In the weeks before the horticultural circus arrives in SW1, the weather is often a matter of great concern for those who grow and show at Chelsea Flower Show. This year it played ball, perhaps too much for those toiling under the unrelenting sun. The clear blue skies and high light levels benefitted those gardens with a Mediterranean planting palette.
Here the gaps between the plants are as important as the plants themselves, the gravel mulch allowing individual specimens to shine and creating a look that is perhaps more relatable to a ‘normal’ garden and more natural than the ‘overstuffed’ show gardens of old. My first Chelsea show garden in 2015 was a gravel garden; so, yes, I’m biased.
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Delight in the dry
The Addleshaw Goddard: Freedom to Flourish Garden designed by husband-and-wife Carey Design Studio, dazzled in the heat. Just one of the many excellent smaller show gardens in the revamped show categories, this Norfolk coastline inspired gravel garden featured meticulously executed hard landscaping, including gabions that presented a vignette of vernacular materials; stone, tile and brick shards topped with locally harvested reeds. With exquisite planting to match the hardscape excellence, it was no surprise it scooped a Gold medal, Best Construction and Small Garden of the Year in category.
The concrete in the Gold-winning British Red Cross ‘Here for Humanity’ garden could have looked leaden in gloomy conditions. But this contemporary twist on the traditional alpine garden, with stacked planters and stepping stones bringing Giant’s Causeway vibes, while highlighting the vital work of the sponsor, was another beneficiary of the sunny show. Designers John Warland and Tom Bannister used species from Morocco and Turkey, where Red Cross disaster relief has proven so important in the wake of devastating earthquakes in both countries.
Speaking of leaden, the award for most intriguing, if slightly disgusting historical reference goes to Dave Green’s The London Square Chelsea Pensioners Garden. With a cossetting seating area under swooping glue-laminated oak beams – inspired by the design of the stable yard in the Royal Hospital – the Pensioner- (and visitor-) pleasing planting was to the fore.
A handsome lead water tank provided a gently distracting background noise but wasn’t just there for the ripple effect. Back in day, lead tanks filled with Thames water would provide the only source of drinking water at the Royal Hospital. That anyone made it to pensionable age was surely a miracle.
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- Tackle HIV Challenging Stigma Garden
- Boodles Raindance Garden
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- The British Red Cross 'Here for Humanity' Garden
Back to its best
Under the iconic structure of the Great Floral Pavilion the sense of a return to form was very much in evidence. Being one of the first inside the hallowed faux canvas before the show opens has always been one of my greatest pleasures. The combination of aromas from flowers and fruit; the damp rising from freshly watered displays of mind-boggling diversity – it’s a heady brew.
If the Covid pandemic hit potential garden sponsors hard, it knocked the stuffing out of many of the specialist growers and horticultural groups that have made the Pavilion such a horticultural wonder. But this year the displays were back to their exuberant best, with stalwarts like Raymond Evison Clematis, David Austin Roses and Peter Beales Roses bringing their respective flower show might.
Stands of floral exoticism from Grenada and South Africa jostled alongside pond plants from Lincolnshire and desert plants from the Bahrain Garden Club. I was particularly taken by the display of heritage varieties on the She Grows Veg display, which deftly demonstrated not only the scope of heritage veg but also how they can be assembled to create an installation every bit as colourful as an herbaceous border.
Quality over quantity
While there were fewer big show gardens than previous years, the quality was certainly not lacking. Again, I was drawn to those where the gaps in the planting were as important as the plants themselves. Tom Hoblyn’s Silver-Gilt winning Hospice UK Garden of Compassion combined dry stone walling and steam bent, windfall oak benches with rare and beautiful planting.
Tom always brings a cerebral quality to his Chelsea gardens and it’s a shame this was, apparently, his swansong. Among the plants in his garden were treasures he had grown from seed such as Malabaila aurea, a vivid yellow umbellifer with extraordinary seed heads, and Delphinium peregrinum, a supremely delicate larkspur and a native of Turkey, reputedly used as a cure for snakebites. Tom’s impressively floriferous climbing roses ‘Sally Holmes’ will surely be a takeaway for many visitors.
The future of gardens and horticulture have been reoccurring themes for several years now, and seemed even more prescient at this, the driest Chelsea Flower Show in living memory. For the Avanade Intelligent Garden, Tom Massey and Je Ahn returned with another great collaboration, scooping Gold and the Best Construction award.
The garden combined repurposed materials – including paving and benches from Chelsea gardens past – and a carbon negative fully compostable building created by craftsman Sebastian Cox and featuring wood-pulp-and-mycelium-infused cladding.
Sensors applied to the trees enabled their health to be monitored, even allowing a conversation to be initiated with them. Species such as Zanthoxylum simulans and Ziziphus jujuba may be novelties to British gardeners today, but in the gappy gardens of the future they may well be commonplace.
Final thoughts?
Which is all very well, but what you’ll really want to know is, was this a ‘classic’ Chelsea? The Pavilion was the best I’ve seen for years, and as the beating heart of the show and as a reflection on the state of the industry, its continued health is vital.
There was certainly a higher level of consistency in the show gardens than since before the pandemic. In recent years the RHS has had to face criticism of the show’s sustainability or lack thereof, and the themes around sustainability now run much deeper than before, steering the designs rather than just adding green gloss.
For me this is the greatest strength of Chelsea; the ability to inspire and educate at scale and with unprecedented reach. The fact so many gardens managed to deliver sustainable themes while still managing to look gorgeous provides hope for the future, not just of the show but our own gardens in these challenging, and presently very dry, times.
Matthew Wilson is a BBC R4 GQT panellist and a garden and landscape designer based in Rutland.