by Amanda Hurrell | May 22, 2013 | Your Stories
Behind the scenes at Chelsea Flower Show 2013 (press day)
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show celebrates its centenary birthday this week, and I was very lucky to receive a press pass for Monday 21 May for a sneak preview and behind the scenes look at the most prestigious event in the gardening calendar – a money can’t buy experience for any keen gardener!
100 years of the RHS
Normally I attend as the ‘paying public’ with my husband Ian, purchasing my ticket in the middle of winter with the anticipation of warmer days ahead. With it comes the hustle and bustle of crowds of people sweeping you along from the minute you walk through the entrance gates; the brass band playing in the distance; queuing for Pimms and the ladies toilets! But yesterday was a whole new experience for me and very surreal; almost like a personal VIP visit. Walking through the gates I was surprised at how quiet it was. I stopped for a few moments to take in the calm atmosphere with people putting finishing touches to their displays; watering gardens and trade stands being stocked with everything for the home and garden.
Chris Bearshaw’s garden
I visited the artisan retreats gardens first and walked into the BBC filming for their lunchtime slot with Kim Wilde; what a scoop! I watched as the film crew stood in front of each of the eight artisan gardens and Kim pointed out plants of interest and talked to each of the designers. I also met Toby Buckland from Gardeners World
and chatted to Woolcott and Smith (NSPPC: What Will We Leave? The Garden of Magical Childhood). Their garden is designed for adults and brings fond memories of our childhoods back, with marbles and teddy bears taking centre stage. Some of the plants were grown from plugs at home in Kent. Remember the space hopper from your own childhood? Woolcott and Smith gained lots of attention and famous signatures on theirs and plan to auction this at the end of the show!
Woolcott and Smith
For me the best part of Chelsea has to be the artisan retreat gardens; I look forward to walking around the corner and seeing small spaces filled with inspiration and colour. Talented garden designers working closely with charities and organisations, often to a tight budget for just ten days to complete these perfect little spaces. You don’t need to have acres of land to make a big impact; less is definitely more. Most people who visit Chelsea are keen gardeners on a small budget who want to take home a little piece of Chelsea and incorporate it into their gardens. This can be a packet of seeds; a small idea from one of the larger gardens or gaining inspiration through plant structure and colours.
Chelsea garden
The Great Pavillion was full of colour and exhibitors showing off their prize blooms. I love to wander through browsing through a mixture of growers old and new in search of plant inspiration. It’s a great place to see the plants up close and compare them side by side. Some of the displays are very extravagant and others subtle with the plants doing the talking.
Strawberries
The smell of the David Austin roses should be bottled for you to take home; it is truly amazing walking through the display and the mixed scents coming together as one. I even saw Miranda Richardson admiring the beautiful roses; she looked up at me and smiled for the camera (click)!
Miranda Richardson
The large show gardens were filled with cameras, wall to wall celebrities and garden designers being interviewed. It was a stark contrast to when I entered the grounds earlier in the day. The low lighting levels outside made the gardens jump out and draw you in; the colour more vibrant without the suns glare. Each garden easy to view and experience unlike on public days where you find yourself weaving in and out to get a front row seat! Instead photographers lined up calling celebrities to look their way to get the best shot. It’s quite funny walking around smiling and saying hello to people you recognise then realising it was Kirsty Allsopp or Ringo Starr!
Kim Wilde
The Conversation Garden was small and intended to be visual, it invited you to walk around the two pools symbolising social interaction and reflection. I like the idea of re-siting the garden after Chelsea to a permanent home in Tottenham, North London for everyone to enjoy. The SeeAbilty garden depicted the effects of sight loss with its creative use of colour contrasts of vibrant greens and purples. The Ginkgo biloba trees drawing your attention to the centre of the garden where a circular slate area representing the pattern of the eye’s iris – very creative and eye catching! The Homebase Garden ‘Sowing the seeds of Change’ was my overall favourite. The colours, the dividing spaces, interplanting of vegetables with perennials, and the handmade working beehive made of green oak, just stunning in every direction.
SeeAbility garden
Gardening trends have changed over the past 100 years but some things are truly British – like roses, sweet peas, strawberries (and gnomes?) And the best bit about visiting Chelsea Flower Show after such a long winter is getting your gardening mojo back. Remembering why you love gardening, be it pottering about on a Sunday afternoon; grabbing a precious 10 minutes watering the veg patch before work. Every gardener can take home a little bit of Chelsea this year; what would you take home?
Learn more about Amanda by checking out her blog over on Eight-by-Six, or by visiting her Instagram account @eightbysix
by Holly Taylor | May 20, 2013 | Gardening News
The day has come.
