How nice it was to go back to the Chelsea Flower Show this year. Not just because it had been a full 16 months since the last one but mainly because a September show was so different to the usual May one.
The main thing that struck me as I saw the first show garden - The M&G pocket park garden by Harris Bugg Studio - was the completely different colour palette. Not the fresh-faced blues, purples and pinks we are used to to but a much richer mix with more burgundy, orange, yellow and brown. This comes from plants you wouldn’t normally see, especially a lot of grasses.
Sometimes I need to persuade clients that grasses are a really good idea in their gardens. The come into their own in autumn when they flower and often change colour. They provide structure, texture and movement in an otherwise sighlty underwhelming time in the garden.
Although it was disappointing how few main show gardens there were, and how empty the floral marquee was, it was good to see the RHS being a bit more innovative in introducing new categories of gardens. Whether it was a response to the pandemic or a nod towards our increasingly small gardens, the house plant studios, container gardens and balcony gardens were all surprising and fun.
My favourite house plant studio was The Pharmacy of House Plants designed by The Edible Bus Stop Studio, with all the plants displayed in glass receptacles. I liked the contrast of the textural qualitues of the leaves against the clear water and bright shining glass. I’m not sure my house plant maintenance skills would be up to keeping such a display in immaculate condition. Imagine the dusting..
The container gardens were imaginative in their use of materials and use of space. The gardens demonstrated the value in using really large containers to achieve height and dramatic displays of plants. Planters this size would be a challenge though for renters who might expect to move quite often. I loved these planters in The Hot Tin Roof Garden designed by Ellie Edkins, made from painted corrugated iron. The sharp cut edges were covered in a flexible rubber tube to make them more user friendly. I like the way the same material has been used on some of the vertical surfaces.
The balcony gardens were particularly popular, I think because you could get really close to them. It made photography quite difficult though. The balconies were quite generous by modern development standards but the most successful ones were those that focused on lots of plants, built-in planters and minimal amounts of furniture. This was my favourite, designed by Alexandra Noble - a simple palette of mainly white and green flowers, two small trees and barely-there furniture.
The small sanctuary gardens were a mixed bag. Although they are probably roughly the size of a suburban garden there was not a scrap of lawn between them. Funny how popular these gardens are at Chelsea but just try mentioning designing a garden without a lawn to a client in real life… This Finnish Soul Garden, complete with sauna, was designed by Taina Suomo.
I really felt there was more of an emphasis on plants at this year’s show. Certainly the more successful gardens seemd to focus less on large elements of structure; one or two gardens were deliberately marked down where the structures seemed out of proportion to the planted areas. That wasn’t the case with the Bodmin Jail: 60degree East Garden designed by Ekaterina Zasukhina and Carly Kershaw, based on a city centre garden in a central-Russia city. The mix of lush planting, angular rocks and rusted sculpture was absorbing and well-executed on one of the more difficult plots.
One garden that successfully walked the tightrope between planting and structure was the best in show winner, The Guangzhou Garden, designed by Peter Chmiel with Chin-Jung Chen. This is the first Chinese garden that’s had any real success at Chelsea, albeit under the guidance of an internationally renowned firm of landscape architects. The mix of water, trees and the delicate bamboo structures was extremely appealing.
Desite my moaning about the crowds, the cost of the tickets, the paucity of show gardens and the barely mentioned number of unjudged RHS “exhibition gardens” with horrendous queues, it’s still a great day out and I certainly didn’t hear anyone else complaining…
As an experiment, holding Chelsea in September was a great success. It was so interesting to see a different range of plants being used and the atmosphere of the gardens was very different in the lower, richer, autumn sunlight. Will they do it again?
Needless to say, book early for 2022 to avoid disappointment.