The show goes on ........................

The show goes on…………….

By Wednesday the show routine is well underway. After the heat of Monday, Tuesday was cooler and a rather pleasant day meeting old friends, making new ones, greeting customers and sharing the odd slurp of bubbly. Hillier team and visitors to the exhibit all pleased for our 65th Gold Medal.The Sinocalycalycanthus is, as we expected, a show stealer, and the Digitalis is admired by all. It seems roomier in the Pavilion so even television filming in the afternoon seemed to cause little disruption. The Secret Garden Diary Room was busy all day – I think we filmed around 40 tips – every one a word of wisdom to help other gardeners on their voyage of discovery in the garden. The Scotts team, Melinda, Paula, Dan, David and Paul did a great job and coped with me insisting on entertaining right in the entrance to the Diary Room. The layout has worked really well but I wonder if we should have made the interior of the Diary room more spectacular – It looks good, it’s practical, but as always there is lots of clutter to fit in! I always start to get self-critical at this stage.

The heat of Monday induced the London Plane trees to start their annual moult of irritant dust that gets in your eyes, ears and up your nose and feels like shards of glass in the throat. It feels more like Chelsea! – this is usually a feature of staging. The red Horse Chestnuts are now shedding their petals prolifically over the furniture and sculpture stands. The immaculate stone and glassy water of the outside gardens is now evenly covered with a film of dust and debris. This is definitely more like Chelsea.

The standards in the show are high this year – lots of Gold Medals outside – and in the Pavilion too. It seems as if Chelsea has triumphed over the weather once again. Home on Tuesday just in time to catch the BBC coverage – very pleased with our slot – thought it was nicely put together and told an aspect of our Chelsea story. It would be great if it was possible to cover the Hillier exhibit in the same way as the Show Gardens are filmed – but they can’t get the gib inside the Pavilion. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been tempted to move outside and do a show garden – whenever I say that the weather breaks and we have rain for the rest of the week – think I’ll keep quiet this year. Also The Pavilion is our domain – We are known for the biggest exhibit in the Pavilion – the Monument site.

Chelsea has changed over the years – and so it should. More floristry and fewer nurseries - More show gardens – especially small gardens - which I hope will gradually influence how we become more creative in the average garden. I don’t necessarily mean in construction terms, but with our planting. It’s not necessarily about finding something different to grow – it’s how we put our familiar plants together to create a pleasing picture.

I always get more serious at this stage in the show. After the adrenalin packed fun of staging I always eel a mixture of relief, delation, exhaustion – not too sure what. I expect a Pimms or two will change all that – it always has I the past!

We've had a good deal of media attention - heres a few links, but if youve seen any others, let mark know at markpitman@hillier.co.uk and we'll post the links here http://hilliergardencentres.co.uk/chelsea18.php



http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p007zmbf



http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p007zd31