I have been involved
twice at the Chelsea Flower Show with Nick Williams Ellis, winning
a Silver medal for the Jurassic Coast Garden, and a Gold and Best
in Courtyard for the Edible Playground. To compete on
the world stage along with gardeners from as far away as New
Zealand, South Africa and Japan was an exhilarating experience and
one that I intend to repeat soon, given half a chance.
Gardening at Chelsea
is more theatre than reality but every year there are one or two
things that inspire a new design idea. The latest Chelsea fashions
come and go as designers switch from heathers to grasses, from
formal to informal, from hot to cool flower colours and from
contemporary to traditional. These fashions do gradually
filter down into real life and, along with the continuous
introduction of new materials, can inspire something new and eye
catching.
Years ago a great
gardening friend told me of his own method of judging the Show
Gardens, having become a little disillusioned with the vagueness of
the RHS judges. He simply decided his winner on the basis of
which garden he would most like to sit within and read a book. I
have used the same method ever since and it has helped enormously
to make sense of all the gardening rhetoric. If you can bare the
crowds then Chelsea is still unique and very much worth a visit but
perhaps not every year.