myself included, had got the memo, donning themselves in tweed jackets, oversized knitwear, waistcoats, fitted jeans and posh wellies. I rarely have occasion to wear my sloppy indigo-dyed sweater, but here was the perfect event for it.

The early birds were not about to leave any worms for those tardy types who aren’t prepared to tip out of bed until lunchtime. Two friends who I haven’t seen in years temporarily suspended themselves from our surprise reunion in order to bag the best of Cotswold Garden Plants’ tender exotics table. By the time I had organised my camera and taken a deep breath, they had already filled an apple crate with all manner of goodies for their garden and were guarding it against other plant plunderers. Even in these rarified surroundings plant shopping can be a cutthroat business.

I promised myself that I would not get drawn into the feeding frenzy, but within minutes I had my hands on Salvia aurea ‘Kirstenbosch’ which I had first admired in Arit Anderson’s ‘Near Future Garden’ at Hampton Court Flower show, and then forgotten about. I seem to be drawn to curiosities at the moment, and this is no exception. A native of South Africa, Salvia aurea ‘Kirstenbosch’ has small, silvery, clove-scented leaves and extraordinary rust-brown flowers that, admittedly, look half dead from some angles. I thought it would look pleasing alongside plum and orange tulips in my bulb theatre this spring. Out of the corner of my eye I could see someone else eyeing up the one and only plant, so I snatched it up and held on firmly whilst continuing to browse the rest of the table.

I managed to steer myself away from the pleione being offered by Binny Plants, but fell promptly at the next hurdle. Alongside a wide variety of bulbous plant, French nursery F. comme Fleurs had brought along a small selection of very choice spring flowering plants, including a solitary pot sheltering Viola chaerophylloides ‘Beni Zuru’. I don’t often fall in love with violas, easy as that is, since they tend to jilt me pretty quickly. However, this one is the prettiest thing you ever did see and I had to have it. Viola ‘Beni Zuru’ is of Japanese origin and produces reddish-pink flowers on long, burgundy stems, hovering over unusual filigree foliage. I even purchased a pricey Whichford Pottery pot to show my viola off to best advantage. Let’s see how long the relationship lasts this time.

Having been to The Salutation the previous week I thought I had seen everything they had to offer, but Steve Edney had kept a few things back for this special event. I purchased a 2″ chunk of Impatiens flanaganae root, sitting exposed ontop of a pot of rich compost. By late summer I am promised stems a metre tall, topped with candy-pink flowers …. and lots more roots to propagate from. To keep the impatiens company I popped in a cutting of Justicia carnea, the Brazilian Plume Flower, which should flower at a similar time.

I’d never come across Iris bucharica before, but several nurseries were offering generous potfuls. Having browsed around I decided to buy my plants from Great Dixter’s own nursery. Back at home I planted them in a low, Whichford Pottery bowl (come on, I couldn’t buy one on its own) in a mixture of potting compost, grit and gravel. Iris bucharica hails from Central Asia and enjoys sun and sharp drainage. Flowering early in the year it’s going to make a great companion for late flowering daffodils and early flowering tulips and has already taken up a front row seat in my bulb theatre.

Although Great Dixter is nearly two hours drive from Broadstairs, it was worth making a day of it. Entry to the gardens was included in the price of admittance to the plant fair. I spent a good three hours milling around, taking photographs, enjoying the sound of birdsong and the perfume of a thousand scented flowers. I’ll be posting a full report shortly. As treats go, this was my favourite kind, and in October I’ll be returning for more.

Great Dixter’s Autumn Plant Fair will be held on Saturday 7th & Sunday 8th October 2017, 11am-4pm.

The Damage in full

Lathyrus vernus – Swallowfields Nursery
Iris bucharica – Great Dixter Nursery
Salvia aurea ‘Kirstenbosch’ – Cotswold Garden Flowers
Viola ‘Beni Zuru’ – F. comme Fleurs
Salvia ‘Royal Bumble’ – Cotswold Garden Flowers
Bergenia ‘Overture’ – Pelham Plants
Anemone ranunculoides – Swallowfields Nursery
Omphalodes verna ‘Alba’ – Swallowfields Nursery
Impatiens flanaganae – The Salutation Gardens
Justicia carnea – The Salutation Gardens

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I am taking a different approach to my Chelsea Flower Show coverage this year. Recent events and the amount of time I am able to spend at the show have persuaded me to devote more time to enjoying the exhibits and less time casting a critic’s eye over them. Added to which, I have the great pleasure of hosting Helen of Oz during Chelsea week, so I don’t want to spend every evening glued to my computer keyboard as I usually do.

A further reason for getting slightly less swept along by the Chelsea tsunami is that in a couple of weeks I will be visiting the first ever Chatsworth Flower Show. The RHS have been gracious enough to issue me with a press pass, which means I’ll be able to take a sneak peek on the Tuesday before the show opens to the public. Chatsworth is a beautiful venue and will provide a sublime setting for a new national flower show. Hence I am saving some of my blogging energy for reporting on that exciting event.

There has been much negativity in the media about the declining number of show gardens on Chelsea’s Main Avenue, down to a new low of 8 from a high of 17 last year. The dramatic downturn is attributed to sponsors tightening their belts and regulars such as The Telegraph and Laurent Perrier taking a year off. To take a contrary view, perhaps this turn of events it is not such a bad thing. In my opinion the show gardens attract disproportionate attention and detract from enormous talent of those nurserymen and women who exhibit in the Great Pavilion. Let’s enjoy a break from the excesses of the stratospheric show garden budgets and enjoy the simplicity of good plants well-grown. And there is nothing like austerity for sorting the wheat from the chaff. Let’s see what can be achieved at Chelsea with fewer pennies and a little more ingenuity.

Another challenge for the RHS is the imminent departure of overall sponsor M&G Investments, with a new benefactor yet to be announced. Given the global influences displayed in this year’s garden designs, might the next sponsor be a foreign one? It would not surprise me. For their final outing as sponsor M&G have hired James Basson – he of the gardens so natural that they could be, well, natural – to create a garden inspired by an abandoned Maltese quarry. This should be a walk in the park for James Basson, who designs sustainable, no-irrigation, minimum-maintenance gardens using locally sourced plants. There will be monumental pillars of limestone planted with grasses, evergreens, perennials and ground cover plants unique to Malta. The rest of the plot will be divided into a series of zones, each with its own ecology, from shrubland through garrigue landscape to cliff top. A pool represents the void left behind when a stone block is quarried.

If the sun comes out, bringing the golden Maltese limestone to life, there’s a real chance of James Basson achieving a matching medal, and his forth at Chelsea. With few other gardens displaying any originality, Best in Show must also be a genuine possibility.

This year’s garden designs have been influenced by the landscapes of China, Japan, Canada and Mexico with only a handful drawing on the British landscape for inspiration. Greening Grey Britain, designed by Nigel Dunnett, aims to demonstrate how an urban garden can fulfil multiple needs, providing social space, functional storage, supporting biodiversity and harnessing excess rainfall. It promises to be a scheme from which many of us city dwellers might draw inspiration.

