We watched tonight's Chelsea coverage on the TV, and it didn't feature lots of things I hadn't seen, which was a relief. I'm not so keen on the London Square garden as the BBC seems to be, not that I hated it, but I found it all a bit too white and glaring. The bench made me smile, though, or rather, my reaction to the bench. The catalogue (the RHS charges eight pounds for a catalogue nowadays. EIGHT POUNDS!!!) describes it thus: A unique and dynamic bench provides somewhere to sit and is also a piece of art in its own right.
For those of you who haven't been watching the telly and didn't see the bench, it is a large, L shaped, shiny steel structure, which niftily takes in a change in levels, and tails off into curly sculptural bits at both ends. It is curved in cross section, with a rolling back, and a seat that slopes so that you could lounge on it quite comfortably, as long as you had your feet on the floor to stop you sliding off, but couldn't lie down. And that was my first thought, when I saw it at the show yesterday, that the bench had been designed so that drunks and rough sleepers wouldn't be able to lie on it. On this evening's programme the designer explained her ideas, cue for shots of assorted London Squares, then the piece cut to the show, with her and presenter Joe Swift sitting on the giant bench. And immediately I thought it again, they've designed the bench so that people can't sleep on it.
A lot of urban street furniture is designed to repel sleepers. Those narrow wooden or metal benches at bus stops, railway shelters and in public parks: wide enough to perch your bum while you wait for the number 58, too narrow to lie down for the afternoon with a can of Strongbow. Same with the elegant wooden benches in many London parks, divided into individual spaces with wooden arms. The dividers are not there to prevent territorial disputes between alfresco sandwich-eating office workers. They are there to make sure you remain upright and respectable. I had never thought about this until a horticultural college trip to see the landscaping on a housing development in a not madly salubrious part of south London (we caught the Woolwich ferry, it was very exciting) and since then I have taken to noticing street furniture more than I used to.
Joe Swift did not ask Jo Thompson whether the curved bench was to keep the tramps off. Probably it wasn't, and she just thought that the curve was organic and attractive. Which it was, quite, if the bench hadn't been so shiny and the paving so white. At any rate, it was a more practical design than poor Carol Klein was lumbered with, being forced to talk about growing begonias in vertical walls. Indoors. Carol has run a commercial nursery, and knows her plants, and I am sure she is well aware that you, I, she, and approximately 99.99 per cent of the audience watching the programme are not going to install a vertical wall of 'Rex' or 'L'Escargot' or any other sort of giant leaved or otherwise ornamental foliage begonia in our houses. We're just not. We don't have the space, and there would be all sorts of practical issues over humidity levels and drips on the carpet. It isn't going to happen. On the other hand, we might like the look of the huge, multi-coloured, hairy leaves, and it would have been useful to tell us the basics of growing begonias at home. Like vaguely what sort of temperature or light levels they need or will tolerate, that sort of thing. For the record, I have tried some of the big leaved ones in the conservatory, and can tell you that they do not like overwintering in a room that's only just frost free, in damp air. It was a sufficiently convincing failure that I probably won't waste any money trying again. Pity, as I like them.
Thomas Heatherwick was not what I expected from a famous designer. I loved the Olympic Cauldron, and the extraordinary Sitouterie he designed for Barnard's Farm down in West Hornchurch, though it's a shame that pieces started falling off B of the Bang. He got a slot in the Chelsea coverage because of his involvement with the proposed Garden Bridge across the Thames in London. Joanna Lumley wants it, so I expect it will happen. I digress. Anyway, I was expecting the black polo neck under charcoal grey jacket, black rimmed spectacles sort of architect look. Reader, we were given a whistle-stop tour of selected Chelsea Flower Show highlights by a hobbit.
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