RHS Chelsea Inspiration

With so much coverage on TV, and press, it’s easy to let it flow over you, but use this weeks coverage to be inspired and create the colourful garden you dream of. Some of this years themes to think about.

Wild planting

There has been a great use of natives and wild flowers this year at the Chelsea Flower Show. Some would say they are ‘weeds’.

It’s a show trend but the style can be used with ‘proper’ garden plants. Here are some ideas. Most of these plants & similar varieties are in stock now, ready to plant.

Full and overflowing

It looks as though nature planned a border if the plants intermingle and overflow. Along the edge of a lawn this causes problems to the lawn, often killing it. Edge the borders with Block Paving Edging, paving or gravel for the plants to spread over.

Using chunky pebbles or slate on a border and planting further back from the lawn edge will also work. The overflowing is then on to the aggregate without affecting the lawn.

Breaking the rules

Traditionally roses were grown alone in beds but above the roses are inter-planted with grasses that make it appear the the roses are growing in a the grasses rather than the other way round.

Well-being

It’s a horticultural revolution at this years RHS Chelsea Flower Show that everyone has just accepted as though it has always been known. However, it’s only in the last 5 years that research has shown the amazing benefits to us all of growing & gardening.

Almost every garden included personal well-being as part of the ‘raison d’etra’ for their design. From edible, medicinal and particularly time to garden for mental well-being, designers talked about it on TV, radio and the press.

Inspiration for you

Spend more time outside in your garden, be physical in your garden, relax there and create there. Make a decision that the garden is not a place you have to do jobs but a place that will benefit you if you join in with it.

Plant more green

Some years Chelsea is all about a colour theme and lots of it, but gradually & seemingly peaking this year there is more green foliage and texture than before. Foliage, with shape, are great foundations but now it’s coming to the front too. Chris Beardshaw’s Morgan Stanley Garden has low clipped Yew mounds of greenery right in the middle of the plot. Many gardens featured hardy ferns too, which are particularly good for shady gardens.

The Trialfinder ‘Undiscovered Latin America’ Garden, the Dunai Majlis Garden and the Greenfingers Charity garden all used green foliage plants as predominating features in their gardens.

Trees

The use of tree this year has been extensively commented on and should be an encouragement to us all to have trees in our gardens. Even small gardens can grow Japanese Maples and if you plant larger one, you plant a tree that has character rather than a shrub that takes years to become a statement. Amelanchier as a standard tree is a great small garden tree as is the Liquidamber.

Children’s Gardens

The Duchess of Cambridge’s garden designed for children wasn’t the only children’s garden. The Montessori Centenary Garden was completely dedicated to children with many entertaining ideas for children.

Philip Scoffield being enthusiastically led around the Montessori Centenary Garden

RHS Chelsea flower show is the week before National Children’s Gardening week and it may just be that in it’s 6th year its influencing garden designers and changing the way we live.

Click for more about National Children’s Gardening week activities.

Brendan Cole and his wife hear about the work of Greenfingers charity.

The Greenfingers Charity garden by Kate Gold is totally dedicated to Children. This charity funds and builds gardens for Children’s Hospices in the UK. There are now 60 gardens build by them, including Bluebell Wood Hospice’s gardens. The charity was founded 20 years ago by two garden centre operators who wanted to see exhibition gardens re-planted. Since then millions has been raised, with the average new garden costing around £160,000. They are constructed for easy access for children with life limiting conditions & make time together with family fun, safe and easy to navigate.

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