It's only superstition.............

Although we've had a couple of days sunshine the nights are still freezing. I was horrified to see the frost damage in my garden - Wisteria, rhododendron blooms, rodgersis, hydrangeas all distinctly shrivelled by frost. No wonder those foxgloves and roses are just not moving - Time for more drastic measures. I have to say the weather has remained freezing ever since our Goddess Kartika arrived on site and was uncermoniously installed on a pallet in the packing shed. A flash of inspiration came to me in the night - maybe she cam influence the blooming of our reluctant plants?

So this morning I enlisted the help of some muscle and we (or rather they) moved Kartika into the tunnel amidst the foxgloves and roses. I had a pleading word with her - she smiled a little - think it was just relief to be out of the packing shed. I can't say that those plants bloomed before my very eyes - but she needs a little time.

Ricky was more sceptical about the whole operation and decided to move some of the Digitalis and the Philadelphus (my plants are showing a few buds! - Ricky's are not!) down to the greenhouses of John Robinson houseplants. They may not be quite as light as the tunnel but they are warmer at night (Don't tell Kartika!).

Anyway this all went on alongside the loading of the lorries in the capable hands of Nigel - one of our fantastic construction crew. Nigel is always optimistic and cheerful - I reminder him of that when he had a negative moment about my Venetian Palace this morning. I have every confidence they can pull it off without any help from Kartika - she need to concentrate on the plants.

Loading Starts in earnest

Down to the nursery first thing this morning to watch the loading of the first articulated lorry, we've got to get it right at this stage or it costs in time, effort and labour. Watch the video!

Time for Trees

Here I am outside Ampfield House, Hillier's Head Office; poised at the start of our 2010 Chelsea Adventure - watch the video for more......


Well Wednesday has been tree day. Ricky and I set off for Broadmead container tree nursery (about 200 yards up the road from the office) armed with the site plan and the list of big trees we reserved last autumn. The trouble is at Broadmead nothing looks massive, because its all so big!

Why we bother to select trees in October I'll never know - it seems like a good idea at the time. When it comes to final selection we change our minds on most things. What were we going to do with 8 pines and two massive thujas? - Think I was in a "Save the Fir" mode. I remember saying that we had done a lot of birches and it was time to give them a rest. What did we choose today? - yes, you guessed it - birches. And beeches funnily enough - we rejected the weepers and chose the golden and quirky purple ones - notorious for aphids but clean so far.




Anyway our selection is tagged and will be loaded on Friday to arrive in London on Saturday. These big trees need to be placed before the pathways and other hard landscaping features are completed - the fabric of the garden is literally built around them.


My favourite tree so far? its hard to say but I was seduced by a huge Zelkova serrata - I'll put it alongside the monument and visitors will walk beneath its branches and translucent leaves. I love the Acer platanoides 'Globosum' - difficult to transport because it is so brittle but stunningly different all the same. Personally I like purple foliage so for me a Prunus cerasifera 'Nigra' is an essential and ours still has a hint of rich Merlot about its canopy - perhaps that's why I like it.


Rick has promised me cherries in bloom and we may even manage the odd Magnolia. My adventure amonst the trees? - Platanus orientalis 'Minarette' - silver grey bark, deeply cut leaves and branches hanging with dangly rich brown felty earrings - devastatingly seductive! - I'll take two.



Loading tomorrow...............

Preparations apace

Tuesday was a day of wild creativity. Once the team start to get into the idea the creative juices flow. The Throne of Knowledge has been tranformed into a peacock of aqua and gold -It looks so good I had to go and buy myself a shirt to match. Thanks Simon for persuading me - I've bonded with it!

The terracotta pots for Moroccan Magic have taken on hues of orange, yellow and cobalt blue - are they too bright? In the dark shed they do make you flinch a little but the colour is very authentic and when cooled by green foliage and terracotta tiles they will be fine.
The statuary is amazing and we've all fallen in love with the Goddess Kartika - she's beautiful even when sitting on a dreary pallet - I wonder how long it will be before she is draped in a high viz. jacket?

