I love a new gardening book, which is a dangerous passion when so many fresh titles hit the shelves every year. Most are glossy, many interesting and just a handful destined to become classics. (Fewer still feature my own garden, so I confess to a degree of heathy bias when it comes to this post’s subject.) Cutting it on the coffee table is not an easy feat, but in Garden Design: A Book of Ideas, Marianne Majerus and Heidi Howcroft have carved themselves out a niche with their sharp images and pithy prose.

Make no mistake, this book is all about the photography. More than 600 ambrosial images are featured, lavishly strewn across 320 pages. Each one is the work of Luxembourg-born Marianne Majerus, who I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting on a number of occasions. A consummate professional, Marianne is happy to share the secrets of her great skill as a photographer, safe in the knowledge that few possess the dedication and artistry required to follow in her footsteps. Marianne is fastidious about choosing the right time of day and best weather conditions for her shots, setting each one up with incredible depth of field. What you cannot see in one of Marianne’s images is not worth seeing, and yet none of the gardens’ mood and magic is ever lost. Such consistency and quality makes for a book of rare quality. Any keen garden photographer will find Garden Design: A Book of Ideas as much of a page turner as any Jackie Collins or Ian Rankin (whichever tickles your fancy!).

Garden writer Heidi Howcroft must have found herself with a hard act to follow, but rose admirably to the challenge. In approximately a fifth of the page space, she manages to deliver tips and insights that enhance rather than detract from Marianne’s photography. Together, Marianne and Heidi take us on a journey from assessing a plot, through to deciding a style and choosing design details without so much as a chapter break. It’s an exhilarating rollercoaster ride of a book, packed with more ideas than any keen gardener or garden designer could need in a lifetime. What’s also refreshing is the absence of the usual suspects. Much as I admire the gardens at Sissinghurst, Hidcote, Biddulph and Stourhead, their triumphs are well catalogued elsewhere. This book brings to the fore work of lesser known, contemporary garden designers and gardeners, which has to be a good thing.

Garden Design: A Book of Ideas achieves exactly what it sets out to do – to be a visual compendium of the very best gardens and garden features in today’s design sphere. It is illustrated by one of the world’s finest garden photographers and accompanied by illuminating text from an eloquent and insightful garden writer. What more could one wish for in a garden design book?

Garden Design: A Book of Ideas (Hardback), by Heidi Howcroft and Marianne Majerus is published on March 15th by Octopus Publishing Group. ISBN: 9781845339210. Me and Him Indoors can be spied on page 19, under the heading ‘What Do You Want From Your Garden?’

All images copyright Marianne Majerus.

Nothing is more cheering on a sunny spring day than a broad swathe of daffodils emerging from lengthening grass, or a delicate cloud of cherry blossom hovering in the air. Driving out of Canterbury towards Harbledown yesterday I was greeted by verges and roundabouts thronged with narcissi. It was as if a magician had pulled a million bunches of flowers from his hat and public spiritedly plonked them in every inch of sward he could find. The effect was uplifting; a little bit of the unnecessary in a world where the beautification of things ‘just because’ seems very far down the list of priorities.

Public displays of daffodils are relatively commonplace in England, but I wish they were more so. Some of my favourites are in London’s Royal Parks. In St James’ Park, choice varieties such as Narcissus actaea are planted beneath cherry trees to create little cameos of paradise in the heart of the city. In these days of council cutbacks there’s little hope of more displays like those at Pegwell Bay in Kent being created at the tax payer’s expense. Yet this particular spectacle, around the Danish longboat replica ‘Horsa‘, attracts hundreds of visitors to East Kent every spring. In Thriplow, Cambridgeshire, the village’s 450 residents have worked together to plant thousands of daffodils in private gardens and public spaces. They stage a special Daffodil Weekend each year, raising huge sums for charity and bringing enormous pleasure to all those that take part in the event. Wouldn’t it be great if more villages followed Thriplow’s example, and not just with daffodils? A rose festival or a dahlia derby would surely be crowd pleasers.

