Sunday - Finishing touches

Sunday morning: if only the weather could be like this all week. Bright, reasonably warm, dry and still. We are just putting the finishing touches to the exhibit: turf down, paint being touched up, styling details. It looks amazing: I feel rather emotional about it.  I really don't want this, the best bit of Chelsea to be over.
Mark, Lucy and Steve are just finishing the labelling - over 750 labels. As usual a few last minute arguments over nomenclature: we are certainly getting picky.
Radio Solent due at 12 - so have to go. Maybe more later x

We've moved - new blog location

for Chelsea 2012 Andy is blogging here:http://andymcindoe.blogspot.com/

Farewell to Planet Chelsea....................

Farewell to Planet Chelsea.....................
My last day at the show is always a happy but sad occasion. Something that has been so much a part of my life for the past few weeks, or was it months, is about to be left behind. At this stage I have an overwhelming desire to keep Chelsea and Feel Good about Gardening alive – but I know that next week when the next project emerges Chelsea 2011 will just drift away.

It’s been an interesting show – and as the dust settles some of those amusing moments come back to me. The meeting of two Royal parties in the middle of the exhibit on Monday night. What do you say when two Princes come face to face, and don’t expect to? Do you know each other? Can I introduce................? How many times did I get asked how we get the Monument into the Pavilion. I take that as a compliment – at least it looks part of the exhibit. The torrent of water flowing through the Pavilion on Thursday evening and that wonderful Dunkirk spirit of the Brits wading around in Chelsea awash.

Friday started with a riotous train journey to London with three lively ladies I met at the station on their way to the show. The conversation hopped from French gites, to cup cakes, to ‘Made in Chelsea’, B&Q bedding, the St Cross Summer Fete and a dead purple clematis. This is the garden cognoscenti and they are ebullient form planning their hit list for the day. Needless to say a little garden retail therapy lubricated with the odd glass of prosecco.

So has all the effort been worth it? We’ve had so many lovely comments and compliments throughout the week that I really believe that we achieved something special with this exhibit. Organicstone, M&M Timber, Jim Keeling and Tom Stogdon all helped us so much to achieve what we did. The team from Scotts Miracle Gro, our Chelsea partners have worked with us and are now very much a part of the Hillier Chelsea family. They’ve recorded countless video clips, and certainly the Chelsea visitors have been very willing to tell them what makes them feel good about gardening. Visit www.lovethegarden.com to find out.

The plant material has held up brilliantly and the exhibit looks almost as good on Friday as it did on Monday. Some things, such as the deciduous azaleas have got second wind, enjoying the cool weather and relieved to be far away from the cold store. Their next stop is the Chelsea sale at Sunningdale on Sunday morning – then hopefully on to someone’s garden - a real garden.
There is always too much to cram into my last few hours on site – visitors, goodbyes to fellow exhibitors, making breakdown arrangements. That’s the worst bit – arranging for the garden to be raised to the ground – but go it must and so must I. I always leave later than intended – I forget that visitors are arriving as I am leaving. I finally tear myself away and dive into the tube – Planet Chelsea fades into the distance....................

What am I doing next year? – Well, you’ll have to wait and see.

Shrubs are the new herbaceous...........

The word at Chelsea, and hopefully throughout the gardening world, is that “shrubs are the new herbaceous”. Wispy grasses and fragile flowering perennials are making way for bony, leafy structure. Interestingly in the past few years as Chelsea Show Garden structures have got heavier, the planting has got lighter and fluffier – a low haze punctuated by alliums, bearded irises and spiky yuccas and dasilyrions.
Flowering dogwoods with their creamy butterfly bracts have spread from the Hillier exhibit through the showgardens that surround the pavilion – a welcome relief from the walls of hornbeam that have provided the main structure in recent years. Maybe they will be followed by a broad palette of woody plants over the next couple of years. I understand why perennials have been at the forefront of the garden catwalk. They grow quickly, and as a designer you have a good idea of available height and spread. Larger shrubs take years to produce so it’s harder to change the trend. If your design depends on large philadelphus in flower – and they fail to perform- what do you do?
I’ve always been a shrubby myself and its reassuring when Chelsea visitors come onto our exhibit and comment that ‘it’s nice to see some shrubs after all those perennials’. I also think that gardeners are recognising the value of good garden basics which work rather than those new flash-in-the-pan plants which might – or might not. Let’s get away from plant snobbery – plants become “common” because they succeed in a variety of situations. On the other hand some plants are good in a garden, but struggle in pots. You’ll rarely see these at Chelsea or in garden centres so look out for them in real gardens and seek them out.
It seems my shrubs course which is part of the on line www.my-garden-school.com programme is rather timely. See you in class and find out ways of using, cultivating those shrubs which provide us with flowers, foliage and structure throughout the year. I wonder what some of these Chelsea herbaceousy gardens would look like in winter?
For that matter I wonder what they will look like for the last two days of the show. Today, Thursday has been cold and showery. Showery that is until around four o’clock when the heavens opened. Thunder, lightening, gusts of wind. Never seen anything like it. After two hours and several attempts to escape I left the Pavilion with a river flowing through the centre, and water pouring from fallen downpipes. Don’t think my Panama will ever be the same again, and I can feel my suit shrinking as it dries out on the train.