Those who favour more traditional gardens – by which I mean those that contrast clipped box with ‘naturalistic’ multi-stemmed trees and fill the spaces in between with a blousy mix of umbels pierced through with lupins, peonies and foxgloves – will appreciate Lee Beestal’s 500 Years of Covent Garden. The design promises an oasis of green, anchored at each corner by an apple tree (multi-stemmed of course) and presided over by two steel arches painted to match those at Covent Garden, which are a blue-green colour. With a shaded, comfortable-looking central seating area this garden is a guaranteed crowd pleaser and will no doubt provide the setting for numerous television interviews over the coming days.

Morgan Stanley have partnered with Chris Beardshaw again to produce a garden which won’t scare the horses, but which might win a gold medal. Inspired by fractal geometry and patterns found in nature, music and art this garden has similar influences to Nick Bailey’s Beauty of Mathematics garden in 2016, but offers little that’s new or original. “A sinuous path moves through three distinct garden areas, from verdant woodland to a central oak loggia and out onto a sun-drenched terrace” trills the RHS website. Haven’t we heard that somewhere before?

At least three gardens have strong oriental influences. The most prominent, occupying the famous island site, is the Chengdu Silk Road Garden designed by Laurie Chetwood and Patrick Collins. This garden has the potential to dazzle, but I am rarely convinced by so much hard landscaping in a show garden. In this instance a series of rising and falling fins in shades of flesh pink and red resemble a bloodied whale carcass. This isn’t the easiest of garden features to soften with planting, although I’ve never had the opportunity to walk that particular walk. Nevertheless we are promised a showcase of some of the many garden plants familiar in the West that have their origins in China’s Sichuan Province, as well as a design that can be appreciated from every angle.

Interestingly, the original design for this garden, as presented at the RHS Early Spring Plant Fair, was strikingly different. My understanding has always been that show gardens had to stick to the design originally submitted or risk being marked down, but perhaps hard times have made the RHS more lenient.

When I arrive at Chelsea on Tuesday the first garden I will make a beeline for is Kazuyuki Ishihara’s ‘Gosho No Niwa’ (No Wall, No War) which will be nestling in a shaded spot alongside the other Artisan Gardens. Mr Ishihara is a Chelsea veteran, returning for his 12th year. He speaks almost no English, but has more than mastered the art of winning gold medals at Chelsea. I suspect this year will be no exception.

The design for Gosho no Niwa possesses all of Mr Ishihara’s usual signatures – tumbling water, colourful acers, irises, moss and dwarf pines – and will be executed with absolute precision. My money is on this winning Best Artisan Garden.

In the same category, Hagakure (Hidden Leaves) designed by Shuko Noda, sets out to create a sacred and peaceful space away from the noise and stress of daily life. The colour scheme is predominantly white, a symbol of purity and sacredness in Japan. Quite what happened to the azalea-filled extravaganza that was the Seek Garden, designed by Randle Siddeley in honour of British botanist Ernest Henry Wilson, I do not know. I guess the sponsor must have pulled out at the last-minute. This is a great pity as the Seek Garden promised to flout almost every rule of modern-day Chelsea garden design by packing in hoards of rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias, viburnums and acers. This harks back to the days when these were the very plants that suburban gardeners flocked to the Royal Hospital grounds to see. I, for one, shall miss the Seek Garden that mysteriously hid.

 

 

 

 

Leaving me colder than a cod in Arctic waters are gardens such as the Mind Trap Garden designed by Ian Price. OK, so the garden sets out to highlight the plight of those living with depression but, really, aren’t there more inventive ways to do so? The device of using doors / fences / barriers to denote mental or social barriers and cheery, bright plants to illustrate the end of a journey from a dark place has been done to death. This garden employs hackneyed methods which are almost as depressing as the subject in hand.

 

The space that’s been left vacant by hard-up sponsors has been filled with five plotsctentatively assigned to various BBC Radio 2 presenters. The Chris Evans Taste Garden has been inspired by Mary Berry (haven’t we all?) and is designed by Jon Wheatley. The Jo Whiley Scent Garden is inspired by aromas that transport us to a moment in time or a place that feels familiar, such as woodland walks, rain on warm paving, fresh earth or freshly cut flowers. In the same odd vein, visitors will also have the chance to tune in to Zoe Ball’s Listening Garden and brush against Jeremy Vine’s Texture Garden, although it’s unlikely anyone will get their hands on any of the blooms in Anneka Rice’s Colour Cutting Garden designed by Sarah Raven. It’s commendable that the RHS have moved fast to fill the spaces left by others, but the offerings are all remarkably similar to superior gardens that have gone before, expecially the designs by James Alexander Sinclair (Zoe Ball’s Listening Garden) and Matt Keightley (Jeremy Vine’s Texture Garden), below.

In summary, and it pains me to say so, I am not expecting 2017 to be a vintage Chelsea Flower Show, particularly after the splendid highs of 2016. A low show garden count, a dearth of new talent and extreme lack of originality has set my expectation levels pretty low. I very much hope my pessimism might be proven ill-founded and that I will find solace, as I always do, in the Great Pavilion, where high standards rarely falter.

Come back throughout this week to find out if I hit the nail on the head or have had to eat my hat as I report on the good, bad and indifferent from Chelsea 2017. TFG.

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Ah, the vagaries of the British weather. Last week: wind and torrential rain, this week: clear skies and temperatures in the twenties centigrade. I’ve veered from wearing boots and a winter coat to shorts and flip-flops in the space of four days. I’ve attended some very chilly Chelsea Flower Shows in the past, but tomorrow looks set to be fine and dry. Out with the short-sleeved shirt and dare I risk bare ankles? That would be a Chelsea first. Even if the sun does remain behind the clouds, one garden is guaranteed to provide us all with a lift: Beneath a Mexican Sky designed by Manoj Malde for sponsors Inland Homes.

This bold, exuberant garden, with its walls washed with tints of clementine, coral and cappuccino, is inspired by the work of Mexican Modernist architect Luis Barragán. Manoj Malde has brilliantly captured the essence of Barragáns brutal-yet-bright style in a garden that begs to bask beneath a beating sun. It might, perhaps, be a garden to dream of rather than one to recreate at home: the planting demands super-dry conditions and the colours require strong light to make them sing. However, the design’s simple layout and generous seating area will appeal to anyone who yearns for contemporary design and architectural planting.

In contrast to the bright walls, the concrete deck balancing elegantly over an inviting pool is cool and smooth. I am not a fan of a grey, but here the colour works perfectly with the silvery foliage of Agave parryi var. truncata, Agave amerciana and beautiful, felty-leaved Kalanchoe behariensis. Manoj believes it is the first time that a designer has used this unusual Madagascan plant, also knowns as velvet elephant’s ears, in a Chelsea garden. The variety ‘Fang’ has an Award of Garden Merit from the RHS and irregular toothed protrusions on the underside of every leaf.

Another first for the show is a specimen of Agave parrasana which has produced a 4m high flower spike bang on cue for opening day. The agave’s candelabra-like inflorescence, which has emerged from a compact rosette of succulent, grey leaves, won’t be casting much shade. That job is left to a fine, multi-stemmed strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo) which produces flowers beloved by bees and fruits that can be used to make jams and liqueurs.

Luis Barragán liked to create contrast using shadows. In this design another succulent, this time a cactus, Stenocerus marginatus, is underplanted with the popular Mexican fleabane (Erigeron karvinskianus). Set against a wall painted in a delicious shade of taupe, the cactus looks cooler than a cucumber.

