Chelsea Flower Show

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My lovely mother bought David and me tickets to Chelsea Flower Show in London for our birthday presents. David and I had never been before, my mum had been but about 45 years ago. We looked at all the show gardens, and all the small gardens and the courtyard gardens. And we looked at just about everything in the great pavillion. It was fantastic to go there and I loved seeing so many designed gardens. Lots of the show gardens were around the colour scheme of dark purple, mauve, black, maroon - lovely but rather a lot of it. This made a number of the gardens look a little dark to me. I liked the Trailfinders Recycled Garden designed by Chris Beardshaw - I loved the main tree which reminded me of the trees that are in the gardens of the Grand Palace in Bangkok. Chris's garden was quite calming, had smooth lines and lots of green which I liked, and it felt spacious. The show garden we all liked the best (by far) was the Cancer Research Garden designed by Jane Hudson and Erik De Maeijer, which was a riot of colour it took our breath away. It had a spiral path elevating to a seating area with a glass-type structure at the top. The planting was fabulous - whites, oranges, yellows, just lovely. We thought it should have won a gold medal. I also liked a couple of the courtyard gardens - in particular the A Shady Courtyard by Fiona Bruce, and the St Joseph's Hospice Centenary Garden designed by Zoe Cain. Mum and David really liked the Shady Courtyard because it was so peaceful and seemed really as if it had been there for ages. It had a little path and was cool and shady, and was beautiful. I liked the Hospice Garden because it had a little bit of everything and didnt seemed too cramped. There was a small seating area with two arches with plants growing over them, and a small lawn area, two planting areas with lovely bright colour flowers, and a fountain - all in a very small space. We went into the pavillion too and saw lots of stands that had a single plant or flower variety - e.g. a whole stand just of delphiniums, a whole stand just of daffodils - some of which were so stunningly beautiful in colour - a sort of cool yellow minty colour really took our fancy. I liked the Malaysia garden, the ferns of Fernatics, and the Global Warming garden/stand. I think we saw everything - but with so much to see I certainly cant remember them all. It was a great day and we all said we would want to go back again another year. My camera batteries died half way thru - so some of the pics were taken with my mobile phone - hence the poor quality.

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Photos

Chelsea Flower Show
Trailfinders Recycled Garden

Chelsea Flower Show
I dont know what garden this was - but I know I liked it!

Chelsea Flower Show
The garden that was awarded 'best in show' The Ecover Chelsea Pensioners' Garden

Chelsea Flower Show
Cancer Research Garden - taken on my phone hence dodgy quality - but hopefully you can appreciate the riot of colour