Whilst researching public displays of daffodils I stumbled upon a moving story in last week’s Telegraph newspaper. Having been told he only had eight weeks to live, retired RAF pilot Keith Owen decided to leave his £2.3m fortune to the resort of Sidmouth in Devon. The interest was to be spent on schemes to brighten up the seaside town and its neighbouring villages. One of Keith’s wishes was that a “valley of a million bulbs” should be planted at Park Head, on the cliffs above Sidmouth (see below). Since 2013, 400,000 daffodils have been planted by volunteers and groups, ranging in age from 2 to 90. Their reward is nothing more than being able to enjoy the ‘flowers’ of their labour every March and April, along with the town’s many visitors.

Whilst Mr Owen could have left his legacy to any number of worthy causes, he chose to invest in a place that he loved, for the benefit of thousands of others. Just occasionally we should all afford ourselves the opportunity to do something because it’s a beautiful gesture, not because it’s a necessary one. I’m certainly going to put aside a little ‘daffodil money’ from now on.

Do you know of any good public displays of daffodils? And if you could leave a horticultural legacy, what would it be?

Wishing you all a lovely weekend.

Photo credit: Sidmouth In Bloom

Generally speaking I am not the kind of person who wins lotteries or ballots. I don’t even come out of tombolas or raffles particularly favourably. I am the man that walks away with the cider vinegar or the oversized tea cosy fashioned from yarn that looks like it would induce an electric shock. But today fortune was smiling on me as, for the very first time, I managed to get my hands on that most precious of prizes, a Chelsea Flower Show Press Pass. Rather like turning left on a plane, once you’ve experienced preview day at Chelsea it is hard to go back. There are film crews, photographers, hacks and celebrities galore, but compensating for that is the space and time to take in one of the greatest celebrations of horticulture on the planet. It was as if all my birthdays had come at once. Of course I will be back tomorrow for the first member’s day, but the experience will feel decidedly ‘economy’ compared to today, even though I only had a couple of hours to spare and an iPhone in my pocket.

Despite the inclement weather (high winds and drenching showers), most of the show gardens on Main Avenue were holding up well. I felt for the designers of the Hidden Beauty of Kranji garden who had bravely bedded out orchids beneath palm trees almost bent double by the gale. My highest hopes were for Dan Pearson’s Laurent Perrier garden, but, exceptional as it was, I am not sure it’s a shoe-in for Best in Show. So skilled is the garden’s execution that it appears to have been torn straight from the Derbyshire countryside and pasted into the grounds of the Royal Hospital. It is wild and authentic, but is it a Chelsea garden? We’ll know what the RHS judges think first thing tomorrow morning. If the accolade does not go Dan’s way, My top tips for the big prize would be The Retreat, designed by Jo Thompson for sponsors M&G investments, and Matt Keightley’s Hope in Vulnerability garden for Prince Harry’s charity Sentebale. Jo Thompson has created an archetypal English garden (above), with a contemporary twist. Matt’s design (below), inspired by the Mamohato Children’s centre in Lesotho, made my heart sing with it’s colourful planting and warm, friendly atmosphere: if not the top honour it deserves serious recognition.

Given my rare good luck, I think it’s only fair to share with you the highlights of my afternoon at Chelsea. Whether you are visiting, watching the TV coverage or admiring from afar, I do hope you enjoy the show. Check back throughout the week for more pictures, analysis and my top 10 Chelsea plants for 2015.

At about 10.30am yesterday morning a small crowd surrounded Monty Don and RHS Director General Sue Biggs as they prepared to announce the prize for ‘Best Large Show Garden’. Their position, next to the island site at the bottom of Main Avenue, left little doubt as to the winner – the Chatsworth Garden designed by Dan Pearson for Laurent-Perrier. It was the bookies’ favourite to take the accolade and, judging by the rapturous applause, the public’s as well.

Managing Director of Laurent-Perrier in the UK, David Hesketh, is the man with the enviable task of selecting a designer for the Champagne house’s Chelsea garden each year. He is clearly persuasive, as Dan Pearson has not designed a Chelsea garden for eleven years. David’s brief to his designer is a simple one, purely to reflect the value’s that Laurent Perrier adhere to when crafting their distinguished cuvées: lightness, freshness and delicacy.

Rocks surrounded by the fragrant flowers of Rhododendron luteum

There can be no argument that David’s brief was achieved. During last night’s BBC coverage Monty Don described The Chatsworth Garden as one of the most significant ever created at the Chelsea Flower Show. I would have to agree. Not only is it one of the largest (no show garden has ever occupied the full island site before) but also one of the most ambitious. Taking his inspiration from two of Joseph Paxton’s lesser known features within Chatsworth’s 105 acre garden – the magnificent rockery and the ornamental trout stream – Dan Pearson has masterminded a garden of unrivalled detail, impeccable naturalism and enormous charm.