Sue and Andy have been assembling a variety of accessories - all these little details help to tell the story. A Moroccan teapot and glasses arrived for MM. Some great masks for Venetian Adventure. I made the mistake of suggesting a feather boa and satin basque for this section - guess what arrived in the post this morning? - You think I'm joking - wait and see.

It's great when everyone starts to get into Chelsea mode - it helps to take my mind off the cold weather - minus 3 again this morning! Flowers are still slow on foxgloves, roses and other blooming treasures - some will not make it - there's no point kidding ourselves. Not a lot can be done - It's in the lap of the Gods - Come on Kartika - Do us a favour!
Wednesday - Time to choose the trees. Thursday - Loading up. Watch this space.

May, or is it November

I blame the BBC - they wanted jeopardy and weather, and since then we've certainly got it. This weekend was absolutely freezing - or at least it felt it in the nice north easterly winds. Saturday - it hardly got light. I spent the day in the garden. Did I enjoy it? No - do people really do that for pleasure? Anyway low light levels and cold have really brought the Chelsea plants to a standstill.

I like green in the garden, but you can have too much of a good thing. Green roses, green foxgloves and green rhododendrons are all too much - would be good to liven it up with a bit of colour.

Call from Alex this morning wondering why she had not had an entry for this new "Best Chelsea Plant" competition. I explained that I only got the email about it a week ago and things aren't looking that hopeful. Anyway apparently its all going to be very high profile. Entry in hand - plants are not. The Philadelphus has a one in one hundred chance of making it, the foxglove - slightly better odds.

Ricky is clearly worried. The roses were wilting when I arrived - moist enough at the roots but clearly shocked at a brief shaft of sunshine. Foxgloves showing buds but very green. Even some of the Rhododendrons are still very tightly closed. Outside in the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens there seems to be plenty of colour - but that is little consolation.

Just spoke to Tim Redwood about my Venetian Palace - sounds good - but heavy! It's always the same with any major stone constructions - at this stage I worry about whether they will really stand up without any foundations apart from a sheet of polythene! If they are in the middle of the exhibit its not so bad but when they are on the edge...... Well, its always the same - build a wall and somebody leans on it.
The throne of knowledge is being painted as I blog - bright peacock blue. Pots for Morocco are painted - haven't seen them yet! Tomorrow - lots more detail and Wednesday choosing trees. Thursday loading - Friday on site! So near and yet so far to go.

Talking gardening, garden shows and gardening

This week has been about gardening - surprisingly enough. Started with talks on climbers at Sunningdale - great weather and great audience - convinced myself that I love climbers - even bought a clematis. Talked about growing Clematis viticella 'Purpurea Plena Elegans' through Elaeagnus 'Quicksilver' - couldn't resist it.
Then to Penny Snell in Surrey - her garden looked magical - lovely audience - talked Adventures in Gardening - plant combinations for impact - a brilliant day finished off with another talk to a lovely group just outside Salisbury - Shrubs - always a favourite topic of mine.

This weekend - Gardening - the big pre-Chelsea onslaught. Tulips looked fabulous - heartwrenchingly gorgeous - heartbreakingly catastrophic when wind and rain broke off some of the doubles. From a distance the garden looks terrific - close up it looks decidedly precarious as weeds grow apace.
Sunday - Bishops Waltham Garden Fair - Lovely event where the great the good and the gardeners turn out to find trusted plants and treasures from great little nurseries and all in a good cause. I love this event, I love the people and I love the plants. Some may be horrified at the idea of a garden centre operator shopping at a garden fair - Sorry, but its different. This is just another facet of the Adventure of Gardening. It sits happily alongside big commercial horticulture - this is a thread of real plantsmanship that is essential to real gardening and pure oxygen to us plant anoraks that cannot live by garden centes alone.