After more than a year of planning, the most prestigious gardening event of the year has finally opened its doors. The show isn’t yet open to the public, but I’ve been lucky enough to get a sneak preview!
Preparing for the day ahead
Putting the finishing touches to the gardens
Being in the showground at 7am on Press Day has really allowed me to get up close and personal with each of the gardens and, more excitingly, many of the highly polished plants that clothe each impressive nursery stand in the floral marquee! Naturally, I firstly made a beeline for our Chelsea Plant of the Year 2013 hopeful, Nasturtium ‘Fruit Salad’. Despite a difficult, and changeable, few weeks of weather, we’ve managed to get this safely into flower, and it’s looking pretty darned good! The nice, bushy plants are literally covered in the highly unique, bicolour, serrated blooms – it’s like no other nasturtium you’ve ever seen before. It has a fragrance too, and the warmer it is, the more spicy it becomes! The results will be announced later today, so keep your fingers crossed for us. I must admit I’m a bit nervous about a particularly pretty clematis though, so it seems we have stiff competition this year.
Our hopes for plant of the year 2013
Each year, there are always plenty of ‘buzz’ plants – plants that just sparkle – whether they’re in the floral marquee or as part of a planting. So far, and it’s only 11am, so I may well discover more, I’m really feeling hardy geraniums. One of my favourite plantings is on the Laurent-Perrier garden, where white and blue hardy geraniums create a bank of colour, underplanted with creeping cornus and, further along, a low-growing weigelia. The colours are also very soft and serene, a stark contrast to the vivid pinks of a corner of the Hillier garden in the floral marquee. This garden is named the ‘Risk Garden’ and is designed with the intention of showing how you have to take chances in the plants you choose, jazz up your garden and decorate it as you would a room indoors. Be brave!
Hardy geraniums in the Laurent-Perrier garden
Low-growing cornus in the Laurent-Perrier garden
The Hillier Risk Garden
Chelsea Flower Show really brings together the best of UK horticulture; all in one marquee, the cream of the crop congregate with their phenomenal expertise and plant knowledge, which reflect their skill. Kevock Garden, from outside Edinburgh has 2 wow plants for me – Primula Moonshine, a shimmering black, nodding primula, and what must be the most photographed bloom, Meconopsis puniceus.
The talk of Chelsea – Primula ‘Moonshine’
The most photographed plant at Chelsea could be Meconopsis puniceus
Well, I hope that gives you a brief taster of the first day, I’ll be sure to scribble down some more notes later today. But now, I’ve got more plant hunting to do!
Here are some more highlights in pictures…
Airy planting in the Arthritis Research Trust garden
It’s all about shape in the Stop the Spread garden
Sumptuous hyacinths
Innovative planting for strawberries
Clematis ‘Crystal Fountain’ is a perennial favourite
by Rebecca Tute | May 14, 2013 | Gardening News
Chelsea Flower Show entries – another Plant of the Year award for Thompson & Morgan?
After last year’s exciting win at RHS Chelsea Flower Show with the spectacular foxglove ‘Illumination Pink’, Thompson & Morgan announces its contenders for this year’s Plant of the Year award.
Poppy ‘Plum Pudding’
Poppy ‘Plum Pudding’
This is a new variety from the Thompson & Morgan breeding programme. ‘Plum Pudding’ rights the ‘wrongs’ of well-known ‘Patty’s Plum’: it’s a similar fabulous colour, but it is stronger stemmed, longer flowering – often re-blooming – and its colour doesn’t fade. What’s more, it’s grown from seed, so gardeners will get double the plants they would have had with ‘Patty’s Plum’ for the same amount of money!
The story: Over 5 years Thompson & Morgan selected on the best and most floriferous plants from some poppy seedlings; ones with strong stems, the longest-lasting flowers and those that offered repeat autumn flowering. The result is ‘Plum Pudding’. Every large stunning bloom has a strong ‘blotch’ and is slow to fade in colour. The big blowsy flowers also attract bees to the garden.
Nasturtium ‘Fruit Salad’
Nasturtium ‘Fruit Salad’
Very different to annual nasturtiums – much more compact and ‘better behaved’ in the garden – this is the first bicolour nasturtium with serrated petals. Bred to be sterile, plants will bloom for a much longer time than any other nasturtium and the spectacular bicolour blooms are uniquely perfumed with a lovely ‘daffodil-like’ fragrance.
The story: In 2001, a customer sent Thompson & Morgan an unusual nasturtium with serrated petals rather than the traditional round ones. T&M’s plant breeders crossed this original plant and created a variety with serrated petals on a cream and red bicolour with striking dark foliage. The flower’s fragrance was an unexpected bonus. The compact habit of ‘Fruit Salad’ makes it ideal for hanging baskets and climbing frames whilst the edible flowers are perfect for spicing up summer salads.
Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.
by Holly Taylor | Apr 30, 2013 | Michael Perry's Gardening Blog
I’m like a kid in a sweet shop when it comes to plants.. Well, there’s no better sweet shop than the RHS Chelsea Flower Show! Even if you don’t know your tulip from your tropaeolum, it’s hard not to be enthralled by this prestigious show, which will be in its centenary year when it opens on 21st May.
Let me take you back to my very first visit as a 16 year old trainee plant nut… from the very moment I stepped over the threshold, clutching my ticket stub and armed with notepad and pocket camera, I don’t think I had any idea of the sensual journey I was about to start…
Magnificent
From 8am, visitors spill into the show, instantly filling the avenues with enthusiasm, excitement and horticultural camaraderie. It’s fair to say that most make their way straight to the main marquee, for this is where the smorgasbord of plants and flowers awaits. A destination so popular that it now needs directional signs, much like Ikea!
Strawberry towers – just imagine how good they smell!
Every sense here is teased, tousled, massaged. Whether its your eyes when you see the towering spikes of the highest quality lupins, or your nose when you experience the fragrance of the sweetest strawberries, arranged in vertical barrels like beacons of fruity colour. It’s an unbelievable fragrance that needs to be experienced for real!
Breathtaking lupins
Other iconic sights in the main marquee include the almost steroid-packed, 6 feet, yes SIX feet tall, delphiniums and the gorgeous auricula theatres, where these delicate, brightly coloured little gems are set off perfectly against black wooden backing. There are also the great horticultural achievements of those ‘out of season’ displays. A perfect example is the majestic display of hyacinths, grown with specialist skill in order to flower out of sync with their natural behaviour! It’s these elements that make preparing for Chelsea displays so utterly nerve-wracking!
6-feet tall delphiniums!
Visiting gardens and flower shows is an experience like no other; friends, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, gardening rivals, they’re all here, either on their tiptoes to see the latest Laurent-Perrier garden, or playfully fighting it out over which species that meconopsis is. Gardeners can be some of the most competitive people!
Hyacinths in bloom… in May
Of course, it’s easy to get so wrapped up in the plant marquee that you forget there’s a whole host of other stimulation outdoors – the show gardens.
Stunning show gardens
Each year, a wide range of companies sponsor some stimulating gardens. Some are often a little bit ‘Marmite’ (you either love them or hate them!), but do you know what, it’s gets you talking at least!! To see the best of gardens, I recommend getting into the show early. Or being tall!
So how is Thompson & Morgan involved in the show this year? Well, we are still glowing from our Best New Plant win for Foxglove ‘Illumination Pink’ in 2012.
This is an incredible plant, bred by Thompson & Morgan. Its a plant that rights all the wrongs usually associated with foxgloves. Firstly, it flowers for SIX months without pause – usual foxgloves can only spit out a month’s worth of blooms, if that! Secondly, it is a hardy perennial – foxgloves are usually biennial and die out after they flower! Lastly, the colours are some that you have NEVER seen before, like a basket of tropical fruit!
Foxglove ‘Illumination Pink’ – Best New Plant 2012
And, this year, we’ll have some more sure shots for this coveted prize, careful growing is taking place as we speak, getting plants all preened for show day. We’ve revolutionised another perennial border plant too. But, I won’t spoil the surprise, you’ll have to visit the show yourself to see them!
by Rebecca Tute | Feb 12, 2013 | Gardening News
The RHS has announced that its 100-year ban on garden gnomes is to be lifted!
Gnomes welcome at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show… but only this year
To mark the centenary of the Chelsea Flower Show, celebrities have been invited to decorate and paint gnomes, which will feature in the show before being auctioned off to raise money for the RHS Campaign for School Gardening. Dame Maggie Smith, Rob Brydon and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen have already confirmed that they’ll be decorating gnomes for the campaign. 150 of the ‘decorated gentlemen’ will also be lined up in parade for inspection by the Queen!
The Chelsea Flower Show manual prohibits the use of ‘brightly coloured mythical creatures’, which includes fairies, pixies and gnomes. The main reason for the ban is that these items (including balloons, bunting and flags) distract visitors from the plants. Gnomes have been the source of minor disputes within the show for many years, with many people saying that the ban is down to snobbery and that the gnomes are too tacky for the presitgious show. Every year people dressed up as gnomes stage peaceful protests against the ban. Show garden creators, including herb garden expert Jekka McVicar, have even been known to sneak gnomes into their displays.
But don’t get too excited – gnomes are only allowed in show gardens for the duration of this year’s Chelsea Flower Show. Once it’s over, the old rules come back into place and gnomes will be banished once more…
Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.
Recent Comments