Another Great Year For The RHS Chelsea Flower Show
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2011 continues the tradition of exhibiting the best
show gardens, created by the most talented designers, built with the highest level
of craftsmanship using the finest materials. Oh, and of course the plants are quite
good too!
This year two exhibitors had the WOW factor in abundance. Diarmuid Gavin’s Irish
Sky Garden was spectacular. No doubt not everyone will approve but that’s fine.
What Diarmuid does best is push the boundaries and get everyone talking. Yet those
who think his exhibit was just about the garden in the sky should look at ground
level to appreciate the beautiful, tasteful and understated planting. Diarmuid knows
his plants and in this garden the use of shape and form was just gorgeous.
Understated is not a word that can be used to describe the Nong Nooch Tropical Botanic
Garden display in The Great Pavilion. Inspired by Thai art and culture and reflecting
the sophisticated Thai way of life it was quite an attack on the visual senses.
Flowers and petals in a kaleidoscope of vibrant colour were used to create a representation
of the Loy Krathong River Festival. Again this was bound to be a talking-piece as
colours clash and plants were hard to find on this stand.
In between these two, visitors could find a whole host of gardens and exhibits to
suit their taste. All the outdoor gardens were a great success with planting ranging
from 1980s style rhododendrons in the Homebase Cornish Memories Garden designed
by Thomas Hoblyn, to the delicate palette of maroon, bronze and soft pink in the
Laurent-Perrier Garden by Luciano Giubbilei. Several gardens were evocative of foreign
countries with Monaco being represented for the first time. Sarah Eberle’s garden
tempted many onlookers to dip their toes in the swimming pool while standing by
the Tourism Malaysia Garden designed by David Cubero and James Wong gave the visitor
a sense of being in a hot and steamy jungle with the sounds of tropical birds and
insects adding to the atmosphere.
This year all seventeen Show Gardens received a medal with no less than eight achieving
Gold and everyone else receiving either Silver-Gilt or Silver. The Urban Gardens
and (newly-named) Artisan Gardens were also of a high standard with every garden
achieving a medal and five of the fifteen gardens receiving Gold.
It is often the Urban Gardens that visitors can relate to best, possibly due to
their smaller size, even though some are still more conceptual than realistic. This
year’s gardens included an outdoor carpet, wind turbines and an everlasting ice
sculpture. Form and structure really comes to the fore in many of these smaller
gardens with the Land’s End Across the Pond Garden designed by Adam Frost being
an excellent example of how to blend plants with hard landscaping. Adam uses materials
in new and interesting ways for example polished concrete pads ‘floating’ over water.
It is by pushing boundaries in show gardens that designers can introduce such concepts
to their clients with the confidence in their ability to make it work in a practical
way.
The challenge to designers of the Artisan Gardens is to work sustainably using an
artisan approach to their design, build and materials. The smallest gardens on the
site, they are much loved by the public. Although sometimes thoroughly modern, it
is here that can often be found the more natural gardens with planting evoking a
wild and uncultivated environment. Recreations of quaint cottages or derelict sheds
are not uncommon and this year such an example was the garden by Kati Crome and
Maggie Huges, A Postcard from Wales. This time it was a dilapidated boathouse that
formed the backdrop to planting that although suggested some care from the owner
had also been left to grow a little wild. There was even a small muddy river on
which a boat sat waiting for the waters to rise again.
That is the clever thing about many of these gardens, no matter what their size,
they look so real. The attention to detail is phenomenal and the skill required
to create the designers’ vision has to be second-to-none to carry off the illusion.
However without the initial imagination and inspiration of the designers themselves
there would be no Chelsea Flower Show, so no matter which garden was the visitors’
favourite everyone should be very thankful that there are some very talented people
who love to design gardens for us to enjoy.
© Sharon
Brown 28th May 2011