What I like doing best at Chelsea is looking for ideas that I could replicate in my own garden one day. And as I may finally have one (fingers crossed – it’s all going through at the moment), this was a year when I could actually walk around noting ideas that I could actually put into practice. Hurrah!
There were quite a few roses around this year, and I liked the informal, lax habit of the Rosa rugosa in the Brewin Dolphin garden (above).
I liked Christopher Bradley-Hole’s garden but felt I’d seen many elements of it before – the multi-stemmed trees, blocks of box and yew, the meadowy planting, the cow parsley… Not only in previous Chelsea gardens but also at the Canal House in Amsterdam last year. That said, I love a multi-stemmed tree, neatly clipped box, and a bit of meadowy planting, and would definitely like to include them in my own garden.
I also the loved the way that edible and ornamental plants were mingled together in Adam Frost’s ‘Sowing the Seeds of Change’ garden for Homebase. I will definitely be doing this – I want to cram in as many edibles as possible.
I loved this simple oak bench in the Un Garreg (One Stone) garden. It may look simple but I bet it cost a small fortune.
The pebble path in the Healing Garden was designed to be walked on barefoot, stimulating reflexology pressure points.
Ponds scare me. They look complicated to get right, and I’ve seen a lot of bad ones. But this looks really doable – it’s shallow (so not too much digging) and the pebbles cover a multitude of sins.
And for sheer flight of fancy, who could resist this kids’ treehouse in the NSPCC garden? I think it made everyone want to be a kid again.
The most immediate thing I took away was a small hangover, having enjoyed myself so much that I celebrated the end of the day in a nice bar. Now trying to stop myself going out searching for irises all afternoon in an effort to imitate those in Roger Platt’s garden.
Wow, I’m impressed – I don’t think I’ve ever left Chelsea with a hangover! You go girl!
I love the pebble path.
was a good show, with lots of interesting ideas!
Funny you should mention the Telegraph Garden, A friend of mine built it, and was agast at what he called ‘that flintstone garden’ ( the australian garden ) won best in show.
Shows one how extreme and different peoples tastes can be. I liked both, but as a tree fern fanatic you can guess which one I liked better….
I think I can guess! I’ll confess that I didn’t really look too closely at the Australian garden – billabongs have no place in my life!
I saw a small multi-stemmed tree that impressed me at a yellow book open garden last weekend – Aesculus pavia ‘Koehnei’ (was ‘Rosea Nana’). It’s very slow growing. Let me know if you find somewhere that sells it!
Sounds interesting – will have to look out for it…
So many ideas here, particularly that pebble path. I think my clients would absolutely love it. Thanks for a great blog post.