This year the sun shone again for Chelsea. There for just after 8am the hoards had already descended (although this year it felt like far more people were there - not far off of the 150,000 people expected for the week). As a designer Chelsea has become a place of pilgrimage, but was it worth it?
The answer is most certainly yes, but I was for the first year left slightly wanting.
I have analysed this - and on reflection it did not result from not being able to use Diarmuid Gavin's slide! It was I think that many of the show gardens were not really gardens as I would define them. That is not necessarily a negative - simply not what I hoped for. My expectations were not met because this year more than ever before most are instead more self-consciously works of art - designed installations using natural materials to inspire or evoke memories (an aim which, conversely, is what a good garden should achieve!)
As an example I could use Adam Frost's garden: very well executed, with fine naturalistic planting, evoking Cornish memories - but very difficult to recreate without many hours of maintenance. Contrast this with his QVC garden in 2009 - which was much more a garden that I could envisage designing for a client.
Or from 2009:
So this year the overwhelming theme was of blousy naturalistic planting in landscape installations (inspired I am sure by Gold Medal successes from previous years).
I think this is why Cleve West pipped the other contenders to Best in Show. His garden mixed formality against a blousy planting of perennials and annuals - not a low maintenance space but a wealth of plants for the horticulturally skilled RHS audience in what was intended as a gardened space.
My personal favourite gardens, and parts of gardens, at Chelsea this year will appear in my next post. Happy Gardening.
matt haddon gardens (based in East Yorkshire)
Comments
My first time at the Chelsea Flower Show. I had the chance to go there before its opening. It was amazing to see the hustle and bustle of works in progress and such passion shown by builders and designers. I have been impressed by the quality and use of plants (but not surprised as English people are famous for their plants knowledge, even though they were some French nurseries too!).
The building process, I have to say, was more interesting than the end result for many of these gardens. Andy Sturgeon's garden inspired by Arts and Crafts combining English tradition, modernity and sensitivity as well as Ishihara Kazuyuki's attention to details (with whom I had a nice chat about material used) stood up whilst other gardens were polished and "politically correct" (apart from Quiet Time: DMZ Forbidden Garden, amongst others!).
This year has seen a new category called "Fresh Gardens". I think those are more innovative, provocative, sometimes they feel more like objects rather than spaces but always inspiring and "refreshing" (!). To me they represent a nice transition between the high maintenance, high budget and conservative gardens on display here and the low maintenance, non-sponsored, interrogating and creative gardens echoing our time to experiment at Chelsea Fringe.
Too many buds and not enough flowers. I do not think many of the teams got their timing right or perhaps did not have enough plants to select out those that were not up to the judges high standards. This is an easy one for the judges to spot and award a lower medal than perhaps the garden may have got otherwise. Maybe if designers are going for the art look they could forget the maxim - 'It is the Chelsea Flower Show gov.'