Actually it was just what I needed after Friday - a terrific day pre-Chelsea filming with the BBC. 8 hours for four and a half minutes television. Sounds unbelievable and I can never believe how quickly the time goes, and how long it takes. They have to film every bit from several different angles to make the viewer believe there are lots of cameras rather than just one. Why? I hear you ask - still don't know, but that's how it is. The story - all about the weather - the effects of the cold winter - will it make it - won't it make it - lots of jeaopardy. For those of us involved with the show year after year every season is different, and everyone has its problems - so the weather is always a factor and its not that exciting. I would have loved to have the opportunity to talk more about our plans for the exhibit- the concept of Adventures in Gardening - my objectives - inspiring visitors etc. Anyway - Lovely crew, great day, pleased we'll get some coverage - wait and see!

As I said, the bulk of the weekend was devoted to gardening. Tulips look amazing, Rhododendron Horizon Monarch is in full bloom and overall the garden looks good and the weeds are thriving. Lots of new planting - peas again - first lot did not show -Treasures from the Plant Fair and a few replacements for cistus and phormiums that perished in the winter. We have lots of purple and orange in the garden and, against the fresh green of late spring it is simply mouthwareringly senational. I'd love to say it was all planned, but just like some of the best Chelsea combinations it just happened. - perhaps some intervention from above - who knows but it is simply heavenly.

Lakeland break

A week ago I managed a bit of a break taking a garden tour to the lakes. Living in the soft south its easy to forget the magic of the mountain landscape that awaits just a couple of hundred miles north. The first Hillier holiday of any year is always a treat and this one was no exception. A fair aount of sunshine, a good hotel overlooking Windermere, spring flowers, good company and a variety of gardens made for a very enjoyable few days. Our Lakeland guide George Feather and his wonderul wife Dorothy made us welcome as ever and we met many other passionate Lakeland gardeners along the way. The horticulture of the whole area is underpinned by the Lakeland Horticultural Society and its dedicated members. Their work at the community garden Holehird is fantastic and totally humbling. This remarkable plant collection held together and presented superby is entirely the work of volunteers - a real lesson in working together and co-operation.

On the way to Windermere we were privileged to visit Gresgarth Hall - The home and garden of designer Lady Arabella Lennox-Boyd. This is a fantastic garden and despite the hard winter it did not disappoint. Spring flowers including fritillarias, erythroniums, primulas and dicentras carpeted the ground around the lake. The hellebores were still magnificent and the magnolias were virtually untouched by frost. Arabella was gardening, and her passion and eye for detail in this garden are obvious. Its always reassuring to find a designer who practices what she preaches. I have to say we left Gresgarth on day one feeling that we had seen the highlight of the tour, and on a lovely sunny late afernoon.
The following day was fine and bright and Holehird welcomed us as warmly as ever. A vist here is never long enough and we all letf talking about our return visit - always a good sign. Then a pub lunch and off to Liz Clark's fellside garden at Hartsop.

This was a long way from Gresgarth - a remote fellside village - austerely beautiful in watery spring sunshine, but it must have been a long hard winter. Entering the small front garden under the branches of a magnolia we were met by Liz -a little bright-eyed lady in green fleece. She spoke quietly and clearly describing every plant that made up her garden picture with such colour that even those only peeping from the soil bloomed before our eyes. We explored the steep hillside garden behind the house, looked for invadng badgers, saw every tree she had raised from seed, and peeped into her late husband's plot on the other side of the lane - now in her care. This might not have ben the showiest garden I had ever visited, and it certainly wasn't the biggest budget. She doesn't drive, so even getting a new plant or a bag of fertiliser is a major expedition. However she was one of the most inspirational, positive and forward loking people I have ever met and her garden is one I can't wait to get back to. What she achieves in the environment in which she gardens put those of us with the gardening world at our fingetips to shame.
I came away feeling that maybe I had come to take it all for granted - a plant dies and I get another one. Chelsea comes and Chelsea goes. Maybe sometimes I forget to enjoy it and appreciate it? Something flowers in my garden and I don't even see it because I am not there at the time. That doesn't happen to Liz - her relaionship with her garden is different - She and her garden are dependent on each other - they get pleasure frm each others company and it shows.
Spending time with a group of gardeners, lecturing to the Lakeland Horticultural Society, and visiting a few gardens was just what I needed before Chelsea - To some it may sound like a Busman's holiday - guess I am just a dedicated Busman!