For flowers lovers there are plenty of blooms in scorching colours, including purple bearded irises ‘Modern Woman’ and ‘Serene Moment’, Cleome hassleriana ‘Violet Queen’, Baptisia ‘Blueberry sundae’, orange Cosmos sulphureus and almost black Cosmos astrosanguineus.

Manoj Malde was born in Kenya and trained as a fashion designer, working in the industry for nearly twenty years, before retraining in garden design. His innate sense of style is evident in every detail, from the planting, to the colourful cushions arranged on the love seat and finally Rupert Till’s equine sculpture, which references Barragán’s love of horses.

At night, Beneath a Mexican Sky is cleverly lit so that the plants create interesting shadows as darkness falls. The two strawberry trees are under-lit, projecting shadows from the multi stemmed trunks onto the coral and clementine walls. Agave parrasana and the organ cactus, Stenocerous marginatus, are lit from the side so that their striking architectural forms make dramatic shapes. The illuminations lend the garden a cosy pink glow, supplemented by six glass storm lanterns housed in rectangular niches. The water in the pool is lit from under the grey cement steps, concealing the light source and making the bright turquoise cement that lines the pool shine invitingly.

So what can we take from this garden? The structure and layout could certainly be replicated in a traditional, rectangular suburban plot blessed with a sunny aspect. The pool might be traded for lawn or a section of paving in a contrasting colour if water was not practical. To achieve anything resembling the planting one would need exceptional drainage or raised beds and some cover for the agaves in winter. This could be managed by supporting sheets of plastic over the rosettes or by lifting the plants and bringing them into a brightly lit conservatory. The colour combinations are gorgeous, demonstrating the versatility of silver-grey foliage plants. I particularly like coral, fuchsia, violet and silver-grey association, but also the mixture of clementine, turquoise and lilac.

If all that sounds a bit much, then this probably isn’t the garden for you. The solution might be to move to Spain, Portugal or, indeed, Mexico where the climate would be ideally suited to this style of garden. As for medal prospects, it’s rare for an exotic garden like this to win gold, but it’s all in the detail and the judges may yet be swayed by the craftsmanship and plantsmanship. My money’s on silver gilt. Regardless, this is a cracking debut from a garden designer who has the style and confidence to bring a taste of Mexico to our murky metropolis.

Tomorrow I will be at the show, taking my own photographs. Those included in this post were taken by the very talented Jonathan Buckley. If you look out for me, I’ll be the one in the sunflower print shirt with a lady in black. Do stop me and say hello. TFG.

PLANT LIST

TREES

Arbutus unedo (multi-stem)
Kalanchoe beharensis
Kalanchoe beharensis ‘Fangs’

SHRUBS

Aeonium arboreum ‘Zwartkop’
Agave americana
Agave attenuata
Agave parrasana
Agave parryi var truncata
Cistus ‘Silver Pink’
Draceana draco
Fascicularia bicolour
Puya coerulea
Salvia greggii ‘Royal Bumble’

GRASSES

Festuca amethystina
Melinis nerviglumis
Muhlenbergia capillaris
Carex testacea

HERBACEOUS

Baptisia ‘Blueberry Sundae’
Beschorneria tubiflora
Centaurea montana ‘Jordy’
Dianthus cruentus
Erigeron karvanskianus
Euphorbia cyparissias ‘Fens Ruby’

Gaura lindheimeri ‘Rosy Jane’
Gaura lindheimeri ‘Sisikiyou Pink’
Hesperaloe parviflora
Linaria ‘Canon’s Went’
Salvia africanus
Salvia Indigo ‘Spires’
Salvia officinalis ‘Purpuascens’
Tulbaghia violacea
Tradescantia sillamontana

ANNUALS & BIENNIALS

Cosmos sulphureus (orange)
Cosmos astrosanguineus
Eschscholzia californica
Eschscholzia californica ‘Red Chief’
Osteospermum
Seseli elatum subsp. osseum

CACTI & SUCCULENTS

Bulbine frutescens ‘Hallmark’
Echeveria ‘Blue Prince’
Echeveria glauca
Sedum sediforme
Senecio serpens
Tillandsia
Stenocereus marginatus

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Well slap my thigh and call me Mildred, James Basson won gold and landed this year’s Best in Show for his monumental Maltese quarry garden. Gold was, as I predicted, inevitable, and Best in Show a strong likelihood given the brazen ambition of this project. When James Basson commits to an idea, he sees it through with absolute conviction and brilliant clarity. This was quite some idea. 2017 will be M&G Investments’ final year as sponsor of the Chelsea Flower Show and the wealth management company must be elated at winning the RHS’s top prize. However, the awards did not come without some controversy. If one listened very carefully, one could hear whispered comments passing between the county ladies and country gents as they struggled to get to grips with the austere design and ‘weedy’ planting. I had to agree. I won’t repeat what Helen of Oz had to say … these colonials tell it like it is, but suffice to say that although the garden was impressive and brilliantly executed it was, like a child genius, rather hard to love. I wanted to like it, but I could not even begin to.

Taking inspiration from the unique Mediterranean landscape of Malta, the design for the M&G Garden evokes an abandoned quarry which nature has begun to reclaim. Each space reflects how that process might take place, with certain plants colonising the drought stricken summits whilst others seek cool shade between the stones. We first saw the garden at about 8.30 this morning when the sun was still hiding behind the clouds. Then it had all the charm of The Barbican Centre on a wet November afternoon, but when the sun shone the garden was warmer, more inviting and certainly closer to the image of a Maltese quarry I’d conjured in my mind.

James Basson’s planting is so exactingly naturalistic one could fully believe the plants had established themselves there, but they appear so frail and ephemeral that they look as if they might shrivel away within days. That’s possibly the point I am missing. This garden is saved by a trio of imposing limestone pillars (which look like the lift shafts of an emerging skyscraper) and a giant’s causeway of cut and finished blocks. And therein we have it: even the most accomplished of ‘wild’ gardens needs structure to make it great.

The planting in the M&G Garden is unquestionably Mediterranean but you may not recognise some of the plants. Several were transported direct from Malta by special agreement of the Maltese authorities. These include Euphorbia melitense, Darniella melitense, Limonium melitense and Mattiola incana subsp. Melitense. You have probably deduced by now that the Latin name for a species indigenous to Malta is melitense!

If I may be so bold as to make another prediction, and I do not do so unkindly, The M&G Garden will not win The People’s Choice Award. The garden is clever, yes; ambitious, certainly; trend-setting, maybe. But a crowd pleaser? I’m afraid not.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions on this polarising garden. In the meantime, here’s the full list of medal winners, followed by a plant list for the M&G garden.

