Chris Beardshaw's Chelsea 2012 design recreates Furzey Gardens in the New Forest |
Next year's show looks
like it's going to be a vintage edition: it's the 99th
Chelsea, and they still haven't stopped coming up with new ways of
shaking it all up a bit.
There are 18 full-sized show gardens, around
15 small gardens (though most have yet to be finalised), 107
exhibitors in the Great Pavilion, fencing, caravans, Formula One
motorcars and a demilitarised zone.
So without further ado,
here are the highlights for Chelsea 2012:
Show gardens:
The rollcall of
designers for next year's Chelsea reads like a who's who of
gardening.
Sarah Price, rarely out of the headlines these days what with her 1/2-mile long garden for the 2012 Olympics
Park, is designing her first solo Main Avenue garden for the Daily
Telegraph (she did a City Garden in 2007 which won a silver medal).
Can't wait to see her planting which is unfailingly dreamy.
Joe Swift is another
first-timer, and long overdue, too: his design for Homebase has
frames of cedar running through the garden on an angle, giving a
double-framed view along and diagonally across the garden, with
Prunus serrula and Cornus mas emphasising natural woodland-style
planting.
Korean designer Jihae
Hwang – memorable for winning best Artisan Garden with an
exquisitely beautiful outdoor lavatory this year – is graduating to
full show garden with a recreation of the demilitarised zone between
North and South Korea; and Jo Thompson's first full-sized show garden
has an Airstream caravan called Doris and a hammock: the ultimate
staycation, and I can't help thinking the place you'll probably find
most gardening hacks hanging out on press day (there are rumours of a
fridge full of icecream and beer inside).
Andy Sturgeon's design for show sponsors M&G - though I have to say this doesn't remotely do it justice |
Chris Beardshaw is back
recreating a Hampshire garden cultivated by adult learners, and
there's another welcome return from Arne Maynard, known and revered
for his wonderfully sensitive, natural planting style, at Chelsea for
the first time in 12 years.
Tom Hoblyn's design: minimalism meets the Villa d'Este |
I would say something
about the small gardens if I could, but there's not much information
out there at the moment: all I know is that there's what they're
calling a 'large artisan garden' (oh please return to calling them
courtyard gardens, I do hate that name) by Japanese master Ishihara
Kazayuki, and it'll be a recreation of a garden in Nagasaki 50 years
ago. That alone is worth the trip to Ranelagh.
Great Pavilion:
The headline news here
is that Edulis, my all-time favourite unusual edibles nursery, is at
last making its debut at Chelsea. Be prepared to be wowed. Aeonium
lovers need look no further than the Trewidden exhibit: also
first-timers and bringing their collection of tender succulents with
them including several new home-bred varieties.
There will be
fencing displays at Hillier Nurseries, who also get the prize for worst pun of
the year with their exhibit title 'Duel and the Crown' (it's the
Queen's Diamond Jubilee... geddit?) And here's a snippet for Chelsea trivia fans: did you know that Ranelagh Gardens was the
venue for fencing tournaments right up until the Second World War?
Other things to look
out for:
- Fresh Gardens: It could only be a matter of time. Conceptual gardens have been stealing the show at Hampton Court for years; they dipped a toe (successfully, mostly) into Tatton under the 'Visionary Gardens' label and now Chelsea has taken the plunge and commissioned some of these most risky and challenging of gardens (and renamed the category, again).
- Sir Harry Veitch: Victorian nurseryman extraordinaire, and the owner of a truly enviable beard, celebrated by Plant Heritage this year
- Pot art: little plant pots are being painted even as I write by the great and the good in the world of gardening, to auction in aid of the RHS Campaign for School Gardening.
- Topiary: there is more. Not just Cleve's, and I believe a bit in Arne Maynard's, but a huge topiary sculpture in the Great Pavilion celebrating the Monaco Grand Prix, in the shape – you guessed it – of a Formula One racing car.
Mind you, they've
chosen a past master of the art in the unfailingly exciting and
thought-provoking Tony Smith, whose 'Green with...' garden looks very
odd (as all his do on plan) and is said to evoke the 'human emotions
of envy and desire'. The other one we were told about, 'Places for
People' by Noel Farrer, looked frankly safe; though I'll be ready to
be surprised on the day.
3 comments:
Would have loved to have been there. It looks a good lineup for next year.
Alan Titchmarsh will no longer be teasing Joe Swift about when he's going to have a show garden at Chelsea :o
I'm pleased to see Plant Heritage will be there - they've been such a highlight at Hampton Court for me.
NB Fellow Somerset resident of yours, HabitatAid will be making their debut in the Great Pavillion too.
Jo Thompson's caravan garden is bound to be popular!
What can I say? (Taking beer orders right now)
the designer and builder of furzey gardens chelsea flower show folly has a very strange blog
http://tinydoorsdotcom.blogspot.com/
please have a peek
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