This week saw the green-fingered amongst us descending on SW19 for the annual Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show.
Thousands gathered at the Royal Chelsea Hospital for the occasion, including King Charles, Queen Camilla, David Beckham, Kate Moss and Joanna Lumley, with the sun making a rare but appreciated appearance towards the end of the week. Here are some of the highlights from the show!
The King’s Foundation’s Curious Garden
The King was in attendance to visit the King’s Foundation’s Curious Garden, which was designed to reflect some of his key passions, including respecting nature and promoting traditional crafts. The garden featured a cottage designed in the likeness of the King’s Gloucestershire estate, Highgrove, with artisan objects like balls of yarn, pots of honey and dangling plants inside.
RHS Chelsea Garden of the Year
The RHS Chelsea Garden of the Year was The Campaign To Protect Rural England’s garden, which was called ‘On The Edge’. It was designed by Sarah Eberle, who has enjoyed a 50-year career, and came out of semi-retirement to create it. Its theme is the overlooked countryside on the edge of towns and cities, which can still very much support life, as is shown by the fallen tree, carved into a beautiful woman with flowers growing out of it, at its centre.
Lady Garden Foundation ‘Silent No More’ Garden
Also amongst the medal winners this year were The Lady Garden Foundation ‘Silent No More’ garden. Designed by Darren Hawkes, its purpose was to help tackle the stigma surrounding women's health, which The Lady Garden charity champions in its work. Guests at its unveiling included Bobby Braizer, the son of the late Jade Goody, who died from cervical cancer in 2009 aged just 27.
Royal Gnomes
This year saw the Royal Horticultural Society lift its ban on garden gnomes, only the second time it has happened in its history. Suffice to say, there were gnomes aplenty in The King’s Foundation’s Curious Garden, designed by Frances Tophill of Gardener’s World fame. The King was met with his own likeness in gnome form during his visit on Monday, as did Alan Titchmarch and David Beckham.
Celebrity roses
Kate Moss Rose
Who better to have a rose named after her, than the ultimate English rose herself, model Kate Moss? Norfolk-based Peter Beales unveiled a new breed of rose he had dedicated to the iconic beauty, which is cream with a pink outline that turns soft yellow as it blooms.
David Beckham Rose
Elsewhere, David Beckham also had a rose named after him by David Austin Roses. According to the description it is, “a medium sized bloom, deeply cupped, the outer petals gently upturned, opening from soft white with a hint of yellow to clear, fresh white.” The rose has been created in line with Beckham’s role as a patron of the King’s Foundation, and as such, proceeds from every sale go towards it.
The indoors came outdoors
One of the defining trends of this year’s show was the prevalence of gardens that featured outdoor kitchens, cosy sofas and summer houses. The Transient Garden, by Rebecca Lloyd Jones, had a cocooning snug-like space, with a corner sofa and blankets galore, for example. Meanwhile, A Little Garden of Shared Knowledge, one of the balcony gardens, featured an outdoor dining area, shelving and radio.
Water features take centre stage
While gardens often include a water feature, it felt like they really were a focal point in the vast majority of spaces this year, with shallow ponds, reflective pools, small waterfalls and sprinklers galore. The Tales from the River Bank garden, designed by Susie Kennedy and Kate Henning, was a particularly good example, which was inspired by a houseboat and featured an outdoor entertaining and cooking area.
Plants fit for climate change
Perhaps depressingly, there was a focus on drought-resistant plants throughout, including visions of what an English garden might look like in the future. One example of this was The Project Giving Back Garden, that had common thyme, a classic Mediterranean plant, often seen in dry climates like the south of France. Similarly, the Journey Beyond the Tracks: From Adelaide to Perth garden featured native Australian plants.
Urban landscapes
There was a distinctly urbane feel to many of the show gardens this year, with remnants of buildings, ironworks and other signs of former industrial life often used as a backdrop for the planting. This was seen most clearly in the winning garden by The Campaign To Protect Rural England.
Gardens for hobbies
There was, as there so often is, a keenness to emphasise the joys that can be found away from screens and in nature. As well as gardening itself as a hobby, there were also spaces that were littered with books, paints, sketching paper and cooking apparatus, to encourage spending time outside more wisely. The Cleary Gottlieb’s ‘Time For Creativity’ garden was a great example of this, with a greenhouse full of activities to choose from before walking along a winding pathway to the seating area.
Wild gardens
Gone were formal planting schemes and neat borders. Instead, in its place, there was a wild feel to gardens, with a mix of grasses and self-seeding plants of various colours, heights and textures creating a beautifully chaotic feel. The Killik & Co ‘A Seed in Time’ and The Eden Project ‘Bring Me Sunshine’ garden epitomised this trend, with a cacophony of colours and the sense that you might get lost amongst the long grasses.
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