Show gardens

Gold

• The M&G Garden by James Basson (also Best in Show)
• Darwin Property Investment Management: Breaking Ground by Andrew Wilson and Gavin McWilliam
•  Royal Bank of Canada Garden by Charlotte Harris
• The Linklaters Garden for Maggie’s by Darren Hawkes

Silver-Gilt

• Silk Road Garden, Chengdu, China by Laurie Chetwood and Patrick Collins
• The Morgan Stanley Garden by Chris Beardshaw

Silver

• 500 Years of Covent Garden: The Sir Simon Milton Foundation Garden in partnership with Capco by Lee Bestall
•  The Welcome to Yorkshire Garden by Tracy Foster

ARTISAN GARDENS

Gold

• Walker’s Wharf by Graham Bodle (Best Artisan Garden)
• Gosho No Niwa : No Wall, No War by Kazuyuki Ishihara
•  The IBTC Lowestoft: Broadland Boatbuilder’s Garden by Gary Breeze
• The Seedlip Garden by Dr Catherine MacDonald
• The Viking Cruises Garden of Inspiration by Sarah Eberle
•  The World Horse Welfare Garden by Adam Woolcott and Jonathan Smith

Silver-Gilt

• Team Saga: Hagakure – Hidden Leaves by Shuko Noda

Silver

• The CWGC Centenary Garden by David Domoney
• The Poetry Lover’s Garden by Fiona Cadwallader

FRESH GARDENS

Gold

• City Living by Kate Gould (Best Fresh Garden)
• Mind Trap sponsored by idverde, designed by Ian Price

Silver-Gilt

• Breast Cancer Now Garden: Through the Microscope by Ruth Willmott
• Inland Homes: Beneath a Mexican Sky by Manoj Malde

Bronze

• The Bermuda Triangle by Jack Dunckley

Plant List

Shade

• Adiantum capillaris-veneris
• Asplenium marinum
• Asplenium trichomanes
• Briza maxima
• Carex extensa (Long bracted sedge)
• Carex remonta
• Poa annua
• Polypodium vulgare
• Polypogon maritimus

Steppe

• Anagyris foetida (Stinking bean trefoil)
• Asphodelus fistulosus
• Atractylis gummifera
• Avena barbata
• Brassica rapa
• Bromus fasciculatus
• Calamitha nepta
• Calendula arvensis
• Coris monspeliensis
• Echium vulgare
• Euphorbia melitensis (Maltese spurge)
• Globularia alypum
• Hysocyamus albus
• Plantago coronopus
• Silene coeli-rosa (blue)
• Sinapsis alba
• Sisymbrium irio
• Smyrnium oleastrum
• Trifolium angustifolium
• Verbascum sinuatum
• Vicia tenuissima

Steppe Cliff

• Erodium moschatum
• Glaucium flavum (Yellow poppy)
• Helichrysum italicum serrotinum
• Helichrysum orientale
• Limbarda crithmoides (Golden samphire)
• Matthiola longipetala
• Suaeda vera (Shrubby sea blite)

Steppe Garrigue

• Bituminaria bituminosa
• Carlina involucrata
• Carthamus lanatus
• Centaurea argentea
• Centranthus ruber
• Cheirolophus crassifolius (Maltese rock centaury)
• Cynara cardunculus
• Dittrichia viscosa
• Eruca sativa
• Lactuca saligna

Steppe Garrigue Cliff

• Andropogon distachyos
• Artemisia abrotanum
• Carlina corymbosa
• Euphorbia spinosa
• Ferula communis
• Festuca gautieri
• Foeniculum vulgare
• Fumana thymifolia
• Hippocrepis multisiliquosa
• Hirschfielda incana
• Hordeum leporinum
• Hordeum marinum
• Hyoseris frutescens (Gozo hyoseris)
• Hyoseris radiata
• Hypericum aegypticum (Egyptian St John’s wort)
• Hypochaeris radicata
• Inula crithmoides
• Lagurus ovatus
• Leontodon tuberosus
• Lepidium graminifolium
• Linum usitatissimum
• Lobularia maritima
• Lotus tetragonolobus
• Matthiola incana
• Matthiola incana ssp melitensis (Maltese stock)
• Melica minuta
• Micromeria microphylla
• Morea sisyrinchium
• Nigella damascena
• Ononis speciosa
• Ornithogalum narbonense
• Pallenis spinosa
• Papaver dubium ssp. lecoqii var. albiflorum
• Phagnalon rupestre
• Phalaris paradoxa
• Phleum bertolonii
• Plantago afra
• Plantago maritima (Plantain maritima)
• Polygonum scoparium
• Potentilla recta
• Raphanus raphanistrum
• Reichardia picroides
• Reseda alba
• Reseda lutea
• Rhagadiolus stellatus
• Ridolfia segetum
• Ruta chalepensis (Fringed rue)
• Sanguisorba minor
• Sarcopoterium spinosum
• Scabiosa maritima
• Scorpiurus muricatus
• Sedum album
• Sedum sexangulare
• Sherardia arvensis
• Silene colorata
• Silene fruticosa (Shrubby campion)
• Silene italica
• Silene vulgaris
• Stachys ocymastrum
• Stipa capensis
• Thymus capitatus
• Urospermum picroides
• Vaccaria hispanica

Steppe Garrigue Evergreen Woodland

• Conyza bonariensis
• Cynara cardunculus
• Daucus gingidium
• Dorycnium pentaphyllum
• Euphorbia ceratocarpa
• Euphorbia dendroides
• Gladiolus italicus
• Hyparrhenia hirta
• Isatis tinctoria
• Marrubium vulgare

Steppe Garrigue Evergreen Woodland Cliff

• Ampelodesmos mauritanicus
• Antirrhinum tortuosum
• Artemisia arborescens
• Asphodelus microcarpus
• Medicago arborea (Shrubby medick)
• Piptatherum miliaceum
• Pistacia lentiscus
• Teucrium flavum (Yellow germander)
• Teucrium fruiticans

Garrigue

• Atriplex halimus
• Bupleurum fruticosum
• Cynoglossum creticum
• Darniella melitensis (Maltese salt tree)
• Galium mollugo
• Galium verum
• Tetraclinis articulata (Sandarac)
• Tetragonolobus purpureus
• Vitex agnus-castus (Chaste tree)

Evergreen Woodland Garrigue

• Olea europaea
• Paliurus spina-christi
• Phillyrea latifolia
• Pinus halepensis (Aleppo pine)
• Punica granatum
• Siliqua ceratonia

Cliff

• Armeria maritima ‘Alba’
• Capparis spinosa
• Cremnophyton lanfrancoi (Maltese cliff orache)
• Crithmum maritimum
• Limonium melitensis (Maltese sea lavender)
• Limonium pruinosum

Aquatic

• Arundo donax
• Iris pseudacorus
• Juncus effusus
• Mentha aquatica
• Phragmites australis
• Sparganuim erectum
• Typha

Phew!

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When I go to the Chelsea Flower Show, I want to see flowers. Whilst in the Great Pavilion this expectation is met in spades, occasionally some of the garden designers forget and start getting a bit too green, or worse, brown. This is fine, but don’t expect me to like it. For all its faults, and there were a few, the Chengdu Silk Road garden delivered flowers, and glorious ones at that. There were great mounds of rhododendrons and silken peonies, fragrant roses, rocketing primulas and blushing poppies. The spine of brightly coloured ‘mountains’ aside, this is a Chelsea garden that a visitor from the 1960s might have recognised and I, for one, was glad of it on such a sombre day.

One can say two things for certain about the Chengdu Silk Road Garden: it is bursting with colour and unlike any other garden that’s occupied the notorious island site in recent years. This pivotal plot, awkwardly located on top of one of London’s main sewers has seen its highs (Best in Show: Laurent Perrier Chatsworth Garden in 2015) and its lows. It has also attracted some of Chelsea’s quirkier designs. Anyone who takes on the island site in its entirety (last year it was divided between Sam Ovens and Diarmuid Gavin) must design a garden that can be admired from every angle and make an impression without any kind of backdrop. In that respect, the Chengdu Silk Road Garden did an excellent job. The spine of brightly painted panels, carefully constructed to minimise their weight, divided the plot effectively, allowing designers Laurie Chetwood and Patrick Collins to treat either side of the garden differently.