Almost back to normal - a more serious note.

Almost back to normal. Left the show on Tuesday afternoon and headed for home. It is difficult getting away as more visitors arrive, including many familiar faces, for the last few hours of the day. In some ways it seems crazy heading back to Hampshire only to return tomorrow – but the incentive of a night in my own bed and a look at the garden is overwhelming.

It’s great to be home for a few hours and my wife and I take a tour of the garden with a glass of wine in hand. The grass has grown, as it always does, but maybe not as quickly because of the dry weather. A sprinkling of rain has brought the flowers on in the meadow – the orchids are popping up with their pale lilac spikes amongst the clover, buttercups and vetches. I don’t think there are as many this year, certainly not as many early purple orchids – they did not like the dry spring.

The cooler weather has started to even the season out a little. The Cornus kousa and Cornus ‘Porlock’ are loaded in blooms again and will be at their peak in about a week – not far off last year. The perennials are just starting to happen and roses opening. The spring might have been incredibly early but now things are getting back to normal.

Away from the show I think all exhibitors reflect on the activity that has consumed their lives for the past few weeks or days. During staging the Chelsea showpeople establish their village community. Although we are all there for media attention it is easy to resent the invasion of press and cameras when their focus is not upon what you want to talk about.

I have become more resigned to the fact that the outside gardens get far more attention than the Pavilion. However I still resent the fact that the Designers and Sponsors of the outside gardens are considered suitable to speak about their own exhibits on camera at the show, while the inside exhibits are often presented by well-meaning presenters who haven’t a clue what they are looking at. I find this approach insensitive and arrogant. Matters are made worse if you are asked to be on your exhibit at a certain time for filming only to discover that all you are required to do is stand by and watch another agonising and excruciating performance. But as one producer told me –“That’s television” – hmm.. That makes me feel much better!
Because those involved in the show are on such a high there has to be a downside – and if a little media aggravation is it, then it’s a small price to pay for the warm reception we get from the show visitors. I never tire of meeting them and talking plants and gardens. Jim Keeling spent Monday and Tuesday on the exhibit alongside his sculpture and really enjoyed talking plants – I think I’ve got him hooked!

And now it’s on with the show – and more chance to enjoy the company of friends old and new amongst the exhibitors, visitors and the RHS Chelsea Show Team. Haven’t said much about them to date. They really are brilliant and balance everyone’s needs and points of view.

Click here to view the Chelsea Live pages from our website.

66th Consecutive Gold Medal.............

Tuesday evening - The past 48 hours is all a bit of a blur. This morning we recieved our 66th consecutive Gold Medal at Chelsea Flower Show. Texts pour in from members of the team and friends who follow our progress - all delighted and relieved.

Yesterday disappeared - lots of waiting around but time passed quickly through press day, Royal visit, Gala, and dinner at the Ivy. Beyond tiredness by the time we reached dinner but cannot say I had a second wind.

Slept late - Rick Mark, Graham and Elenor went in early to open up shop with the manning team today has been a fun day - Lots of old friends and plenty of plant interest. Comments amazing as ever - It never ceases to amaze me how supportive and interested our gardening friends are. Thanks to all for making it happen - Now its time for bed but will tell you more in a day or two.