Report by Sylvia Pocock
CHELSEA 2014
In 2000, the Royal Horticultural Society invited amateur Gardening Clubs and Horticultural Societies to enter a new class at the Chelsea Flower Show – the Courtyard Gardens – and this we did, gaining a Bronze Medal. Don’t know how we did it – none of us had experience of this sort of thing – so we begged, borrowed and stole to make our garden. We didn’t have a budget and I don’t think it cost the Club anything but a few generous people emptied their pockets for us. We had lots of people help us out who weren’t club members but had fantastic skills in making and putting up fences/trellis and, more to the point, had muscle! It was incredibly hard work but there was a tremendous buzz about the show ground and above all, great fun. Would we do it all again – yes – given the chance. We also of course got to see the show before even the Queen came along – never has the pavilion been so empty.
Since then it has become tradition for two of us to visit the show each year on the opening Tuesday. One of us then goes again very early on Saturday morning and leaves quite by 1.00p.m. when it is all too crowded.
This year we thought the gardens were all very calm and green. Lots of planting in white with lots of those weed like flowers which maybe you and I pull out by the barrow load. There was some purple and some lovely blue anchusa but in the main, all quite muted. I do sometimes wonder if the nurseries like Crocus and Hortus get in touch with the designers two years in advance and say something like “Look, we have got 10,000 of these coming on and then of course we shall have 5,000 of that plant you loved so much last time and then we will be shipping in 7,000 of whatever from Italy”. How else do the gardens look well, so similar, at least in the planting department. We get an awful lot of our trees from Italy and wasn’t there a designer this year who couldn’t find the particular variety of birch he required in this country but they were available in Italy? So he, and assistant, flew off to Italy. He wanted five for the garden but bought seven, just in case, at a cost of £2,500 each.! Well done the Italians. On the subject of birch trees, if I see any more, I shall scream! There are other trees out there designers, and I don’t mean pleached lime. Oh how we missed the Aussies with their exuberant designs and colours – not to everyone’s taste but their gardens were always fun – as were the men! The gardens inside the pavilion were more to my liking with Birmingham City Council depicting the start of the First World War and getting a well deserved Gold with Fifty Years of Britain in Bloom in the South West also gaining Gold. At least they both had colour.
As normal the pavilion displays were fantastic, whether flowers or vegetables. Serried ranks of delphiniums, stunning sweet peas, roses from David Austen, Peter Beale and Harkness, (a much better display this year), Mr. Everson and his clematis, Bloms and their tulips… I could go on and on. Vegetables were not forgotten either with the National Farmers Union and Waitrose joining forces once again to produce a wonderful stand.
In Ranelagh Gardens, where Godstone created their courtyard garden back in 2000, the Artisan gardens were to be found and they were all extremely good with a Gold going to the man from Japan – Mr. Kazuyuki Ishihara with his design also getting Best in Show for an Artisan garden. You must have seen him on T.V. – great shouts of joy but also reverential bowing.
There were plenty of trade stands and it would seem that greenhouses are getting larger and more ornate, and of course we must have some kind of sculpture, or two, on our plot. I particularly liked James Doran-Webb’s driftwood animals, life size horses, lurchers, golden eagles. Some people must have money to spend, as nearly everything was sold by the time of my second visit and when I tell you the horses were selling for £29,000 each – but they were tremendous. Had a long conversation with the man, and his mum, and I have asked Jim, we are now on Christian name terms, to consider making smaller, much smaller, pieces, as we would then might be able to fit them into our gardens and even possibly afford something!
There are opportunities to buy horticultural accessories/equipment, clothing and RHS souvenirs from tea towels and mugs to very erudite books and, shock horror, you can also get gardening and horticultural advice!
I could ramble on and on but … on the Saturday I sat and had a coffee with two Australian lades (do the accent) who had flown in on Friday night. They weren’t quite sure what day of the week it was but they knew they were at the Chelsea Flower Show and they were having a great time. They were expecting to keel over in the pavilion later on in the afternoon.
So, there we have it, another super show and if you have never been – GO NEXT YEAR – 2015