The layout of the Laurent-Perrier garden from the northern edge

Dan’s design is unusual for Chelsea in that it can be glimpsed from all sides. This in itself is a challenge as views from every angle have to be considered, whereas in other gardens the main viewpoint is from the front and one side. A tiny stream begins high on an austere rocky outcrop, out of view from visitors. It then flows gently down and through meadows of flowers where it is crossed by giant stone slabs, ending its course in a small pond: “Getting the levels right was crucial” explained David “every stone and pebble in the water course has been carefully secured in place to achieve the right effect”. The mammoth stones used for the garden do not just simulate Paxton’s monumental rockery of 1842, they are the actual rocks that Paxton rejected during his original project. They were found discarded, scattered around the Chatsworth estate, many weighing several tonnes.

Rheums and osmundas in the shadow of Paxton’s gargantuan rocks

Although they are species commonly found in England, the trees that Crocus sourced for Dan Pearson have come from all over Europe. “British nurseries don’t tend to hold mature specimen trees for landscape projects” Crocus founder and CEO Mark Fane told me, “so we had to look to Europe”. The characterful pollarded willow that stands at edge of the garden came from Holland, whilst other trees were found in Germany and France. I was interested to learn that the location of one of the willow trees had to be changed during the build after the team discovered a Victorian sewer running under the site. It was doubtful that the old pipes could have withstood the direct weight of the tree, so it had to be moved elsewhere at the last minute.

The rocks, flanked by Enkianthus campanulatus, through which the tiny stream flows

The comment that was repeated by everyone I overheard was how incredible it was that this garden had been created in a matter of days and yet appeared as if it had been there forever. David Hesketh explained to me that the entire garden had been created at the nursery three months earlier and allowed to knit together over the weeks leading up to the show. Unlike some other show gardens, all the plants were transferred growing in the ground to Chelsea, and not left in pots. A swathe of wild flower meadow was grown specifically for the garden and cut into large square sheets of turf before being transported on trollies to the site.

A grassy bank strewn with red campion, troillius, irises and primulas

The planting creates as rich and colourful a tapestry as one could ever hope to see. Completely unswayed by trends and ‘it’ plants, Dan Pearson has used a palette of natives, carefully augmented by ornamentals, just as you would find in the wilder recesses of a garden like Chatsworth. I loved the floating canopies of Rhododendron luteum;  the fringes of candelabra primulas which appeared to have seeded themselves alongside the stream; the random spikes of camassia and marsh orchids poking through the turf; and the white clouds of Luzula nivea, Lychnis flos-cuculi ‘White Robin’ and Cenolophium denudatum foaming at the base of the trees. There were wonderful touches such as clumps of Narcissus poeticus hiding beneath the bushes and purple stemmed irises along the water’s edge. Many visitors would not have noticed these details, but the judges certainly did.

Turk’s cap lilies in all shades of orange populated shady parts of the garden

I was lucky enough to be invited to walk through the centre of the garden, across a heavy plank boardwalk, over rough stepping stones and then onto a lightly worn grass path. From inside, the garden felt even more permanent, as if I was standing on a little island of Chatsworth that had floated down from Derbyshire to South West London. Any team capable of creating a show garden this convincing deserves a gold medal.

Heavy oak planks invite visitors into the garden

A privileged view from the top of the grass bank inside the garden

Unlike many other show gardens there is a future for the Chatsworth Garden. When the show closes most of the trees, plants and stones will be transported back to Chatsworth where they will be used in the regeneration of the trout stream area. This was one of the main reasons Dan Pearson took on the project. He says: “I felt when I was here the last time it was wrong to make a garden for just five days and I felt uncomfortable about the waste and that the gardens were not being recycled. I wanted to work on something that lasts decades rather than days, so that is why I said I was important that the garden had another life.” The Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, who live at Chatsworth, were clearly delighted with the whole project and spent the day handing out leaflets and talking to the public.

White thalictrum

Dan Pearson vowed yesterday never to work on another Chelsea Garden. In the short term his Garden Bridge project will keep him out of mischief, yet firmly in the limelight. With that under his belt, surely another Chelsea garden will seem like a walk in the park?

