That’s the Flower Show not the football, if you’re wondering, so do alight at the next stop if you want to, though goodness knows, they cost about the same to get into. Actually I didn’t go, not this year, and have deceived you for your attention. Though I have been three times before, like many of you I followed it on television this year. This is not only cheaper, but unlike at the showground you can generally find somewhere to sit down, and don’t have to pay a fortune for a drink. So ‘going to Chelsea’ on this occasion is just a figure of speech.
Of course the main focus here is gardening, or more particularly garden design, with many of the latest ideas and fashions showcased during the week. Now not a lot of people know this, to adapt a famous saying, but a few years ago, King’s English in another incarnation as The Garden King designed and built the narrow garden which runs along the outer wall of Courtyard Arts in Port Vale (Hertford that is, not Birkenhead), by the car park and facing Bean River View. I’ve never made much noise about it, partly because by the time I’d finished the groundwork, and tested to near extremes the patience of many good people in the process, there wasn’t enough money left to pay for all my planting ideas. A six figure Chelsea show garden budget would have been nice, but sadly Courtyard Arts is run on love, belief, dedication and shoestrings.
But I’m making excuses; money is of course an advantage but plenty of splendid gardens are created from what can be grown from seed, recycled or exchanged, and perhaps as a result these are more deserving of our appreciation.
Of course I learn things all the time. Sadly I forget them almost as quickly these days, so can’t always share them with you, but one design term that’s stuck with me from this year’s show is ‘void space’. This is not that expanding territory between my ageing ears, but how Arit Anderson labelled the unplanted areas of a garden, your paths, patios, and so on. Not a huge compliment to landscapers but a valuable addition to my gardening vocabulary. Another new term for me was ‘microgreens’. I’m still not entirely sure what they are; something along the lines of crops you can grow on your kitchen windowsill in clear plastic tomato boxes, the kind you get in Tesco (and no doubt in other supermarkets of course).
You do need names for places. How often have my wife and I had exchanges along the lines of, “Shall we plant it in the – you know, by the pond/arch/shed” etc. Mutual incomprehension usually ensues, so we decided to map out and name the various parts of our quite large garden (which incidentally you can visit next Sunday, 29th June, as part of Bramfield’s biennial Open Gardens Day). Now, every path, bed and feature has a name. We have ‘Red Robin Corner’, the ‘Chris and Jim’ bed, and so on. But the trouble has morphed into inability to remember the names we have given, and even now I was struggling to think of examples.
Back then to Chelsea; we can all enjoy being armchair gardeners for the occasion, sipping our chilled Leffe or similar, and wondering how much longer Monty Don will want to continue fronting this horticultural Glastonbury, and who’s looking after his dogs. Actually my wife has just reminded me that this wouldn’t have been a problem this year, as Monty contributed his ‘Dog Garden’, and that his lovely Golden Retriever attended to confer approval.
Inevitably the people are as interesting as the gardens, and from a King’s English perspective, the language too. And you know by now what a devotee of subtitles I am, so it really all amounts to a multidimensional treat.
‘You’re very kind’, said the veteran clematis grower Raymond Evinson to Carol Klein when she congratulated him on his gold medal. Not ‘urinary kind’, thank you. Another exhibitor, Guy Watts, was given an incomprehensible translation: ‘Weeping about supply and trade, it’s a blue tits bridge’. I quite like ‘blue tits bridge’, perhaps where Springwatch meets Jimi Hendrix. A sweet pea nursery was given as ‘sweet venus three’. Perhaps this was one I missed, overshadowed by Led Zeppelin Three.
‘Hostas for pots’. Yes, good advice, given their vulnerability to various invertebrate assailants, but the Chelsea subtitles gave us a wild west example, ‘holsters for pots’. And it takes a particular kind of mind, like mine sadly, which bridles at every mention of Nigel Dunnett, another celebrated designer. My inner autocorrect always shouts, ‘Nigel did it!’ Then there are the presenters. I’ve always had a soft spot for Monty, as my exact contemporary. Carol Klein is quite wonderful in her slightly dotty enthusiasm, but I never see her without thinking, ‘Grandma’s been at the Blue Nun again!’ ‘Enjoy your last few days here’, said Nikki Bailey as she rounded off a Friday interview with Tom Hoblyn, designer of the Hospice UK Garden of Compassion. Yes Nikki. Quite. That’s the whole point of the garden . . . And my beloved nominative determinism got a look in as well. There’s a floral designer called Hazel Gardiner, and someone called Paul Wood has written a book called ‘Tree Hunting’.
Well, it’s time now to ‘chug off’, as the subtitles elsewhere labelled the hapless Chagosians, in the news lately owing to the Diego Garcia affair (what a great name for a crime novel that would be!) I won’t leave you with a list of your jobs for the weekend, as Monty does every Friday; mine is just making sure our parched patch can hold out for just one more week in a reasonably presentable state before being thrown open to the paying public. Perhaps I’ll be able to go to Chelsea in person once more next year, and perhaps you will too.
