Chelsea Flower Show -The World’s Top Garden Show

Spring is on the way in the Northern hemisphere, it can be seen in the gorgeous yellow primroses popping up all around and that means the world’s most famous flower show will soon be attracting thousands of gardening enthusiasts to the grounds of London’s Royal Chelsea Hospital.

Who’s Who at this Year’s Chelsea Flower Show

Leading designers such as Andy Sturgeon, Tom Stuart-Smith, Tom Hoblyn and James Wong and will all be designing show gardens at Chelsea this year, so what visual delights have they got planned?

Andy Sturgeon’s Contemporary Gravel Garden

English garden designer, Andy Sturgeon, will be putting in an appearance having won many gold medals in the past at the Chelsea Show. This year he will be designing a gravel garden using plants from arid areas like the Mediterranean, California and Mexico as well as a range of flora from the incredibly rich habitats of the Fynbos region of South Africa. However, this spiky exoticism will be softened by native greenery normally seen in an English country garden.

“This is to give the garden an exotic atmosphere that fells like somewhere else, but nowhere in particular”, he explained in a recent interview with British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph.

Places of Change Garden by The Eden Project

This is a garden that is sure to win a place in the hearts and minds of the public as well as the judges. It is a project sponsored by the HCA (Homes and Communities Agency, UK) and is being built by amateur gardens from homeless centres around the UK under the expert guidance of The Eden Project’s Paul Stone.

The garden is designed as a focus to help homeless people, who are already participating in gardening and building trade workshops around Britain, to acquire enough skills and self confidence to find jobs and eventually support themselves in the community.

In addition, at 590 square metres, it will be the largest Chelsea Show garden ever built featuring five growing zones which have been used as a metaphor for the buried treasures within our communities and reveals how these elements can be bought to the surface where they can thrive and grow.

HCA Chairman Robert Napier said recently, ” People who find themselves homeless have hidden talents and should not be written off. We want to show that disadvantaged people can contribute to their communities if given the right opportunity to find their own place of change.”

Tom Stuart-Smith and The Laurent-Perrier Garden

Tom has won nine gold medals at Chelsea and his latest effort is sure to net him another bag of medals. His design features a modern pavilion designed by architect Jamie Forbes made from folded sheets of bronze mellowed by a soft patina. This streamlined structure overlooks an elongated pool that contrasts with the rich woodland landscape made up of a stand of Betula River Birch, known for their paper-like copper bark that peels back in sheets to reveal a creamy flesh beneath.

Further woodland plantings include grasses, a plethora of white flowers, euphorbia’s and many stately blue iris Siberica that stand sentinel throughout the garden. A definite medal contender and a must see for every visitor.

Thomas Hoblyn’s 18th Century Classic Garden

Last year Suffolk garden designer, Thomas Hoblyn, who trained at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, won a silver medal for his highly original bog garden with its much talked about female wire sculpture.

This year he reveals he is working with another artist on a piece that will be central to his current design.

His design is inspired by the writer Voltaire’s 18th century literary classic, Candide. The garden, set in a Turkish small holding depicts the hero’s journey across oceans and rapids represented by linking, free form pools near which sits a seductive heroine with a series of ‘thought bubbles’ showing her transformation from innocent girl to womanly courtesan.

James Wong’s Malaysian Kampong

James Wong, made famous by his BBC television series Grow Your Own Drugs, in which he introduces natural remedies for everyday ailments, is sure to create a stir with his garden this year as he intends to recreate a Malaysian kampong (Malay village) in the middle of London.

James says in his Chelsea Show blog that this will be the first full-sized tropical garden ever in Chelsea’s one hundred year history! He goes on to explain his reasoning behind the design is that while growing up all the garden books he saw showed how to achieve the perfect English suburban garden complete with lawns and hedges. To do that in the tropics, he says, you have to first destroy a lot of fabulous native vegetation. So his aim this year is to show what can be done with the native vegetation of Malaysia by recreating a chic modern Kuala Lumpur courtyard.

To do this he has designed a garden using a series of paved terraces surrounded by wild plantings which he hopes many people will never have seen before, such as the truly weird looking acca integrifolia (syn, tacca ‘nivea’) or White Bat Lily. He also intends to showcase a lot of edible crops including fruiting banana trees, mature coconut palms underplanted with yams, gingers and lemon grasses. Then he’ll bring in some rare pitcher plants and some stunning orchids to highlight the tropical Malaysian location.

It is also rumoured that Jimmy Choo, the Malaysian shoe designer made famous by TV sitcom ‘Sex in the City’ may be opening the garden at Chelsea this year.

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show will be held between 25-29 May at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, SW3.

For more detailed travel information on how to get to the Chelsea Flower Show and where to park click here.