In Paxton’s original design for Chatsworth, rocks were delicately balanced so that they could be made to sway for the amusement of visitors

Plant List

A complete plant list was not provided, and would have run to many pages. Here are some of the highlights:

• Asarum europaeum AGM
• Asplenium scolopendrium AGM
• Briza media
• Brunnera macrophylla ‘Betty Bowring’
• Cenolophium denudatum
• Cornus canadensis
• Deschampsia cespitosa
• Digitalis purpurea f. albiflora
• Dryopteris erythrosora AGM
• Enkianthus campanulatus AGM
• Euphorbia palustris AGM
• Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus
• Iris ‘Berlin Tiger’ AGM
• Lonicera pericylmenum ‘Graham Thomas’ AGM
• Lunaria rediviva AGM
• Luzula nivea
• Mahonia ‘Soft Caress’
• Matteuccia struthiopteris AGM
• Melica altissima ‘Alba’
• Osmunda regalis
• Polygonatum x hybridum AGM
• Rhododendron luteum
• Smyrnium perfoliatum

Cornus canadensis carpeting the ground

Big budget show gardens are all well and good, but it was two of Chelsea’s smaller gardens that really impressed me on Tuesday. The ‘Fresh’ category is where the RHS loosens its corset and affords designers a little more freedom, provided they remain on the right side of good horticulture. Designers are permitted to choose the shape and size of their plot (in modules measuring 3m x 3m) and are encouraged to embody an idea or concept whilst experimenting with new materials and technology. Sadly these gardens often struggle to deliver the impact of larger show gardens; not for lack of brilliance, but because they float randomly between trade stands that are attempting emulate show gardens themselves. The unfortunately stark backdrop of the Great Pavilion does not help matters. A shake up of Chelsea’s layout is long overdue and it would be good to see the Fresh garden promoted to a less confused position.

Nevertheless, in today’s featured gardens designers John Warland and Howard Miller manage to capture the current zeitgeist without being pretentious. Eye-popping fluorescent yellow and rusted steel combined with burnt orange flowers were common sights at this year’s Chelsea, whilst inky black water, bamboo and umbrella plants suggest more global influences filtering into garden design. In neither garden are flowers given centre stage. Each is completely different, and yet together they epitomise much of what is new and exciting in garden design.

I could not take my eyes off The World Vision Garden and the camera loved it too. Inspired by the beauty of rural Cambodia designer John Warland swapped rice plants for fluorescent acrylic rods, ‘planting’ them deep in a pool of dark water. Growing through and around them were frothy water buttercups, cyperus and taro plants providing shade beneath their elephantine leaves. The garden’s message is a harsh one: surviving on just two bowls of rice a day, the life of many children in Cambodia is permanently blighted by poor nutrition. Contrasting with the yellow rods, purple irises and water violets are planted to indicate that water conditions are improving enough to allow delicate plants to thrive in the paddies. As well as attracting attention with the mind bending suggestion of a reverse oasis (or should that be anti-oasis?) mirrored boxes filled with cacti are sunk into the water representing light at the end of the tunnel for the country’s impoverished rural communities.

Although this garden probably isn’t something you’d emulate at home (the water needed relentless filtering to maintain that lacquer-black appearance) it is wonderful to look at and in my view deserved better than a Silver Gilt medal. Perhaps one take-out would be the idea of planting cacti in a mirrored glass cube. If sharp drainage could be provided the light, bright habitat would be perfect for these prickly customers.

Architect Howard Miller probably thought he had the toughest brief of all when he was asked to portray the entire universe and the unidentified constituents within it using plants and rusty metal. Since I am no astrophysicist, I will not embellish what the accompanying leaflet tells me, that is without what’s known as ‘Dark Matter’ there would be no planets, stars or galaxies. Pretty dramatic news for us Earthlings. No one knows what Dark Matter is, apart from a cloud of mysterious invisible particles that float around in empty space. Its presence is only known because it is believed to bend light and create huge gravitational effects. Lost? Me too, but let’s go on ….

