Chelsea fails to bloom
While it was all perfectly pleasant, 2018’s flower show reaches a stalemate despite going in a new direction My favourite tree fern Dicksonia squarrosa was front and centre
Avisit to the Chelsea Flower Show is always a pleasure. I had a preview on Monday, press day. It’s always good but I was surprised by the lack of gardens and the lack of visitors.
It was busier than last year... but it’s obvious the show is under stress.
I strolled around the show ground three times, seeing old friends, admiring exhibits and displays. The weather hasn’t been on anyone’s side so I bet the planning and build has been tough.
First impressions were, well, more of the same.
The venue was splattered with structures and plant arrangements that had been seen before. There were rammed earth walls, acres of planting through pebble, shrubs with sculptural stems and main avenue show gardens that stuck firmly to the Chelsea symmetrical formula – designs which seemed solely aimed at pleasing judges.
Lupins used to be “out” at Chelsea but a few years ago they came back and this year they were everywhere.
My first stop was Peter Beale Roses where I had a wonderful time with Su Pollard (Hi-de-hi!) where we were helping to launch some new roses. Mine was a beautiful scarlet repeat flowering shrub rose called Ely Cathedral, which will feature among the magnificent displays planned for Ely Cathedral’s flower festival next month.
Su received the first blooms of Fragrant Celebration, a beautiful apricot sweet-smelling climbing rose, to mark the company’s 50th year. Their display was fabulous and they were rewarded with a visit from the Queen in the afternoon.
The Trailfinders South African garden brought me back to a trip to that great country. The designer, Jonathan Snow, was inspired by three different architectural and garden notions.
Planted against a backdrop of an identifiable Dutch colonial thatched house was what could have been an English cottage garden resplendent with foxgloves, edged by box and a lovely brick pathway. This led to rambling vineyard and South Africa’s
native flora – proteas, kniphofias and gladioli. Representing an area of recently burnt fynbos, bright bulbs, seedlings and resprouting plants could be seen among the blackened remains of older vegetation.
Jonathan was charming – this was a big adventure for him as it’s his first show garden and his dad was as proud as punch. If gold was important to him, he deserved one.
Another first was Robert Barker with his “Skin Deep” garden – an adventurous sculptural odyssey using cubes of different dimensions, textures and shades stacked in an Antony Gormley-esque way with its corners softened by drifts of foxgloves, aquilegias and ferns.
Robert had helped me out in my Sky Garden of 2011 and he tells me I put him through his paces... good prep for this accomplished display.
Back in the marquee, Crug Farm’s Sue and Bleddyn had an enticing circular display of exotics suited to dry shade. Their nursery near Holyhead in Gwynedd is renowned for its collection of treasures sourced from modern plant-hunting trips. The ruscus was amazing – I’m used to seeing it as a local council quick fix as ground cover, but this was lush.
Ophiopogon, of which there were a number, were like tall grasses that looked like they were blowing curls in the wind rather than sticking rigid to the ground – wonderful!
Billy Alexander of Kells Bay Garden in County Kerry had a sophisticated cooling green display of flora that thrives in his oasis.
My favourite tree fern Dicksonia squarrosa was front and centre and tantalizingly, he told me it would grow in my Wicklow garden.
Everybody’s Chelsea pal Mark Gregory designed and created an idyllic slice of Wensleydale. It was a delightful recreation of a landscape brought to London complete with babbling brook, dry-stone walling, and cottage planting including veg, wisteria and romantic-looking lupins and delphiniums.
I spotted Alan and Alison Titchmarsh in the stone-roofed bothy, looking more at ease and at home than I’d seen him in years.
The show has been through curious times with a fast turnover of show managers, but praise was heaped on the sensibility and help offered by the new show manager Katherine Potsides.
Rather than obstruction being offered to garden builders it seems help and encouragement were the order of the day. Bravo RHS Chelsea!