Transatlantic Plantsman

This plant won’t be going to Chelsea

Rosy Hardy of Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants in Hampshire was checking the plants in one of her tunnels yesterday. These are the plants that she’s been carefully nurturing for months for the Chelsea Flower Show in a couple of weeks time.

She was trying to decide if she should keep her prize Rheum for her own display in the Great Pavilion or lend it to Show sponsors Marshalls for their Show Garden - “The Marshalls Garden That Kids Really Want!”.  It’s such a perfect specimen that designer Ian Dexter was desperate to have it for Marshalls.

But as soon as Rosy discovered a Mother blackbird sitting on half a dozen eggs the decision was made. The plant stays put at the nursery in Hampshire!

(Not the greatest picture, I know. Just a quick snap so as not to disturb mother blackbird for too long. For US readers - a blackbird is like a robin without the red chest. More on robins next time.)

Fortunately, stocks of the two new plants Hardy's are introducing at Chelsea are unencumbered by surprise wildlife. And both look good. Campanula carpatica ‘Jenny’ has large, cup-shaped white flowers with a distinct blue central eye while the tall Gaura lindheimeri ‘Rosyjane’ has white flowers with a bright pink edge to each petal. Lovely.

British and American hollies

Back in England… I hear that the frost has finally reduced to a squishy mess those impatiens back in Pennsylvania that had been protected with old bedsheets. It’s now just too cold… The lady’s tresses orchid was still looking good when I left a couple of days ago and is a little more resilient in the face of yesterday’s snow.

First stop here was the Royal Horticultural Society show where the society itself staged an exhibit of hollies. Most of the plants on this fascinating exhibit came from the Society’s west of England garden at Rosemoor in Devon. Curator Chris Bailes, author of the recent holly monograph – perhaps the best plant monograph of the last year – told me that recently flocks of fieldfares and other birds had begun to strip the plants of berries. But there was still plenty to see on the exhibit. [Fieldfares are related to British blackbirds, and the American robin.]

It was especially interesting for British visitors to see the deciduous American Ilex verticillata (first picture), its stems crowded with berries, alongside the more familiar evergreen I. aquifolium and I. x altaclarensis.

Chris also pointed out to me the value of a circular exhibit at flower shows, in preference to rectangular or square stands. He says that visitors tend to follow their way all the way round a circular exhibit but when they arrive at the corner of a rectangular stand they tend to keep walking across the isle to the next display. You learn all sorts of fascinating things at these show…

Chelsea Flower Show 2007: 11 (Saturday) - Verbena and cannabis

Well, the final sell-off of plants from the Chelsea exhibits is over and no sooner had the last visitor left the show than the exhibitors began the curious task of dismantling everything and heading for home. I only worked on one Show Garden at Chelsea, many many years ago: a naturalistic display of wild flowers staged by Kew – the first ever wild flower garden at Chelsea, I think. And tearing apart something so beautiful creates a very curious and depressing feeling – even when you know that it was never quite real.

But I leave with you with a couple of intriguing sights from the show. First of all, veteran gardening columnist and TV gardener Peter Seabrook, who recently celebrated thirty years writing for Britain’s top selling Sun newspaper (has anyone else worked for Rupert Murdoch for so long?) launched a new plant that he found in his own garden in Essex.

‘Seabrook’s Lavender’ is a seedling of the well known Verbena ‘Homestead Purple’, a really hardy and prolific ground covering variety. ‘Seabrook’s Lavender’ is a softer lavender shade but otherwise has the vigour, toughness and prolific flowering of its parent. It’s available in Britain now, and in North America, Peter hopes, next year.

And finally: Marijuana, Cannabis sativa, has been on display at Chelsea for the first time ever. A number if these elegant plants were ranged across the back of an exhibit by the South East England  Development Agency which highlighted the value of plants for uses other than food and garden display. In fact, cannabis was widely grown in the 19th century as an ornamental foliage plant, and I remember the first time I visited Christopher Lloyd’s garden at Great Dixter: amongst a collection of summer annuals growing in pots outside the front door was a magnificent cannabis plant. However, when the local police heard about it they paid him a friendly visit and visitors could enjoy (the sight of) it no more.

Cannabis is used to make rope and fabric – and when I was a kid I remember using the boiled seeds as fishing bait. The plants were not sold off to the public on Saturday – although one or two disappointed exhibitors could perhaps have made use of them…

That's it for my Chelsea blog series for this year. I'll be adding one or two pictures over the next few days but otherwise, it's back to what you might call "normal".

Chelsea Flower Show 2007: 10 (Thursday) - Women on Top

For the first time this year, the Chelsea Flower Show has been run entirely by women. Alex Baulkwill took over as Show Manager last year, having worked on the RHS magazine The Garden for some years. She’s in charge of all the exhibitors, and her deputy’s also a woman. The Operations Manager at the show, in charge of the site, the services, logistics etc is Caroline Humphries and her deputy is also a woman. The Press Office is staffed entirely by women. Even the recently appointed Director General of the whole Society is a woman, Inga Grimsey, and three of the other directors are also women. Bob Sweet, Head of Shows Development at the RHS, and Stephen Bennett, Director of Shows at the Society had better look out as the image of the Society run by men in suits is changing at last!

Chelsea Flower Show 2007: 9 (Wednesday) - Feud at the Flower Show

I haven’t seen the many many hours of Chelsea coverage on BBC TV this year, I’ve either been at the show or subduing my cold with potions that sent me to sleep. But I’m told that the Silver-Gilt Medal winning Westland Garden, designed by Diarmuid Gavin the Dublin-based designer and TV gardener, and named for his sponsor, has not been featured at all. Can anyone confirm or refute that?

