Chelsea Flower Show
If you enjoy gardens and plants, as I do, then you can’t live in London without visiting the annual Chelsea Flower Show. I first heard about this in late May, and thought I should go. Then I heard about it again, and saw it on television - broadcast at prime time! Wow. Still just idly thought that I should go. Maybe next weekend? Luckily, I checked the Royal Horticultural Society’s (RHS) website, and found it it was only on for three days - Wednesday to Friday!! This is the biggest flower show in England, with thousands of people attending, and it’s not open on the weekend?
Actually it starts on the Sunday, but only RHS members are allowed for first few days. This is when all the judging happens, so by the time the public is allowed in, all the medals have been awarded. So I had to be quick in purchasing a ticket for the next day.
The first photograph shows the queue to pick up pre-ordered tickets. It was veeery long. Fortunately it flowed fairly fast so it only took about 10 minutes. I trudged back over the country-house gravel drive (this stuff is really hard to walk on) and into the entrance.
The show is held in the grounds of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea. I have no idea if it is still a functioning hospital, I can’t see how it can be over this week! The grounds themselves are beautiful. One half is dedicated to the buildings for the show (flower pavilions, room to build show gardens etc) and one half is a rambling garden that is peaceful and relaxing. At least it would usually be peaceful and relaxing, now they build the “courtyard gardens” in there, so there are a fair few people roaming around!
I got to the show about 3:30pm and it was very warm. The first thing I did was buy an ice cream. Then I started to notice the average age of the crowd - pretty high! Lots of lovely old ladies wearing hats and clutching bags wandering around. Fortunately, the tone of the show changed considerably after about 5:30, when suddenly there were lots of suits to be seen, and posh work clothes.
First I went to see the show gardens. Chelsea is first and foremost an industry show - it is full of pavilions where shops can display their wares. Plants, seeds, garden equipment, garden furniture, conservatory makers, garden watercolours (?) - you name it, there was a stall! I passed numerous couples laden with stuff, saying “we must visit XYZ for the conservatory, the same one Bill’s got”! However, to attract the punters, Chelsea has gotten very big and grand over its long history. As well as fabulous displays of flowers, it invites people to construct 12 show gardens, in entirety, plus 20 or so small courtyard gardens. These show gardens cost a fortune to make and are a huge crowd puller.
The show gardens were pretty good, if hard to see. The crowd had to be seen to be believed! Most gardens had rows of people about 5 deep around them. Only by being patient (and a bit pushy) could you get to see the gardens without looking through handbags.
I wandered past all of them. They were good. There was a Japanese garden, an Islamic garden, a garden of meadow flowers (very modern), a garden based on an Islamic carpet, a garden that mimicked the Eden dome in Cornwall. After I’d see them though I decided to come back and have another look later, because it was hard to appreciate them all at once.
The courtyard gardens allow more people to show at Chelsea, as there are about 20 of them. They were mostly lovely, very small. Usually they had a presenter who was able to talk about the garden, the types of plants, the ideas behind it and so forth. People were generally very interested in getting ideas for their own garden (I don’t have a garden over here, sob, so I was just looking). It was lovely and cool in this area of the grounds with magnificent trees, a bandstand, and numerous restaurants.
The floral pavilions were next. I wasn’t prepared for what would be in them, expecting just bunches of flowers. But they were magnificent - huge themed displays with plants and flowers of all types. These displays are usually put on by garden centers and they have brochures for all their products. The first ones I saw had magnificent orchids, and I’m afraid the photos don’t do justice to the jewel-like colours and exquisite shapes.
Wandering down past the displays of prairies, bougainvilleas, rose pergolas, jamaican gardens, I started to smell something very good, very sweet, and very delicious - strawberries! There was an entire display made up of vertical poles with strawberry plants growing in plants round each pole. Each one had dozens of strawberries on it and they looked and smelt fantastic The company seemed to be doing a brisk trade and I’m not surprised!
I was most impressed with the floral displays. An enormous amount of work had been put in. To produce the magnificent displays of daffodils of one company, for example, they have to bring the daffodils to bud, in January, practically freeze them for 3 months, then make them bloom overnight. Since they only last a day in the warmth of London in May, the entire display has to be recreated every day. Now that’s a lot of work!
After a snack I went back and had another look at the show gardens, trying to really appreciate them this time. The garden that won best in show was the Japanese garden. Some commentators on TV were not impressed with this decision, not because it wasn’t a beautiful garden, but because it was very traditional and didn’t pushed the envelope of garden design. However this didn’t seem to bother most people who commented it was beautiful. I certainly liked it a great deal.
The garden based on the Islamic carpet had a large circular device in the centre, tiled with bits of tile, that made up a harmonious design. The planting reflected the blues, greys and lavenders of the carpet, and the terracotta paths provided a colour contrast. I liked this garden a lot too. Some of the others left me a bit cold, but on the whole they were excellent. So it was a very enjoyable afternoon, and very inspiring!
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