From the southern aspect we were treated to undulating mounds of foliage, beneath a canopy of neatly pruned Viburnum rhytidophyllum (leather leaf viburnum), a shrub I have never especially liked but which was perfect in this scheme. Grasses such as Miscanthus sinensis and Festuca ovina added texture.

At the western-most tip the grasses gave way to peonies, primulas and buddleias before rising to a crescendo of colour in the form of rhododendrons, astilbes, multitudinous primulas and gorgeous Meconopsis ‘Lingholm’. This is the kind of planting I love to see, and also a reminder of just how many of our favourite garden plants hail from China. It was not for nothing that British Botanist Ernest Henry Wilson titled his 1929 book ‘China, Mother of Gardens’.

Ignoring the spine and central ‘theatre’, which I found myself having to do rather a lot, the planting could have been transported directly from one of my favourite Cornish gardens, or those that enjoy the warming impact of the Gulf Stream in Scotland or Ireland.

Back to the structure, of which I have been a little dismissive, there was a very definite point to it. Chengdu, the provincial capital of land-locked Sichuan, was once the capital of the Chinese Shu kingdom. Chengdu is situated on a vast plain, but surrounded by forested mountains, which the panels represent. You may also recognise Chengdu as the ‘hometown’ of the giant panda, a fact curiously illustrated by a pair of cuddly pandas sitting at the entrance to the garden. I suppose it was too much to expect real pandas.

Since ancient times Sichuan has been known as ‘The Abundant Land’ thanks to its fertile soil and favourable climate. Within the province, in a place called Dujiangyan, one can find the world’s oldest dam-less irrigation system which is still in use today. It’s been effective since 256BC. In the garden water plays a small part, running around the edge of the circular platform which depicts the legend of the Sun and Immortal Birds … that’s another story, which I won’t embellish now.

A series of overlapping ‘tongues’ in various shades of red and pink represent the silk road that ran through Sichuan, linking this ‘Country of Heaven’ to the rest of the world, permitting ceramics, spices, textiles and plants to reach the western world. Just like our food sources, we tend to forget where our plants come from. It was surprising to hear just how many visitors were just discovering the origins of their favourite plants as they admired the spectacle.

After the show, the garden will be moved to Chengdu and used to launch an ambitious city-wide project called ‘Flower-shrouded Chengdu’. This will include building twenty large-scale gardens in the city suburbs. From my experience of China, this is a good thing, and I can imagine the garden sitting well in an urban environment. To Western eyes the reds and pinks may appear a little brash, but in China these are auspicious colours symbolising good fortune and joy.

If I could have changed one thing about this garden, I would have removed the insect hotels from the sides of the coloured panels. Although the garden was drawing in a phenomenal number of bumble bees, these little boxes were just clutter – and that’s coming from someone who is prone to clutter. Next to go would have been the curious perspex lozenges hovering over the garden like some kind of surveillance equipment. There was enough artifice in the garden without the addition of these. And finally, I’d have liked to see the planting come a little closer to edges, especially at the eastern end of the site where the colours cooled beautifully to yellow and white.

So, on the whole a brave and confident treatment of this challenging site and a garden very much better than I had expected. Silver Gilt was well deserved for a garden of such epic proportions filled so beautifully with plants we all know and love. As China’s influence in the world grows further, I expect we will see more Chinese influence at Chelsea in future. I would very much like to see India following suit.

PLANT LIST

To follow very shortly.

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O THE month of May, the merry month of May,
So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green!
O, and then did I unto my true love say,
Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer’s Queen.

Thomas Dekker (1572-1632)

May is my favourite month, and I always say that if a garden doesn’t look merry in May, there’s a problem. There should be the last tulips and the first roses, tender foliage and entwining tendrils, sweet birdsong, the heady scent of elderflowers and green, green everywhere.

But May spells hard work for gardeners. There’s spring bedding to come out, summer bedding to go in, climbers to train, plants to be watered (especially this year), pests taking advantage of every opportunity and everything growing before one’s eyes.

When I took this week off, I was determined that Chelsea would not take over, as it usually does. It was a good Chelsea Flower Show, but not a vintage one. The nurserymen in the Great Pavilion excelled, but the gardens were average by Chelsea standards. That’s not to say they were not accomplished, but I don’t think I’ll remember a single one of them come this time next year. One of the most lovely was Kazuyuki Ishihara’s Gosho No Niwa : No Wall, No War which is a garden I could have uplifted in its entirety and enjoyed forever. The Japanese designer never strays far outside his comfort zone, but does what he does with astonishing craftsmanship and precision.

Apart from Gosho No Niwa, our favourite garden in the whole show was Chris Beardshaw’s garden for Morgan Stanley. It comprised a lush woodland garden navigated via a sinuous path, leading to and an area of jewel-coloured perennials. At the heart of the garden a monumental oak and limestone pavilion offered shelter and space for entertaining. There was meant to be a tentative subtext exploring the sponsor’s long-term committment to young people’s education, but all that really mattered was that the garden was both inspiring and accessible. Helen of Oz adored the lupins and swathes of mositure-loving candelabra primulas. Funny how we all hanker after the plants we can’t grow. (More to follow on both of these gardens in due course.)

Wednesday was a rest day and an opportunity to write a couple of posts before the state visit from Helen of Oz. Decoration of the library has come to and end (almost) and the books are slowly moving in. Design-conscious friends have suggested organising them by colour, but that would only mean I could never find the one I wanted, so I have put them on the shelves by subject. I find I have a lot of biographical books, most of which I haven’t read; an abundance of plant monographs and not enough books on trees, shrubs and vegetables. I’ve discovered a good few duplicates too. Thankfully there is enough space for me to keep collecting for several more years, and the shelves look better for not being packed to the gunnels.

The task of getting the house back into order starts now, a full thirteen months after the project began. Everywhere I look there’s a pile of paperwork or a box of ‘useful’ detritus which needs dealing with. I am committing to myself that the library should become a sanctuary away from all of that, so only ‘cleansed’ items may be admitted. The temptation of filling eight new cupboards with junk must be resisted.

I settled on a decorative scheme of greyish-lilac with soft green and saffron highlights. I am extending the palette out into the garden with olives, echiums, yellow marguerites, mauve verbenas, Bulbine frutescens and – I never thought I report this – clipped box balls. Box does not feature in my normal style of planting, but it looks right here – or at least it will when the decorator clears all his rubbish out of the garden.

Thursday took Helen of Oz and I to Sissinghurst via Madrona Nursery near Pluckley in Kent. Madrona is one of my favourite places to buy plants because of the eclectic range. They have everything from shade lovers to drought survivors, and the quality of the stock is always excellent. The nursery’s setting, among the woods and fields of the Kentish Weald, is also dreamy. I came away with Salvia ‘Love and Wishes’, Catalpa × erubescens ‘Purpurea’, Agapanthus ‘Back in Black’ and Persicaria ‘Purple Fantasy’.

Given the sublime weather, and it really was sublime, Sissinghurst was busy, but not unpleasantly so. The garden was brimming with irises and roses and looking very fine indeed. There are lots of changes going on, including the opening up of the cutting garden and replanting of the phlox garden; an extension of the Nuttery which will take it right up to the paddock fence; and a stunning planting of Iris sibirica at the end of the moat walk. The simplicity of this scheme is dazzling and refreshingly contemporary.

