I always feel as if I’m stepping into another world when I cross the threshold of RHS Chelsea Flower Show, sponsored by The Newt, Somerset. The entrance to the preview day is via the Thames Gate, so I get off the tube at Sloane Square, and walk towards the river. It’s 8.15am and there are commuters heading to work, unfeasibly good looking runners, and parents and nannies shepherding their charges to school via pushchair, bicycle and scooter. The Thames flows broad and serene, sparkling in the early morning sun. A sharp turn right into the show ground, a brief wait in the queue to collect my press pass, and the hustle and bustle of daily life gives way to activity of an entirely different nature.
The finishing touches are being placed on show gardens, stands and hospitality areas. Cameras are in place for early morning filming, with cranes for high shots, crews with clip boards, presenters taking their places, and roped-off areas keeping access clear. I pop into the busy press room for a quick coffee, scoop my notebook from my backpack and set off into the buzzing heart of the show.
Where to go first? It’s always a tough one. I love to see the Sanctuary Gardens in the gentler morning light, so that’s my first destination. As the day progresses, I will walk around all the show gardens methodically (although you can’t always enter them at this stage), then I’ll peel off into the Grand Pavilion to see the wonderful plant nurseries and their wares, plus extravagant floristry displays and the Plant of the Year, one of my favourite features. I’m looking for themes, stories, ideas and inspiration that I will pass on to readers of my column in Modern Gardens, via my Instagram feed, and as talking points for the gardeners who I’ll be interviewing over the coming year.
The Netflix Bridgerton garden is causing a stir. Designed by Holly Johnston, it contains many trees, with multi-stemmed silver birches framing the main view. Trees are definitely a theme at the show this year. As for this garden: I must confess that I have never watched Bridgerton, and I don’t have Netflix, but the design was charming and I particularly liked the Derbyshire limestone moon gate and the pale fringes of romantic white foxgloves at the path edges.
The Sanctuary Gardens always appeal to me, because that is exactly how I view my own space, and I know that many other people do, too. How pretty is this little nook in the ‘Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees,’ garden for Killik & Co, designed by Baz Grainger? This look could be recreated on the smallest patio, with a table and chairs enclosed by tall spires of lupins, foxgloves and ornamental grasses creating a semi-transparent cocoon, and the fragrances of mint, lavender, rosemary and fennel placed to bring aromatic relief from modern life.
Many of the show gardens at Chelsea carry messages and this year was no exception. I thought it was done with a lighter touch than at some previous shows, and this, for me at least, works best. The Freedom from Torture Garden: A Sanctuary for Survivors summed this up well, the undulating willow sculptures creating different zones, a water rill offering irrigation and a sense of calm, drought-resistant planting, and a sunken communal bread oven creating a focus for people to gather and share food and stories. This was fully operational, and trays of fragrant food were being offered as I passed by.
The main walkway at Chelsea teems with sights, sounds and spectacle. I heard a gospel choir, saw two magnificent drag queens teetering along in enormous dresses, spotted numerous celebrity faces, including Joan Collins, Brian May, Mary Berry and the Jo’s Whiley and Brand, and enjoyed looking at the bright flocks of fluttering floral dresses. The show gardens are always busy, lots of photo calls happening, with charity ambassadors taking centre stage.
At this point, the judging results are not known, so it’s fun to hazard a guess as to who will take a gold or the ‘Best in Show.’ I hardly ever get it right, but I did think that The National Garden Scheme (NGS) Garden designed by Tom Stuart-Smith would do well. Calm and subtle, the hazel copse with a naturalistic planting scheme and the most delightful green oak timber hut at its heart, radiated serenity and the calm, caring philosophy which is at the heart of the NGS. This year, the NGS celebrates almost 100 years of opening private gardens to the public, raising millions of pounds for nursing and health charities, and serving a fine cup of tea and slice of cake in the process.
As ever, I marvelled at the skill needed to create a mature woodland glade from scratch. It was good to hear that many of the plants had been grown by NGS volunteers.
I did love this garden, and it won a gold medal. But my heart was stolen by another. My vote for 2024 was The Octavia Hill Garden by Blue Diamond with the National Trust, designed by Ann-Marie Powell and the Blue Diamond team. Pioneering social reformer Octavia Hill, a founder of the National Trust, believed that ‘the healthy gift of air and the joy of plants and flowers,’ were essential for everyone to lead a good life. She campaigned to improve urban housing and protect green spaces, and this garden reflects her beliefs. It has been designed as if it was built on an urban brownfield site. Bursting with wildlife-friendly plants, uplifting colour, water features, it also had some stunning, chunky hand-carved benches. I was drawn to the warm mix of colours, and the tapestry of planting, deliberately messy and unmanicured around the edges.
Loving the layers of the Octavia Hill Garden.
It was hard to leave this one, but I had much more to see!
On to the Balcony and Container gardens, which as a small garden champion, always provide so many ideas for me to take home. The standout here was The Addleshaw Goddard Junglette Garden, inspired by the designers’ own north London balconies. Against a dark background, a tree fern and exotic palms rose from a tumble of hot orange and spicy yellow nasturtiums. Fatsia japonica and F.polycarpa make up a sort of forest canopy.