At one time Diarmid was part of BBC TV’s presentation team but now seems to be out of favour, fampous as part of an awkward double-act with regular host Alan Titchmarsh in which they failed to pretend to like each other. He’s even been involved in a dispute with fellow Chelsea designer Andy Sturgeon over the supposed plagiarism of one of his designs and and the dispute even ended up in court! He’s also fallen out with Bunny Guinness, one of the BBC radio gardening team. You can read all about it here.

Bill Shankly, the great football (soccer) manager at Liverpool Football Club once said: “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death… I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.” It looks as if Chelsea garden designers are developing the same attitude about their gardens – or perhaps about themselves!

In Britain we have an expression: "Handbags at three paces." It derives from the idea of two women attempting to whack each other in the face by swinging their handbags on outstretched arms. Commentators sometimes use the phrase to deride football (soccer) players shouting at each other and pushing and shoving on the pitch. Sounds like a great term for feuding garden designers.

American readers, by the way, will be astonished at the amount of TV coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show - much of it on BBC1, the top-rated channel in the country. It's as if ABC cancelled Grey's Anatomy and ran flower show coverage instead - and ran the flower show every night of the week. Mind you, Britain is the country where the top rated reality TV show is SpringWatch, which features live coverage of nesting birds and squabbling foxes out in the countryside. Those Brits...

• BTW I’ve also contributed a Guest Post, with more pictures, to the Garden Rant blog, you can find it here.

 

Chelsea Flower Show 2007: 8 (Wednesday) - More Chelsea info and blogs

Sorry about the lack posts here... I've been struck down by one of those knives-in-the-throat, hacking cough, blocked sinuses and aching muscles - just what I need to go with the feet that feel as if they've been pounded with a steak hammer. Fortunately, I've not got the famous "Chelsea flu". This is caused by an allergic reaction to the tiny unfertilized flowers which waft around from the many London plane trees near the show gardens and press tent.

And each of my three US radio interviews was plagued by technical problems and had to be cut short. Again, my apologies.

Anyway, to keep you going, here are few links to places where you can find out more about the show.

Webcam of the Great Pavilion
Webcam of the Show Gardens
Full list of awards
Full details of each Show Garden, with panoramas of each one.
Pictures of every floral exhibit in the Great Pavilion
BBC coverage of the Show
GardenRant guest post from William Hughes
Daily Telegraph blog from Ursula Buchan and others

Unfortunately, the RHS Chelsea blogs have been something of a disappointment, mainly owing to a chronic lack of posts, so I'll refrain from embarrassing them further by giving you the link!

Now, where's my cough medicine - or jollop as my father used to call it.

Chelsea Flower Show 2007: 7 (Tuesday) - Webcam vandalism!

Well, whatever next! You may have noticed that there's been a problem with the Chelsea Flower Show webcams - this is why: The router that connects the webcams was stolen! The cables were discovered flying free after someone - we have our suspicions... - levered it from its housing, disconnected the cables and made off with it! And you thought the Chelsea Flower Show was such a respectable institution.

Fortunately, the RHS web team have installed a new router and everything is up and running again. These webcams give you a great view of the show. So now that they're working well again please check the Show Garden webcam and Great Pavilion webcam.

Chelsea Flower Show 2007: 6 (Monday) - Royal visit

After judging today, Her Majesty the Queen arrived for the Royal Visit. Guided by the Royal Horticultural Society’s President, she toured a number of Show Gardens and exhibits in the Great Pavilion in a distinctive rose pink coat with crimson buttons. She always seems to wear colours which stand out from the dark suits around her: primrose yellow one year, pale lime green another. The police with their sniffer dogs were seen around the show earlier and most people were cleared from the showground.

She really seemed to be enjoying herself. In the picture she’s seen chatting to two members of the Hardy Plant Society, whose exhibit celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the society.

Chelsea Flower Show 2007: 5 (Monday) - Judging day

Well, it was a fascinating afternoon judging some of the exhibits of perennials in the Great Pavilion. Most, including a lovely stand of ornamental grasses from Knoll Gardens, were of a very high standard and their exhibit also featured three new grasses that none of the judges had seen before. these included the very pretty, and drought toleraant, Panicum virgatum ‘Dewey Blue’ from the USA. This plant was selected by Rick Darke on the coast of Delaware. Rick was on hand at the show to launch his superb new book on grasses, The Encyclopedia of Grasses for Liveable Landscapes.

One exhibitor, who perhaps I won’t name, had obviously been having trouble with his agapanthus (African lilies). He must have been so disappointed that so few were in flower. But it was great to see new plants like the pink and white bicoloured sweet pea, ‘Promise’, with its wonderful scent, on the stand from Matthewman's Sweet Peas.

The results will be out early in the morning, I’ll bring you the highlights, including news of how the American garden, an the other show gardens, fared in the medals, as soon as possible.

Chelsea Flower Show 2007: 4 (Monday) - Webcams

Just to mention that the Royal Horticultural Society is running two webcams at the show. You can see what's going on outside on the Show Gardens webcam, and see what's going on around the floral exhibits on the Great Pavilion webcam.

I have to say, however, that as I write this on Monday morning one of them has disappeared! When I see the man in charge of them... Ah, there he is. Geoff!!! (Just a moment...) OK... he's sorting it out. I'm sure by the time you read this it will be fixed.