The garden uses wind as a metaphor for Dark Matter as it cannot be seen but its effects can. Plants have been chosen to be sensitive to the slightest breeze, so that the garden is continually moving in response to air movement. The presence of Dark Matter is reinforced by undulations in the ground, symbolised by a hollow where Dark Matter exists above it and a mound where it does not. I know now why I studied plant science and not astronomy, but evidently when the two disciplines collide the result isn’t too catastrophic. There is no explanation of the large cut-out cogs, but I like to imagine that this is what the Large Hadron Collider looks like, only shinier.

Given the rather esoteric message behind this garden, it’s just as well it’s attractive its own right. The ideas Howard Miller presents in this garden could be translated into a small urban strip, roof terrace or balcony, coming together to make an edgy, private yet usable outdoor space. There’s a boundary of bamboo, focal points in the giant rusted steel sculpture and planter, and plenty of year-round interest. The finishing touch is a bench on which to sit and contemplate the meaning of the universe. I may be some time.

The Dark Matter Garden for the National Schools’ Observatory won Best Fresh Garden and a Gold medal. How would you have judged it, and which of the two gardens do you prefer?

I feel for Matt Keightley, the garden designer who narrowly missed out on a Chelsea gold medal for two years running. Last year his Hope on the Horizon garden failed to secure the judge’s top marks, but won outright with the public who voted it their ‘People’s Choice’. This time, Matt’s design for the Sentebale garden, entitled ‘Hope in Vulnerability’ garnered the same medal from the the judges and we have just learned that it too has been awarded ‘People’s Choice’. I think this says rather more for the opinion of the UK public than it does for that of the RHS judges.

The Sentebale garden comes complete with royal approval

Matt’s showpiece for Sentebale, a charity co-founded by HRH Prince Harry, confirms that he is far from a one trick pony. A garden more different in tone and style it’s hard to imagine and personally I love it. In trying to capture the atmosphere of the rural landscape of Lesotho in Southern Africa, Matt has created a garden of great warmth and personality. Prince Harry said parts of it are “exactly like Africa” and the garden radiates that dry, herbal heat that I have been lucky enough to experience on previous visits to the continent. “I’m aware lots of people haven’t been to Africa, let alone Lesotho,” reflects Prince Harry: “This is our way of bringing a little bit of Lesotho to Chelsea”.

The garden viewed from behind its wooden palisade

It may well be that in striving for authenticity Matt sacrificed his chance of top marks. It’s been suggested that RHS judges frown on gardens that are overly themed, especially when this comes at the expense of excellent horticulture. As an onlooker it’s hard to see what could have been done better in the Sentebale garden. The construction appears to have followed the original plans submitted to the RHS (a point on which some gardens have been picked up in the past) and the production values are high. The idea is original and there are many facets to the scheme, beginning at a dry, sunny threshold and continuing into a colourful garden compound, before arriving in a cool shaded area with expansive waterfall and pool. Perhaps it’s here that the garden loses something of its pace and perfection (I spied a clump of agapanthus not quite in bloom), but all gardens need a quieter spot in which to reflect.

At the back of the plot, a deck is cantilevered over a pool filled by an impressive cascade

A view through the garden towards the cascade that took over 50 tonnes of stone to build

There are varied vistas into the garden from multiple viewpoints, a detail on which some other garden this year failed miserably. I am always underwhelmed by the show gardens that can be taken in with one glance (for example the Royal Bank of Canada garden), or which have to be appreciated through a heavy haze of foliage (sponsor M&G Investment’s garden). My knowledge of the flora of Lesotho is too limited to judge the appropriateness of Matt’s planting, but then this is a show garden and some creative license is surely to be granted?

Whichever way the People’s Choice vote had gone, Matt had made a certain member of the Royal Family very happy. Prince Harry remarked that the garden was “fantastic” and “everything I could have wished for” before cheerfully guiding the Queen around the site on Monday. She smiled proudly, no doubt happy for once to see her grandson grabbing the headlines for all the right reasons.

Prince Harry greets members of the Besutho Choir (Photo: Telegraph)

Matt Keightley strikes me as the kind of chap who will view this year’s result as a stepping stone towards a future gold medal and a place in Chelsea’s Hall of Fame. In ‘Hope in Vulnerability’ he successfully transports us to a little known country in Southern Africa whilst highlighting the work of a remarkable charity supporting disadvantaged children. This is no mean feat, especially during a cold, blustery week in May. The public have spoken, and as any good retailer knows, the customer is always right.

