Every year since the early 1990's I've visited the Chelsea Flower Show with boyfriend S, and this year was no exception. When the weather is good like it has been this year, it's a perfect day out. It's also a quintessentially English day out, with people drinking pimms, eating strawberries and cream, listening to the brass band in the bandstand, men wearing straw boaters, and with everyone being exceptionally civilised :-). Along with Royal Ascot and the Henley Royal Regatta, the Chelsea Flower Show is one of the events of The English Season. None the less, as long as one is a member of the Royal Horticultural Society it's easy to get tickets!
At Chelsea, all the exhibitors and designers who create the show gardens go to extraordinary lengths to implement their ideas. Everything in the show gardens is built just for the five days that the show lasts for, and then torn down immediately afterwards. For example, look at the stone arch in the top picture below, which was the central feature in a courtyard carden titled Mist-placed. In its broken down state, the arch with its moss looks like it's been there for many decades. No doubt the moss is real but it's all only been there for about a week! The aim is always to win a Gold Medal, to establish the designer's horticultural credentials. Although quite a few gardens do get Gold Medals, others have to make do with Silver-Gilt, Silver or even Bronze medals, and in rare cases no medal at all.
This year, I was amused to see that garden designer and TV presenter Diarmuid Gavin failed to get a gold medal for the third year running! In the first year that he designed a show garden for Chelsea he got a Silver Medal, then almost made it to Gold the following year with a Silver-Gilt, but crashed back to a Bronze this year. I can't say I disagree either. His designs always seem to incorporate some grand but absurdly inelegant features, which always strike me as failed attempts to make positive artistic impressions. This year there were huge umbrella sized metal daisies, as shown in the second picture below, but although some people might like them they didn't impress me. I think he may have been embarrassed by the fact that he only got a Bronze medal because when I visited the garden it wasn't on display!
The other two pictures below show my two favourite show gardens this year. One was a tribute to George Harrison, the former Beatle who died a few years ago. The other was called The Reflective Garden.
As usual, myself and boyfriend S spotted lots of other gay couples at the event. But of course, although I suppose there's a weak link between flowers and effeminate gay men, this event has nothing whatsoever to do with being gay. None the less, I always enjoy it so I do recommend it, especially for any readers who enjoy gardens and horticulture :-).
A courtyard garden: Mist-placed
Diarmuid Gavin only gets Bronze with The Café Garden
Update 26-May-2008: Just for Monty, here's my picture of Jamie Durie's Australian Garden for Fleming’s and Trailfinder’s :-). The hole in the pond, visible on the bottom left hand side of the picture, was most curious!
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