Beyond the garden gates wild flowers are being encouraged to return to the meadows in front of the house and next to the cafe. A guided tour around the South Cottage, where Vita and Harold slept, was a special treat, providing a fascinating insight into the couple and their extraordinary relationship.

Our final stop before Helen of Oz had to return to London was Walmer Castle near Deal. Once a home of the Queen Mother, Walmer Castle has wonderful gardens which are rarely busy. We shared a stroll around with a coach party of Danes who were equally enamoured of the kitchen and cutting gardens.

The herbaceous borders, bounded by thick, undulating hedges, were already looking strong, particularly the yellow section in the middle. A preponderance of Mexican fleabane (Erigeron karvinskianus) in the walls surrounding the moat got me thinking about planting some in my own humble garden.

In just a few days it will be June and, before we know it, the longest day. With Helen of Oz on her way back to Melbourne, it’s been back to sorting out the garden, watering and getting the house straight before my not so merry return to work and the imminent arrival of summer.

Wishing you all a very merry May Bank Holiday Monday. TFG.

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Hot on the heels of Chelsea comes the Royal Horticultural Society’s newest, most exciting show at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. Home to the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, Chatsworth is one the country’s finest estates and a popular tourist attraction. As the setting for a major new flower show it promises to be world-class, and at the time of writing there are only a handful of tickets remaining for the final day of show, which runs from Wednesday June 7th to Sunday June 11th.

One might ask whether the nation needs another flower show on this scale, particularly given the struggle faced by the RHS in securing the usual number of ‘big ticket’ show gardens for Chelsea. The new event at Chatsworth was announced 2 years ago, well before we knew about Brexit, and opens at a time of uncertainty both politically and economically. It even straddles the general election, creating a welcome distraction from the mutterings and proclamations of Mrs May and Mr Corbyn. The RHS promises that Chatsworth will ‘break boundaries and blend tradition with unexpected, innovative design’. These sorts of visionary statements generally make me feel a little nervous. It’s as if the organisers are covering themselves for any and every eventuality, including design which might not be very good. Happily, although the gardens don’t appear quite as ambitious as Chelsea, there is plenty of promise.

Sponsored by Wedgwood, the theme of the show is ‘Design Revolutionaries’. Exhibits will celebrate creative people who, through their foresight and imagination, have changed the way we think about gardens and garden design. The partnership between the famous ceramic brand and the RHS is an apt one, since it was John Wedgwood, who had an extensive interest in botany and horticulture, founded the RHS in 1804. I wonder what John, the eldest son of Josiah Wedgwood, would make of the progress his august society has made over the last 213 years.

To celebrate the reunion, Wedgwood have teamed up with young Cornishman Sam Ovens, the designer who worked with Cloudy Bay on their 2016 Chelsea garden, to create a garden entitled A Classic Reimagined. Renderings suggest an angular composition with water at its centre and lots of naturalistic planting. I am certain both designer and sponsor will be hoping for a gold medal.

Other gardens of interest include Belmond’s Enchanted Garden, which features a spiral staircase to take guests wherever their imagination desires, and The RHS Garden for a Changing Climate (below), which presents two scenarios for a small suburban garden: ‘now’ and ‘future’ when our climate will become increasingly warm and dry in summer with unpredictable weather events causing flash flooding.

Brewin Dolphin have upped sticks from Chelsea, taking designer Jo Thompson with them. They will present a sinuous space complete with a sculpture cantilevered over the banks of the river Derwent. A soft pastel planting palette of blues and pinks with highlights of apricot will contrast with the patina of the steel sculpture. Elsewhere, paving and sculptural seating will reference the ancient millstones found across the Peak District. I think I am going to like this garden.

In stark contrast, we have another quarry garden, although this time inspired by UK quarries rather than sun-soaked ones. The difference between this and James Basson’s monumental Maltese memorial garden at Chelsea is that it has been designed for a professional couple who have built a modern house, and wish to spend time outdoors. Unsurprisingly for a garden sponsored by The Institute of Quarrying, it’s heavy on the hard landscaping and the notes promise more native planting. Let’s hope it looks a little more inviting than its Chelsea predecessor.

Lee Bestall can’t have had a lot of time to relax following Chelsea, where his 500 Years of Covent Garden garden won Silver. The young designer moves up-country with the Experience Peak District & Derbyshire Garden, which is another concept I like the look of. The contrast between bucolic parkland and sharp formality is one we often see in great gardens and will be recreated in miniature here on Chatsworth’s magnificent canvas.

I am delighted with the return of Antithesis of the Sarcophagi by Martin Cook and Gary Breeze as I never succeeded in getting near this 44-tonne rough granite cube with a garden inside at Chelsea in 2016. No doubt the queues to peer through tiny holes in the grey stone and gaze upon the lush garden within will be just as long at Chatsworth.

Florist Jonathan Mosele is decorating the estate’s Palladian bridge with a giant willow serpent, rising up from the waters of the river Derwent and wrapping itself around the cool stone. Visitors will be able to experience the thrill of walking through the floral installation from one side to the other.

The feature I am most excited about is the recreation of Joseph Paxton’s Great Conservatory. When it was constructed in 1840 it was the largest glass building in England and Charles Darwin wrote that he “was transported with delight. . . . The water part is more wonderfully like tropical nature than I would have thought possible. Art beats nature altogether there.” Alas the exorbitant cost of heating the conservatory, or ‘Great Stove’ as it was then known, led to its demolition in 1920. The photograph below was taken just before that sad occasion. Only the brick footings now remain. Using inflatable technology, a 14-metre high structure, inspired by Paxton’s original, will pay homage to the lost building which rose over 20 metres. At its centre will be an art installation by Darryl Moore and Adolfo Harrison of Cityscapes. An exhibition will retell the story of the gardener-turned-architect and politician who first succeeded in cultivating the dwarf banana, Musa ‘Dwarf Cavendish’, from which most commercially grown bananas are descended.

To either side of the Great Conservatory, two conventional floral marquees will form wings housing 76 nurseries and growers. As well as the traditional layout, the RHS have included three special areas of interest: connoisseur, cut flower garden and edibles. I have no doubt that many purchases will made here, both necessary and unnecessary, and that I’ll be driving home from Derbyshire a happy man, with flowers tickling my temples.

Drop by later next week for full coverage of the show and details of the damage inflicted on my wallet. Have a lovely weekend. TFG.

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Given the paucity of show gardens at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show, I regret not having written more about last year’s crop, which had a different pedigree altogether. I hope to correct one such oversight now, by comparing and contrasting Morgan Stanley’s two most recent Chelsea gardens, both designed by Chris Beardshaw.

This year’s garden, inspired by ‘fractal geometry and patterns found in nature, music, art and communities’ was one of the most accessible at the show, and hence always a front runner for People’s Choice, which it duly won. A Silver Gilt medal from the RHS judges puzzled many show-goers, but in the end the public placed this simple yet effective garden on a pedestal. At a Chelsea devoid of lawns and low on the usual swathes of early summer prairie, Chris Beardshaw delivered a crowd-pleasing combination of cool, shaded woodland and bright, sundrenched perennials, with an imposing oak and limestone loggia sitting firmly at the garden’s heart. The woodland area had Helen of Oz’s heart melting, packed as it was with plants that would shrivel up and die in the Australian outback. An effortless combination of ferns, hostas and primulas, punctuated by rocketing cardiocrinums, was both soothing and uplifting. Not challenging, not fashionable; just what many of us would be happy to achieve in our own gardens.

