The glory of our gardens
GARDENING is an art, a skill and a science at which we excel. It is one of our country’s greatest gifts to the world. Other nations have other traditions, but English-style gardening is most firmly founded on our love of flowering plants. That’s what distinguishes it from the customs of, say, France and Italy, although, even in those countries, English gardening has made an enormous impact over the past 40 years. Our methods and styles also have their disciples in such countries as China and Japan, ancient civilisations whose own garden traditions are even older—and, each in its way, no less sophisticated and influential than ours.
Our gardens are at their most fresh and beautiful right now, as spring transitions into summer. Spring did not arrive on the first day of March—it never does—it arrives whenever we see the first promise of better things to come. How happy we are to see daffodils and early tulips, camellias and magnolias battling against the last throes of winter. Things can only get better in April and into May. The sun rises ever higher in the sky and warmer temperatures bring fresh delights.
Nothing attests our return to the lives we so enjoyed before Covid as this year’s full-on Chelsea Flower Show. In 2020, it was cancelled in its entirety. Last year, the RHS scrambled together a slimmed-down Chelsea in the autumn—and very good it was, too. But now it is business as usual once again. There are beautiful flowers, old and new, to bring delight. The show gardens inspire our own designs and plantings. Manufacturers and craftsmen display their wares to educate and tempt us: glasshouses and conservatories (how elegant and practical are their designs nowadays); traditional garden tools and wicker baskets; mini tractors and robotic lawnmowers; swinging seats and wooden benches; all come to Chelsea to remind us of what is possible in our gardens today.
It is said that the RHS Chelsea Flower Show marks the start of the London Season. Fashionable life was not always thus. Our ancestors—the richer ones—decamped to their estates to enjoy the most delectable days of summer in the country. But now is the time to feast on the best of both Town and Country. We must celebrate the benefits that gardens bring, not only to their owners, but to the animals, birds and insects with whom we share them. It is a celebration of all that is best in our lives.