It's funny how things turn out. However unprepared I feel for Chelsea, and however vague some of my plans, suddenly something happens and inspiration arrives. This year it happened only yesterday. I had heard that my good friend Jim Keeling was up to something exciting with clay and gold leaf - and yesterday Sue at Whichford pottery e mailed me an image. It wasn't what I was expecting, but wow! - what a stunner.It was described as a gilded Cypress - but it certainly not some fluffy conifer but a truly, stunning Van Gogh creation in 3D gold. Had I not been told it was a cypress what would I have seen? Energy, emotion, an Olympic flame, a flame of eternal life. My mind immediately wandered to the wonderful H. Ryder Haggard story 'She'. Some may remember the scene where She has bathes in the flames, deep in the mountains, and gained eternal youth. Now wouldn't that be a press story at the foot of the monument in the heart of the Hillier Chelsea exhibit?
Whatever a visitor sees, and wherever his or her mind wanders, this is going to be a focal point to surpass them all, and it fit beautifully with the whole Feel Good About Gardening theme. I could never have designed it as part of the garden - it just arrived and I know it will work. For me that's magic because that's often how real gardens evolve. You plant something with little thought as to location and what's around it and it just works. Another time to you make a very considered decision and have a clear idea of what it will look like and the reality is nothing like the vision. That's the magic of a garden!
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