Because of the gaps left by the gardens that failed to secure sponsorship, the Morgan Stanley garden had the unusual advantage of running along Main Avenue rather than away from it. This made the whole scheme appear larger and more impressive, although it was impossible to get anywhere near the perimeter, so enraptured were the crowds. An extremely fine Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) anchored the perennial end whilst tender, green field maples (Acer campestre) and statuesque box (Buxus sempervirens) grounded the other. Classic hornbeam hedges provided a backdrop.

A central loggia crafted from oak and limestone was monumental in its proportions and struck me as a little too bulky and dominant within the space. I’d like to have seen some planters or seating sheltering beneath the mighty canopy to give the structure a greater sense of purpose and improve its relationship to the garden. American artist Craig Schaffer created three pieces of abstract sculpture for the show garden, inspired by fractal structures found in the natural world. They reminded me quite a lot of broken vinyl records spliced together, but I appreciated how well they fitted into the overall scheme.

Chris Beardshaw, who was on the garden whilst we were admiring it, seems like a thoroughly charming man. A group of school-age children had come along to show him a project they had been working on and he presented them with a plant of Scabiosa ‘Butterfly Blue’, explaining its appeal to pollinating insects. The children and their teacher were clearly overjoyed. And instead of commissioning one of the famous Chelsea plant factories to grow the material for his garden, Chris decided to grow most of the herbaceous plants himself, which he described as a ‘magical’ and ‘thrilling’ experience. Not every plant was in peak condition, the echiums for example had gone over, but knowing Chris had grown them himself made that alright by me.

Now that the show is over the garden will be recycled by a charity called Groundwork that offers young people training and job opportunities. Elements of the garden will split between three educational community schemes in East London where its special music and rhythm will live on. Follow this link for a 360º view of the garden.

Returning to 2016, I recall the Morgan Stanley Garden for Great Ormond Street Hospital as being equally soothing and restful, but perhaps not as outstanding as some of the other designs that year. Nevertheless it was awarded a gold medal, and as time has gone on, and my own taste has developed, I find I appreciate it more.

The standout moment in this garden for me was the sculpture ‘Fallen Deodar’ by Jilly Sutton. Fashioned from cedar and verdigris bronze, the mask’s serene countenance and gentle repose made me imagine a gentle giant slumbering in a secret garden. Key plants in the scheme were hesperis – such a lovely clear light purple; Iris sibirica – which has become something of a Chelsea staple in recent years; camassia – providing the same upright accents as the cardiocrinums did in 2017, and the acers, their crowns uplifted, billowing gently in the breeze.

The garden was moved after the show to a shaded, second-floor rooftop location at Great Ormond Street Hospital to provide a private, reflective space for parents and families of children undergoing treatment. With so many Chelsea gardens going on to find permanent homes in communities, hospitals and hospices it would be interesting to hear from sponsors how they have fared. One assumes they must be simplified and modified to ease the burden of maintenance and to provide a longer period of interest.

In conclusion, here we have two gardens for the same sponsor, but with very different guiding principles. Chris Beardshaw’s knack of designing show gardens with broad appeal is important given both will live on in the public domain. His gardens combine a certain familiarity and Englishness, whilst also inspiring onlookers to push the boundaries within their own plots. Post Chelsea 2017, I’d wager there will be far more attempts at sinuous paths through beds of hostas and primulas, and trips to the garden centre to source cardiocrinums and fancy-coloured lupins than there will be efforts to recreate parched quarries. A lack of gimmicks and plants that date ensure Chris’ gardens for Morgan Stanley will stand the test of time.

Plant List 2017

Perennial Sunny Section

Agapanthus
Alchemilla mollis
Alyogyne cuneiformis
Angelica archangelica
Anthemis punctata subsp. cupaniana
Anchusa ‘Loddon Royalist’
Aralia elata ‘Variegata’
Campanula persicaria ‘Telham Beauty’
Centaurea montana ‘Jordy’
Cirsium rivulare ‘Atropurpureum’
Cirsium ‘Trevor’s Blue Wonder’
Dianthus ‘Shirley Temple’
Echium fastuosum
Erigeron karvinskianus syn. mucron
Erigeron ‘Snow White’
Euphorbia mellifera
Foeniculum vulgare
Geranium ‘Czakor’
Geranium ‘Biokovo’
Geranium clarkei ‘Kashmir Blue’
Geranium ‘Johnson’s Blue’
Geranium macrorrhizum
Geranium maculatum ‘Espresso’
Geranium palmatum
Geranium renardii
Geum ‘Totally Tangerine’
Iberis ‘Pink Ice’
Iris ‘Sable’
Iris ‘Bishop’s Robe’
Iris ‘Natchez Trace’
Iris ‘Night Owl’
Linaria purpurea ‘Canon Went’
Lupinus ‘Beefeater’
Lupinus ‘Manhattan Lights’
Lupinus ‘Persian Slipper’
Lysimachia ciliata ‘Firecracker’
Mukgenia ‘Nova Flame’
Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’
Paeonia lactiflora ‘Red Charm’
Peony ‘Krinkled White’
Phlomis italica
Salvia ‘Caradonna’
Scabiosa ‘Butterfly Blue’
Silybum marianum
Veronica ‘Shirley Blue’

Shrubs and Herbs

Grevillea rosmarinifolia
Pinus leucodermis ‘Nana’
Westringia fruticosa ‘White’

Perennial Shady Section

Alchemilla mollis
Anemone ‘Wild Swan’
Astilbe ‘Fanal’
Brunnera ‘Alexander’s Great’
Camassia ‘White’
Cardiocrinum giganteum
Chaerophyllum hirsutum ‘Roseum’
Geranium ‘Biokovo’
Geranium ‘Mayflower’
Hakonechloa
Helleborus argutifolius
Hosta ‘Devon Green’
Hosta ‘Abiqua Drinking Gourd’
Hosta ‘Flemish Sky’
Hosta ‘Patriot’
Hosta ‘Regal Splendor’
Iris ‘Gerald Darby’
Lamium orvala
Luzula
Primula beesiana
Ranunculus aconitifolius ‘Flore Pleno’
Rosa spinosisima
Tellima grandiflora

Ferns

Asplenium scolopendrium
Cyrtomium falcatum
Dryopteris affinis
Matteuccia struthiopteris
Osmunda regalis

Trees, Hedges, Topiary, Shrubs

Carpinus betulus
Acer campestre
Buxus sempervirens
Pinus sylvestris
Taxus baccata

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Today the famous British weather excelled itself … in drenching everyone from Mary Berry to Alan Titchmarsh, in flattening countless delphiniums and in spoiling what might have been a glorious preview of the nation’s newest flower show at Chatsworth in Derbyshire. Fortunately the gardening cognoscenti are not readily thwarted by a drop of rain, a patch of boggy turf or gusting wind and the show went on … at least until lunchtime when Health and Safety decided enough was enough and cleared the showground lest someone get flattened by a flying fuchsia. The floral marquees were the the first to be evacuated as they looked ready to take off and land in the river Derwent. Poor Lee Bestall’s metallic cows spent most of the time on their sides in the meadow (I was always told it was going to rain if cows were sitting down), and the paths on Sam Ovens’ garden were rapidly turning into impromptu water features. Those exhibitors who didn’t brave the weather today have a nasty surprise when they turn up tomorrow morning. My advice if you’ve got a ticket for the show is to wear wellies, and have spare socks and shoes in the car for the drive home.

