We started off by looking at the small show gardens in the Ranelagh Gardens area of the show ground, since experience teaches that they are quiet early on, and packed later. Then we looked at some of the large show gardens, then the great marquee. After a break for Pimms and our packed lunches we divided forces for a while, as we do every year, so that I can inspect the stands in the marquee in minute detail, while the Systems Administrator strides around looking at things more impressionistically at a pace less crippling to the back. We met again at the war memorial, which is always our default meeting position since it is not going to have moved, and showed each other things the other had missed, and I caught up on some stands in the grand marquee I'd not had time to look at. We had a final look at the show gardens, and I bought four more glass leaves to hang in our front garden. Then we set off home, just ahead of the rush hour, and I couldn't believe I'd been at the show for seven hours, which proves I was enjoying myself.
We had a lovely day. Chelsea is always done magnificently, so there is lots to see. Good weather helps, as it is nicer looking at show gardens in warm sunshine than drizzle, and you can eat your picnic in the Ranelagh gardens, and the marquee doesn't get so horribly crowded as when everybody is inside at once sheltering from the elements. Public transport working properly helps too, as it takes the edge off the day to arrive later than you'd planned, when the crowds have built up, because you were stuck somewhere, or take ages to get home. So it was a very successful outing, and all being well we'll be going again next year.
In terms of show gardens it was not a vintage Chelsea. We both felt that, while beautifully executed, they were conservative in terms of design. Grid based layouts with slab internal walls, straight line paths, big boulders, rills, yup, seen all those before. Purple, orange and lime green colour schemes. Yes, I definitely saw plenty of those last year. Lots of Gold medals were awarded, and the winning show gardens were lovely, but on safe and familiar territory. There was very little that we thought was surprising or felt like the start of an influential new trend. Cleve West's large garden that won best in show was about the most conservative of them all. Actually, we were pleased that won, because the sponsor's Chairman is a friend from our City days. His wife was on the stand when we were there, playing the part of the Chairman's wife to perfection, but she didn't see us in the crowd.
Matrix planting is in. Forget groups of three, or five, or drifts. The same plant repeated randomly through the whole expanse of planting is the trendy Chelsea way to do it. That will be a legacy of the New Perennials movement. Wild flowers are in, and good insect plants. Orange geums are popular for the second year running, whereas the dark red Cirsium rivulare 'Atropurpureum' is on the wane, having been all over Chelsea like a rash a few years back. Orlaya grandiflora, used by Tom Stuart Smith a couple of years ago when nobody knew what it was, including one of the girls handing out blurb on his garden, is now everywhere. The most surprising new fave plants, to me, were the variants on Centaurea montana. The common or garden blue version of this good natured ornamental knapweed was popular in the years after the last war. Margery Fish writes of it, and it grew in the garden my parents bought when I was a child, which had been planted up by a very keen cottage gardener. When I first wanted to acquire it, about twenty five years ago, I had great difficulty tracking down plants or even seed, it was so out of fashion. At this year's Chelsea it is everywhere, in shades of pink, mauve, and deep purple, but not blue. The blue is still the nicest, I think.
The Diarmuid Gavin tower was just silly, but by now I don't mind that, regarding him being silly as part of the Chelsea tradition. Andy Sturgeon's design for M&G bothered me, in that it featured internal stone walls peppered with expensive laser cut circular holes. I think these were meant to echo the metal sculpture made out of copper rings (that weaves through the garden and enlivens it without challenging its formality, according to the programme), but I couldn't help thinking they symbolised the holes the current economic difficulties had shot in my portfolio, and the Systems Administrator said they reminded him of bullet holes, and he felt that Kate Adie ought to be there, in a flak jacket. On the other hand, the garden by a Korean designer based on the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea, which featured the rusting detritus of war and scorched tree trunks amidst a tangle of Korean plants, was completely wonderful. Even among the crowds and bustle and BBC cameras and ice-creams and Pimms, it held a haunting air of loss and separation and history.
The grand marquee was beautiful, and I saw some new and fascinating plants, as well as old favourites like the auriculas (them reckless plants, as Mrs Fish's gardener used to call them) and Bloms tulips (another Gold medal. Phew). And I saw Roy Lancaster, who is one of my heroes, and got advice from the proprietor of Broadleigh Bulbs about my non-flowering Iris unguicularis. The marquee is always wonderful, and probably my favourite bit.
And now we are going to watch it all again on the television.
Supposed that office carpet cleaning service doesn’t exist this day and you have hectic schedule would you want to file a leave or find person and pay wages just to do this now that we are all professionals.
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