Susie’s Garden
Enjoy Susie’s behind-the-scenes preview of this year’s Chelsea Flower Show
It’s Chelsea time! The highlight of my gardening year, the Chelsea Flower Show really is the most amazing event with its spectacular show gardens and beautiful plants in peak condition. I’m there on Monday which is Press Day, a thrilling opportunity to get right up close to the gardens and to meet the designers. It’s also the day when celebrities visit the show, followed by the Royal Family in mid-afternoon.
Chelsea Flower Show represents the very pinnacle of horticulture. Whether you visit or watch it on television, the show is packed with ideas. Whatever size your garden, there will be plants to fall in love with, or ideas to inspire with exciting plant combinations. The world’s best nurserymen and garden designers are exhibiting amid all the excitement of who will win a gold medal.
One of the key themes this year is the preservation of natural habitats with an emphasis on the natural world influencing the style of the gardens on display.
Among the big show gardens, I’m particularly looking forward to seeing James Basson’s garden based on the native flowers of Malta; plants can live in that harsh environment. He excels at the natural look, as if plants have just seeded themselves about. It’s actually a very difficult effect to reproduce.
I also can’t wait to see Chris Beardshaw’s show garden, The Morgan Stanley Garden, with its theme of inspiring young musicians. I love his designs and planting combinations; the plants look natural and happy growing together. This year he has taken the unusual step of going back to his roots as a nurseryman and personally growing on and nurturing over 2,000 herbaceous plants.
Most designers of show gardens have plants grown for them, but he says there is something magical about being able to handle the plants.
“Every plant in every pot becomes familiar and as a consequence I can already build up a picture of how the plant will play a role in the finished garden.”
There was a contemplative calm to his 2016 garden. It was taken apart after the show and rebuilt on a disused rooftop at Great Ormond Street Hospital. After this year’s show, his garden will be donated in its entirety to the community charity Groundwork.