The press tent was filled with journalists, writers, photographers and bloggers warming their hands on cups of tea before teasing apart soggy maps to work out where to go and get wet and muddy next. TV crews battled with soggy sound booms and tried to keep their presenters dry. Meanwhile designers tried hard not to notice the flowers being torn from their carefully cultivated plants as the judges approached in their sou’westers, clutching slippery clipboards and damp score cards. Hats off to Alan Titchmarsh for being the best dressed man I have ever seen in wet weather gear and to Raymond Blanc for ignoring the weather entirely and donning a black suit, white shirt and smart shoes. Mary Berry, who would look glamorous after 5 days at Glastonbury, kept standards up for the ladies.

It’s all rather a pity as the setting for the new show, even in driving rain, is majestic. The layout that the RHS have adopted for Chatsworth is spacious, and should make for a relaxed event with lots of wonderful picnicking opportunities. As at Hampton Court, some of the gardens suffer from lack of adequate backdrop, which is the reason why I wish the RHS would invest in slightly less obtrusive structures and signage for their shows. Even in dim light the bright white pavilions and restaurants distract from what’s in front of them, and as a photographer they are a complete curse.
 

I had three favourite gardens, about which I shall share more when I’ve downloaded all my photographs. They were Sam Ovens’ Wedgwood Garden: A Classic Re-imagined Garden, which was standing up to the elements remarkably well; Neil Sutcliffe’s Cruse Bereavement Care: ‘A Time for Everything’ and Lee Bestall’s Experience Peak District and Derbyshire Garden. Others, such as the Brewin Dolphin Garden by Jo Thompson and the Agriframes Garden by Melinda Thomas and Fleur Porter, has very much suffered the brunt of the weather and might perk up later in the week.

I’ll be returning tomorrow when I hope the wind might have died down sufficiently for me to enjoy a peak inside the two floral marquees. In the meantime, spare a thought for these dancers, braving the elements to launch the Brewin Dolphin garden at 10am this morning. TFG.

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I’ve been to a lot of flower shows and admired a lot of outstanding show stands, so it takes a lot for an exhibitor to really knock my socks off. But nothing could divert my attention away from BlueBell Nursery’s staggering display of unusual trees and shrubs at the RHS Chatsworth Flower Show today. The scene was a fairytale forest packed with fantastical trees and breathtaking blooms, quite unlike any exhibit I have ever seen before.

The floral marquees at RHS shows are always rammed with perennials, herbs, climbers and tender exotics, but trees and shrubs are often in short supply. Perhaps it’s down to space restrictions, or limitations on how much stock can be offered for sale, but if this exhibit is anything to go by, the RHS should find ways to attract more nurseries that specialise in woody plants. There were audible gasps from showgoers as they peered through the foliage to gaze upon layer upon layer of carefully arranged Chinese dogwoods (Cornus kousa), including ‘Madame Butterfly’, ‘China Girl’ and pink ‘Miss Satomi’.

But the stars of the show were the variegated trees, notably Fagus sylvatica ‘Franken’, a slow-growing variant of our common beech with fabulously marbled leaves; the wedding cake tree, Cornus controversa ‘Variegata’; and a variegated water elm, Zelkova serrata ‘Variegata’. I’m not usually a fan of variegation, but the way the plants had been put together was sublime.

I’ve no idea which way the medals went in the floral marquees – the awards had not been made at the time I departed – but this exhibit, along with Kevock Garden Plants and their pictorial meadow of primulas, orchids and meconopsis, would have shared my personal Best in Show award. Well done to both nursery’s for proving, once again, that in gardening one has never seen it all before.

Read about my visit to BlueBell Nursery and Arboretum here.

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What is it about the appeal of quarry-inspired gardens this year? Is because as a nation we seem determined to dig ourselves into the deepest hole possible? Is it because we feel stuck between a rock and hard place? Or have we suddenly discovered our inner Stone Age selves? Whatever it is, a second quarry garden has won Best in Show at the RHS Chatsworth Flower Show, cementing stone as the landscaping material of the moment.

To celebrate the centenary of the Institute of Quarrying, garden designer Paul Hervey-Brookes was commissioned to design one of the largest show gardens ever presented at an RHS show. Measuring a generous 4500 square feet, the garden is inspired by the requirements of a professional couple who have built a modern house, and who are inspired by brutalist form. All I can say is that it must have been a very impressive house and that the clients’ brutalist brief was fulfilled in spades.

Although the IQ Quarry Garden was not without its prettier side, beautifully realised with jagged rocks and foaming flowers, the attraction ended for me where the plants petered out. A deep, sunken pool at the centre of the garden was filled with reeds and intended to look ‘stark, yet beautifully serene’. The effect for me was a little bleak and the reeds reminded me of hair sprouting from somewhere that it ought not to. Then came vast expanses of Derbyshire gritstone and Corten steel, fashioned into an austerely sculptural piece measuring 8ft x 30ft. At this point, all I could imagine was the set for a Bond villain’s lair, with the distinct possibility that the reed bed might also double as a piranha pond for the purpose of returning secret agents to nature.

As an advertisement for the pivotal role of mineral extraction in construction the garden was exemplary, but I found it too large and too hard to have much empathy with the overall design. I could accept this, but not the choice of garden furniture, which was very pedestrian for such a stylish garden. If one’s going to ‘do’ brutalist, one needs to go the whole hog. Even if it had existed at the time, I don’t imagine Le Corbusier would have plumped for faux rattan.

I am being unkind, I know, but this garden won gold and therefore should have been perfection. Had the wind and rain not thrashed the planting at the front of the plot, the soft landscaping certainly would have been as good as it gets. A palette of pale pinks, mauves, blues and soft yellows associated well with hefty shards of mottled slate and huge slabs of grey concrete that segmented the garden. There were also lovely textures, varying from tight clumps of sedge and epimedium to billowing clouds of birch and oak leaves. The prevailing weather on press day, fulfilling the stereotype that ‘it’s grim up north’, did a grand job of providing more movement and drama than money could buy. I pitied the poor female model, painted head to toe in copper body paint, who had been hired to cower against the Corten steel and dip her toes tentatively into the concrete piranha pond. I was willing someone to offer her their coat.

Make no mistake, this was an impressive garden, skillfully realised. For me, the enormous scale took away from what could have been an attractive idea for an urban garden. There was simply too much ‘hard’ and not enough ‘soft’, with insufficient blending of the two and not enough consideration for how such a space might practically be used. I have a feeling that the fictional professional couple might find themselves hankering after a soft patch of lawn and something decent to sit on before too long. The balance was struck much more deftly in Sam Ovens’ A Classic Re-imagined garden for Wedgwood, which would have been my personal choice for Best in Show. Both gardens celebrated the beauty and honesty of quarried materials, but I preferred it when plants were given the upper hand.

For those of you who can’t take another quarry garden, I am pleased to report there are none planned for Hampton Court in a month’s time. However, water and water conservation will continue to be a big theme at this show and expect to see more monolithic protrusions, such as those in the Brownfield – Metamorphosis Garden designed by Martyn Wilson. TFG.

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