I asked co-designer Jewlsy Mathews about the ideas behind the design. She told me that it was inspired by her international travels, with partner Mike McMahon. She had seen nasturtiums growing wild in the Azores. Although these flowers are easy to grow from seed, mine have always been beset by blackfly. Jewlsy recommended squirting them with a mix of washing up liquid and water, although she did say that they are part of biodiversity. “We allow it, our balcony is frequently covered in spiders’ webs.”
The Ecotherapy Garden designed by Tom Bannister won this category, and it was impressive. A small courtyard with a hanging green garden and a cold plunge pool taking centre stage with lush green planting. I loved the principles, and its pleasing symmetry and calmness. Personally, though a plunge pool would be marvellous, I couldn’t live without colour!
On my way back to the Pavilion to seek out a flower fix, I came across an intriguing structure among the House Plant Studios, always a beautiful section of the show, tucked away in the shadier part of the grounds in Ranelagh Gardens on Swain Way.
Here was a beautiful greenhouse, provided by Malvern Garden Buildings, filled to the brim with houseplants. I could hear voices inside, so I stepped through the door. This is the Glasshouse Effect, a representation of the first growing place in prison. It’s a not-for-profit social enterprise which aims to introduce women to horticulture in prison, offering training and later resettlement support with the aim of cutting reoffending. And it works! Participants in The Glasshouse scheme have a nought per cent reoffending rate.
Plants are nurtured and grown by women for commercial sale, and sold through a website, www.theglasshouse.co.uk and a shop near the prison in Cranbrook, Kent. The recorded voices I had heard were from women in prison explaining how they felt, and how the scheme had helped them to turn their lives around. The great thing was that some of these women had helped to create the Chelsea exhibit. In fact, I spoke to one of them, who had been involved in helping to design and build the show feature. This is such a wonderful scheme which deserves wider recognition.
The Houseplant Studios are a lovely addition to the show, I enjoyed all of them for their smaller scale, imaginative approach to the joy of growing.
Time to move to the Great Pavilion, passing by Sarah Raven’s lovely little potting shed of goodness. The lady herself was in residence, and the planting bore all the hallmarks of her recognisable approach. Bold, bright colours, amazing shapes and inside, some very covetable items to buy. The ribbed water butt is a beauty, and available to buy on the website. It’s on my Wishlist!
I love the stands inside the Pavilion, particularly the exhibits from various plant nurseries from across the UK. And there is plenty to look at, with floristry installations, more show gardens and all sorts of activities taking place. I heard a choir of Chelsea Pensioners singing God Save the King, along with Alfie Boe! Quite the spectacle.
Florist Judith Blacklock’s hanging bicycles.
I’m going to show a selection of my favourite plant combinations now. Among the credits: Daisy Roots, Harespring Cottage Plants and Kent Wildflower Seeds.
There are more show gardens in the Great Pavilion. I loved the Sue Ryder Grief Kind Garden, designed by Katherine Holland, but sadly failed to get a decent shot of it. However, I did manage to capture the Bowel Research UK Microbiome Garden, by Chris Hull and Sid Hill, exploring the link between a healthy landscape, a healthy gut and a healthy mind. I loved the edible meadow, so delicate with its mix of Bistorta officinalis, camassia and Lupin luteus.
And some more sights from the Pavilion area….
The David Austin Roses stand always wins a gold medal, and rightly so. It’s just stunning. A new rose, ‘Emma Bridgewater’ was launched at the show, and having seen it and smelt its fragrance, I can recommend it.
Elsewhere, well, my impression of Chelsea this year is there was less chocolate box twee style and more naturalistic planting. There was still plenty of British romantic look, but it had a fresh, modern edge. Planting is informed by sustainability and that message is never far away.
By 3pm, the site is cleared of journalists to make way for the King and Queen. By now, I was succumbing to a cold and cough virus that had been nipping my heels all day, so it was definitely time to leave. I had been very grateful to The Newt hospitality suite, where I was able to pop in from time to time and recharge my batteries, as well as those of my phone. The delicious food, artisan cheeses, pickled vegetables, pâtés, sourdough bread, and thin slices of cold roast beef, kept me going! My tried and tested Chelsea ‘uniform’ of a cool cotton dress and comfy trainers also did me well.
I headed out through the gates, where the paparazzi were waiting for the rich and famous to emerge (Mylene Klass was posing up a storm), and out into the King’s Road. All the shops are decorated for Chelsea in Bloom which is a lovely touch.
I have a little post-Chelsea routine now, which is to take myself off to the Peter Jones cafe for a large pot of tea and a flapjack before setting off for the station. I sit and mull over the day, the incredible things I have seen, the stories I have heard, the people I’ve met, and the plants I’ve loved and been enchanted by.
For me, RHS Chelsea Flower Show is about escapism, imagination, ideas and beauty. Yes, it is relatively expensive to buy a ticket, but no more than a concert or theatre ticket, or a night out at a restaurant. Yet the spell it weaves always stays with me for the longest time. And you can’t really put a price on that.