FT reviews the Chelsea Flower Show
Sufaud
By Robin Lane Fox
Published: May 28 2004 17:45 | Last Updated: May 28 2004 17:45
Armed with a glass of champagne at 2pm on a Monday afternoon, I looked
down from the roof of a show garden as a page-three model was
readjusting the slight covering of her upper storey, and told myself:
"You are the man whom your university tried to enroll as invigilator
of an exam in medieval history, beginning in 20 minutes' time." By my
side, the inimitable veteran of the Chelsea Flower Show, broadcaster
Peter Seabrook, assured me: "Yours for only £6,000. Twice used already
at Shows, and has a really fantastic root ball." Only then did I
realise that he was referring to the transplanted olive tree on the
opposite side of Sunflower Street in the gangway at this year's
Chelsea Flower Show.
Outdoors, the most expensive gardens were not the most distinguished.
Indoors, it was excellent to find that the Royal Horticultural Society
had reunited the Floral Pavilions which have recently split the effect
of the show into two. At last, we were restored to the wonderful sense
of the world's greatest flower show under one continuous sweep of
covering. Perhaps they can now moderate the rather common sort of
louvre windows and padding in the upper level of the Pavilion's wall
and lift the show even further.
For a decade now, Sunflower Street inside the main space has been
extraordinarily heartening. The gardens here are small designs,
planted with verve and originality. The Sun newspaper sponsors the
building and the viewing staircase, which can be ascended on payment
of £1 to charity. In the past three years, the climb has raised
£22,000 from paying visitors. The designers of the front gardens are
not the big names. This year they included Jane Riley from Bromsgrove.
She had an ingenious design based on the form of a mermaid with
contrasting blue pools and varying types of hard surface. Opposite,
Squire Garden Centres of Sixth Cross Road, Twickenham, Middlesex, had
planted a white garden in the classic cottage style, but had used so
many flowers of the late May season that the result was not at all a
cliché. They would surely be worth exploring for any small design of
your own, as would the excellent veterans, Scotsdale Garden Centre of
120 Cambridge Road, Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire. These lively
lay-outs plan the sort of garden which you or I would really like to
have, but they do it slightly better than we ever could, because we
have an entire season to consider. Reality is not far away, but it is
charmingly enhanced by the show. I much preferred the accompanying
"Taste of France" designed by the expert Geoffrey Whiten, to a less
plausible "Taste of Italy", which was too strong on oleander and
strong bougainvillea. Nonetheless Sunflower Street and its eight
gardens was a high point of Chelsea for us all.
Elsewhere, there were some superb exhibits of specialised plants. I
was amazed by the size and quality of unusual vegetables, shown by
Medwyns of Old School Lane, Llanfairpwll, Anglesey. Their parsnips
were several feet long, including a wispy variety called Gladiator. I
hope that the exquisite turnips, including a shiny one called
Atlantic, will do wonders for this vegetable that we neglect, but
which great French chefs prize and glaze. A fascinating potato from
Hungary was called Adam Blue and would be a splendid contrast with
almost any main course. The Medwyns live off the rare varieties which
they grow and pity the rest of us who are stuck with supermarkets.
Once again, the two great displays of old-fashioned roses were
breathtaking. How far they have come in the past 20 years of showing,
and although Peter Beales showed more of the old and well-loved
varieties, my prize this year went to the more open design and
tremendous range on the nearby exhibit of David Austin of Albrighton,
Wolverhampton. These two stars of the show have thankfully driven most
of the other rose-growers out of the contest, now that monochrome
hybrid teas and floribundas in stiff bowls look so trivial by
comparison.
My personal corner of the year was to be found on the brilliant stand
of Edron Nurseries who visit Chelsea every other year. Up in Scotland,
they have the damp and acid soil which few of us enjoy further south,
but they delight us all with their stunning shows of alpine and small
hardy plants. One corner of their exhibit showed the superb
scarlet-red Ourisia coccinea, near some green-flowered fritillaries
and a fascinating small white Anemone pratii from China which none of
us had seen on show before. The elegant arrangement and colouring of
this stand were the triumphs of the indoor exhibits.
In the same class was a rare selection put on by the Hardy Plant
Society, claiming the inspiration of "the Kent landscape". Thankfully,
the best bits of it ranged further afield, including a charming little
pink called Dianthus Singapore Girl which is probably not to be found
in Tunbridge Wells. All the plants had been grown by members of the
society and they helped to extend our sense of smaller hardy flowers
which we have been neglecting. There were some excellent pink forms of
the little Phlox pilosa which would suit anyone with a cool site.
For colour-coding, the prize went surely to Carol Klein and Glebe
Cottage Nurseries. She had planned swirling lines of white, dark
purple leaves, pinkish white flower and even the dusky poppy called
Patty's Plum which is such a let-down in normal borders outdoors. The
star turn was a pink form of good old Primula japonica which would be
splendid in any garden with slight moisture in the soil. Carol
explained to me that she was trying to show plants in swirling lines,
like waves, in order to inspire the owners of smaller gardens not to
plant in blocks and clumps.
The result was enchanting, although the idea of waves might be more
difficult in a garden which had to keep up the interest throughout the
year. Perhaps shorter swirls and a few outline dots of the same plant
would be a possibility. Together with a lovely use of colouring by
Hardys Garden Plants, her exhibit was beautiful. Chelsea is so lucky
to have these two sensitive exhibitors.
You may think that my own sensitivity is faltering, but I was thrilled
to see a long treble line of thumping great begonias with names like
Snow Goose and Primrose in the front of a stand of mixed delphiniums
by Blackmore and Langdon. More than 40 years ago, my first memories of
Chelsea began with these huge double heads of flower which patrons of
dull old restios and tedious grasses dismiss as totally vulgar. How
wrong they are, especially now these bigger forms have stronger stems
and can support the vast expanse of double flower which comes from a
single tuber. Here, above all, it is worth buying the breeders' best.
Nowadays, Chelsea makes a much more open and appealing use of space,
although we all have to hunt more closely for the great stars of the
occasion. A small part of the show's profit is directed back to help
the costs of approved exhibitors and the policy has certainly
revitalised their range and helped to increase the waiting list. Ten
years ago, it was easy to wonder how Chelsea could ever maintain its
range and momentum in the face of hard economics. Obsessive televising
and this token subsidy have been transforming forces.
What about the big showpieces outdoors? I did not find them to be so
appealing this year, although the form is very difficult. Big slabs of
design and gimmick seem rather pointless after the jollity of
Sunflower Street and the high art of the exhibitors indoors. However,
I am pleased to say that Bunny Guinness did not let the brand name
down with her garden celebrating a world-famous aspect of Oxford and
Cambridge life. She majored on the Boat Race and planted blue flowers,
admittedly with a predominance of Cambridge blue. I noticed the echo
in wood of the shape of windows around the cloisters of my own
College, but I did think she had missed a trick with the symbolism of
a university boat.
One tradition is to burn the boat in celebration of a victory at the
head of the river. We have more or less recovered from the
scorch-marks where the last victorious boat in my particular College
was incinerated. As the embers died down, some observers were outraged
at such an activity which struck them as unacceptably masculine and
barbaric.
Personally, I thought it must have been fun, and no doubt a women's
eight would set fire to a trophy in the same way. Bunny's college
garden could perhaps have had a boat in the centre, waiting to be
burned on a bonfire of exam papers on the final day of the show. It
would have made more of a centrepiece than a rather tame arrangement
of oars.
If the sparks had spread to one or two of the neighbouring plantings
in the gardens next door, I would have been the last one, this year,
to shed a tear.