Prince Harry got in early today ahead of the 165,000 others expected to attend the annual Chelsea Flower Show in London after it opens to the public tomorrow. So can we.
I have been living at the Chelsea Flower Show for a week, decorating the gabled oak building in landscape designer Jo Thompson's garden. The weather hasn't been cooperating but as the storm clouds gather it has become a secret haven; everyone wants to move in.
Here's a behind-the-scenes look at what is happening outdoors at Chelsea this year:
Photography by Kendra Wilson, except where noted.
Above: A royal visitation. Prince Harry toured the flower show earlier today. Photograph via Telegraph.
Above: Synchronized swimmers wear caps with 800 chrysanthemums at the M&G Retreat garden. Photograph via Telegraph.
Above: Flashback to last week's set-up. Adam Frost's garden with vertical decking is an "urban retreat," designed as a takeaway garden. Its simplicity communicates design ideas about water and hard landscaping. The wildflower roof of the cedar building softens the effect.
Above: The Telegraph always sponsors a garden, and being the most horticulturally minded newspaper paper the editors are no strangers to gold medals. This year's design is a departure from the tight-corseted tastefulness of last year's Del Buono Gazerwitz gold-winner. The young brothers Rich have made a modular Mondrian garden. Like a quilt, each section engages, as an entity in itself. Subtle white and gray plant combinations come together next to shout-y yellow, which could be controversial and very welcome for that.
Above: A clear favorite is the Occitane garden, designed by James Basson (Above) and inspired by the landscape of Provence. While examining issues of land mismanagement in connection with the perfume industry, the garden is a joyful vision of what could be: industry and the natural landscape working together. Like Dan Pearson's garden (of which more in a minute), this is a highly primped space which looks un-gardened, as though it has floated intact onto the Chelsea show ground.
Above: The Trugmaker's Garden is nestled round the back among the Artisan gardens, the quieter, shadier area in which smaller gardens thrive. Serena Fremantle and Tina Vallis have created the most inviting setpiece here, with plantings which traditional trug makers might have used to attract the attention of potential customers. The trugs on display, made from shaved willow and steamed chestnut, have multiple uses, from a cucumber trug (long and narrow), to the above specimen, a two-egg trug.
Above: Dan Pearson's corner of Derbyshire sits on what is literally a roundabout near the press office (it is actually triangular). Pearson's great challenge was to create an autonomous space despite the signage and hoardings of an international flower show. Trees and giant boulders from the Chatsworth estate surround the outside, and a stream and trodden path take the eye on a journey through the middle (the gardens are not pedestrian-accessible).
The garden at Chelsea is part of a rejuvenation plan for the trout stream at Chatsworth; it will be taken back to Derbyshire after the show. Chelsea is often fantastically wasteful: "That's why I didn't do Chelsea for a long time, because of the waste," says Dan Pearson. "I couldn't handle it." When his sponsors Laurent-Perrier came along to tempt him, he accepted on the strict condition that the garden would have another life afterwards.
Above: Martagon lilies for damp woodland. During the set-up, Pearson's garden was clearly identifiable by giant racks of wildflower turf which his team would pull down individually and roll up like carpets, before unfurling them on the ground. Some of the turf has mainly red campion in it while the other half has a wider mix including daisies. The plants in his garden do not look as though they are in shock at all; on the contrary. "The turf is still growing," says Dan. "The juxtapositions you hadn't planned are part of the joy of doing this."
Above: Jo Thompson's luxurious English planting surrounds a natural swimming pond in the M&G garden. It is the kind of garden which the show visitors will warm to as A) it looks like a flower garden, and B) it is unashamedly pretty. For those who want to take a Chelsea garden home with them, this is it. As Colin Crosbie, curator of the Royal Horticultural Society headquarters at Wisley says: "It's perfect."
Above: The sunken garden in Jo Thompson's space, far enough from the other elements to feel separate and peaceful while somehow avoiding the feeling that there is too much going on. The seats are made from polished and rough Purbeck stone.
Above: The "writer's retreat" which sits on a deck, above a pond almost 5 feet deep. Emphasising the cohesive nature of this garden, Jo Thompson asked Ancient Industries (my twin sister, Megan Wilson, and me) to bring life to the interior, so that every aspect is lived in and alive. There has been some surprise that the upstairs is not actually open to the public but neither are any of the gardens. It is photographable and film-able and to Jo Thompson it is important that it is a living space. Photograph by Jim Powell.
Above: We commissioned and collected items for a quiet room inhabited by a semi-fictional writer-gardener, who probably lives in a castle in Kent and definitely wears canvas and leather bespoke lace-ups. Makers and contributors have included Felicity Irons (who wove us a hat from rush) and Horace Batten Bootmakers. Vita Sackville-West ordered a pair from them in the 1930s which became part of her iconography in every photo of her for the next 30 years.
For more, see:
- Celebrity Spotting at the Chelsea Flower Show.
- All about Felicity Irons: Medieval and Modern Rush.
- Order some made-to-measure Vita boots from Horace Batten Bootmakers: The World's Best Boots.
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