I don't know about you, but I have been glued to the Chelsea Flower Show coverage on BBC1 and BBC2 this past week. I have never been to the show itself, but I do like to watch the programmes. Here are some of my favourite gardens and I think they all have 'floofy' planting in common. The photos are all from the RHS Chelsea website
here. Not for me the best in show choice, with clean lines and restricted beds of plants. I like the exuberant planting where things are allowed to spill out. Irises featured strongly in a lot of the gardens as did foxgloves. First is the Homebase garden by Adam Frost, with lovely native countryside plants.
I really want one of these tree trunk seats (when I get my slightly bigger garden...no harm in dreaming!). It looked such a peaceful and relaxing place.
The Hope/Help for Heroes garden had more beautiful planting and lots of grasses. It symbolised the journey through recovery for injured members of the armed forces and won the People's Choice award too. The other great thing about it is that it is going to be a garden for injured service people to use, so will have a new life helping those very people it was designed for.
Cleve West always has lovely planting schemes.
This was the No Man's Land garden with a mound at the back with natural planting, symbolising the trenches in the battlefields slowly being taken back by nature.
The Topiarist's Garden was in the artisan category and had incredible attention to detail. The planting was mainly white and green.
The Night Sky garden was another lovely example of planting combinations and used lots of white flowers to represent the stars . The black background had little brass circles on it which did look as though they glinted.
Another view of the Night Sky garden.
Finally, the Potter's Garden, another in the Artisan category but again showing such an eye for detail. Call me old fashioned, but these gardens all appeal with the planting and the atmospheres they conjure up. I'd be happy to sit in any of them. Now that Chelsea is all over for another year, it is strange to think that all this beauty has vanished, as if it had never been there at all.
