Chelsea pics and thoughts...

I've been asked several times what I made of Chelsea this year. I've tried and failed to distill my perceptions to a pithy soundbite so here are a few odd thoughts and pictures instead.

Purple and claret is the combination of the moment.


The very posh Laurent garden looked a little dated to me - somehow jarringly grandiose.



The Cancer Research garden was truly stunning. Beautifully executed, gorgeous curves and green, understated planting. I wonder if the Rhus typhinus cost it a gold? Just checked the RHS website and it got the People's Choice - rightly so.



One bold, fearsomely expensive, wildly imaginative, exquisitely executed, utterly impractical garden. I overhead the designer saying there was no budget, he just did a design and the sponsor told him to go ahead.


I admired, but was oddly unmoved by the Perfumed Garden. They seemed rather pleased with their idea and were busy spraying all and sundry with Bess's perfume. The planting seemed a bit skinny in places (and I saw a pot rim...) Funny - it looks better in the photos!


This was the overall winner. I only saw it once as the crowds were too deep (and meaningful..). It was superb, but the Cancer Research garden held my attention and admiration better.


So what of the smaller gardens?
I nearly walked past the Eco Chic garden, it was so understated. But the more I looked the more I saw. And the more I saw the more I liked. And then I found it had won best in show.


No missing this one! How refreshing to see something a bit alternative at Chelsea.


I loved Nature Ascending. See how she's used long grass around the edge instead of the usual neat turf? And those knitted pouffe/stool things...

The Fenchurch garden stood out with its billowing, curvy forms, presumably cast out of concrete or something. Original, and successful. This one got the most creative award and very well deserved.

And the Plasticine Garden of course which won the People's Choice in the small gardens by a mile, apparently.

That'll have to do for the gardens. Summing up? The best of it was more human, less arch, less po-faced, more curvy, more imaginative. A bit less of it than in previous years, but no so as you would notice.

Live from Chelsea!

A sharp shower has sent me scurrying for cover and coffee and a welcome chance to blog. Chelsea is as classy as ever - I'm surrounded by well-dressed women and listening to a constant sound track of flettened vowels - but there's a welcome sense of self-awareness and humour. The banker's garden, with its monopoly figurine car and dice made me smile as did the offshore garden with it's moat and model yacht. My personal favourites so far are 'Nature ascending' and Eco chic' which won best in show in the small category.

I'm guessing the perfume garden won best in show. I'm opposite it now and it is impressive, with it's bubbling cauldron sculpture at it's heart. It's a superb concept, though the garden itself leaves me unmoved, oddly.

I think the best planting I've seen is on the Cancer Research garden, but they only got a silver-gilt. My guess is that the Rhus typhinus let them down.

JAS is opposite me, chatting on his mobile phone. Shall I introduce myself? No, it's not the thing, is it? Thought he was great on the coverage last night. See, I said he was box office!

Off to the floral marqee now. More later.....

Update: what a strange new world we are in. The bandstand conductor has just turned to the audience, resplendent in his red livery, shoes gleaming with polish, and announced that the Speaker has resigned. He received a genteel, approving round of applause before picking up his baton and leading a spot of Sinatra. Surely a riot is in order, now that we are in anarchy? I think I need a Pimm's....

More chick pics...

We moved the hen into the new coop along with her six chicks and all are doing great. She's proving to be a superb surrogate mum. Three are light brown, three are dark grey, reflecting their Silkie/Marran parentage. So, here they are. I know, I know, other people's baby pics are boring and they all look the same at that age.....

The new broody house constructed by Dad and Dave.

The boldest, first hatched chick peeking out from under our Copper Black mum

Jools holding the lead chick. I bet it's a cockerel..

And one of the dark greys, very pretty and much shyer.

Malvern confessional..

OK, here it is. The full list:

1.Trillium grandiflorum 'Snowbunting'. I missed out on this double form last year but bought Chris Cooke's penultimate specimen. He got a well deserved Gold medal too, but no mention on tonight's TV coverage. Shame.
2.Podyphyllum delavayi
3.Podyphyllum pleianthemum
4.Arisaema sikkokianum
5.Arisaema thunbergii Urashima
6.Echium russicum - for the scree garden. We'll find out how hardy it is or isn't.
7.Fritillaria camschatcensis Black form. Bought one last year and it's gone missing.
8.Epimedium 'Amber Queen'
9/10/11. Three Auriculas - 'Lucy Locket', 'Martin Luther King' and 'Carreras'

A short, but somewhat expensive list - and all well worth it I think.

Oh, we bought the giant corkscrew (see below) and I bought an English Tools 1950's 'Dreadnought' garden fork. Pete brings his into work sometimes - it was his grandfather's and I've envied it from the first so I was chuffed to find one at the Vintage Tools stall. It's beautifully balanced, wooden 'T' handled and sharp pronged. I bought a matching spade too - the blade is almost flat, unlike our modern curved ones, which means you can cut borders or lift turf evenly.

I spotted several plants I'd like, but two in particular for the nursery for next year - Astrantia 'Gill Richardson' on some of the nursery stalls and Polemonium 'Bressingham Purple' on Teresa Rham's garden. Both great looking plants.

Chicks!

Our chicks are hatching, two days earlier than expected. And this despite the dire warnings from the poultry man at Malvern show that without additional humidity to soften the shells the chicks wouldn't be able to break out. I lifted the hen off to check and we have at least three hatched out this morning. We feel like a proud parents all over again. Here's the blurriest picture I will probably ever post on the web.


Urgent project for tonight is to finish the broody/chick house.

More from Malvern...

Back from a superb day out at Malvern Show with a clutch of new plants, a 1950's garden fork and spade and a sculpture which looks suspiciously like an oversized corkscrew.

Malvern is just such a good day out. No queueing, plenty of places to sit down, food and drink not stupidly overpriced. Anyway more on all of that later, including a spending spree confessional plant list.





I watched some of the Chris Beardshaw scholarship debate, willing Teresa Rham to win - I know her through her loyal assistant Barbara who was at Reaseheath with me last year. The stage 'show' was compered by James Alexander Sinclair, who looked considerably less barking without his trademark hat. Now, if he was bored by the very drawn out and somewhat verbose selection process he gave no clue, adding a little much needed levity where he could. The ten competitors sat patiently as each one was praised in order, then five were selected, each being subjected to a ten minute Q&A after being named while the remaining contestants sat, no doubt with increasing pulse rates as the slow countdown continued. Teresa performed extremely well on stage and was praised to the hills by Chris Beardshaw for her design and management skills. I really thought she had it nailed, but it went to a guy called Paul who seemed a bit of an outsider. So she's disappointed, but pleased with what she's done.

For watchers of GW, this juxtaposition caught my eye. I'm saying nothing. Rien. De nada. Zilch.
Stop press - we checked under the broody hen when we got back and found two eggs with little holes in them. And the holes were cheeping! So, with the broody coop still under construction we've lashed up a pen in the hen house in case the chicks hatch out tonight to keep the other hens away. Fingers crossed....

Blogging from Malvern Show!

It's only 10.30 and I've all but blown my plant buying budget at Malvern Show. We made a beeline for the floral marquee aiming to add to our Arisaema, Trillium and Podyphyllum collection.

Our additions include Trillim grandiflorum 'Snowbunting' - a double White from Chris Cooke, two new Podyphyllums from Barracott Plants, two Arisaemas from Edrom and a black Fritillary to replace one I've misplaced. So now we need to find a cash machine, or starve for the day!

Veg plot update

I thought I'd post an update on the veg plot. Firstly, a failure - we sowed two rows of parsnips in March and gave up on them today. Sifting out the weeds we found precisely one parsnip seedling. We've decided to give up on them this year and grow spinach instead.

The rest of the plot is thriving. Our green manure experiment has confirmed mustard or Phacelia as the winners for a quick catch crop during early spring to hold the ground before the tender veg go in. Although rocket and mixed salad greens grew just as quickly so there's a choice to be made between an edible crop and a soil improving crop. I guess it depends how much salad you want to eat early on.



We've had a few raised eyebrows about our potato growing technique. You see, we've planted the tubers in the troughs, which looks a little unusual. There are two reasons for this - we figured the growing plants would get more water in the troughs as the rain would run in. And the mounds either side will be used to progressively earth up the potatoes as they grow, so by the time they are ready to harvest the plants will be on mounds, looking quite normal. I'll report back when we dig them up. Peter isn't impressed - he said we'll need a JCB to get them out...


I wrote an article for Grow Your Own magazine on veg growing in the north for the June issue which is out today. I do think the north gets a poor deal in terms of gardening coverage, especially on TV. But apart from some adaptations to avoid early frosts, we've got great veg growing conditions here - more rainfall and longer summer evenings. The Grow Your Own discussion forum gives it an almost unanimous thumbs up, which is encouraging. Click for link to GYO forum thread