Agaves and kniphofias make up part of the planting beneath a cork oak

Spiky plants suggest a hot, arid climate

I changed my plans this year and instead of dashing headlong for Main Avenue when the show opened on Tuesday, I hung a left and made for the Serpentine Walk where Chelsea’s Artisan Gardens can be found. These gardens are built on a smaller budget and are frequently sponsored by councils, tourism authorities and charities. Their themes are often typically British, as exemplified by the charming Trugmaker’s Garden (about which more soon) and the Magna Carta 800th Anniversary Garden, which took ‘over-themed’ to a new level.

A place for everything and everything in its place

In recent years one garden has stood out, and that’s the garden designed by Ishihara Kazuyuki. At just after 8am on Tuesday morning I followed TV presenter Nicky Chapman and RHS judge James Alexander-Sinclair down the snaking pathway as they handed out the medals. Despite the TV cameras, only modest crowds gathered to watch as, one-by-one, the designers opened their white envelopes. There were hugs, smiles and just a few tears, but no reaction as exuberant as that of Mr Kazuyuki. After a momentary pause his customary composure fell away and he leapt in the air shouting “Gold” repeatedly whilst beaming from ear-to-ear. He speaks very little English so his elation is always wonderfully expressed through his body language.

The dapper Mr Kazuyuki waits patiently for the judges to come around

A moment of suspense as the envelope is opened ….

… and it’s ….

… Gold! Gold!! Gold!!!

As always, Mr Kazuyuki’s garden was perfection itself, down to the very last cushion moss. It represented a Japanese garden of the Edo period (1603-1867) when the practice of building gardens became popular amongst businessmen, merchants and politicians. These gardens were designed to mimic landscapes or views that the owner might have experienced, or to recreate well known scenes from around the globe. As such they were worlds in miniature, designed to impress and convey the wealth and sophistication of the household.

A circular opening allows light into the interior

Against the backdrop of a weeping willow, Mr Kazuyuki’s tableau of mosses, ferns, vividly coloured acers and moody pines lit up this shady corner of the Chelsea Flower show. It was a garden that drew you in, tempting you up the cobble steps to the little tea house at the top of the slope. Flowers were restricted to a few artfully placed azaleas and irises, but who needs flowers when foliage is this brilliant. Mr Kazuyuki goes home to Japan a happy man. Let’s hope he’ll be back with another winning design in 2016.

Acers shade cobble steps leading to the tea house

Mr Kazuyuki’s garden photographed straight on

In 2005, Singapore announced plans to distinguish itself as a ‘City in a Garden’. The projects that followed, such as The Gardens by the Bay, have attracted global attention, rivalling our very own Eden Project in terms of scale and ambition. The city’s long established botanical gardens have always been one of my favourites, brimming with lush foliage and thousands of orchids. Singapore’s national flower is a pretty pink vanda named V. ‘Miss Joaquim’, so it seemed only fitting that Raymond Toh and John Tan, designers of the Hidden Beauty of Kranji garden at last week’s Chelsea Flower Show, should include this special orchid in their scheme.

It’s not often that designers are brave enough to submit a garden with such a distinctly tropical theme and it did feel very much as if this garden ought to be under glass or in a fancy hotel atrium. There was little for the average gardener to take away in practical terms, but there was plenty of admiration for the distinguished design duo’s colourful composition. To plant palms and orchids outside in London during May takes some nerve and at night the entire garden had to be wrapped in a protective layer to keep out the cold. On the first day of the show the garden was taking a bashing from the wind and rain, but the bright colours never lost their sparkle. The contrast between this and the Laurent Perrier Chatsworth Garden, just a few yards away, was a dramatic one.

I particularly enjoyed the narrow waterfalls emerging from a wall of lush greenery. They were clearly inspired by The Gardens by the Bay (above, photographed in October 2012, shortly after it opened) and roared satisfyingly as they plunged into the foliage fringed pool below.

A pavilion at the centre of the garden offered shade from the not-so-tropical sun. The roof was planted with creepers and tree ferns (Cyathea arborea), representing Singapore’s quest to increase the number of roof gardens and green walls around the city. Kranji, the north western suburb after which the garden is named, is a low-rise, well-to-do neighbourhood with a horse racing circuit, organic farming collective and farmer’s market. All very middle-class. Great pride is taken in the city’s natural environment and this garden echoes the care and attention lavished on public spaces that I’ve experienced first hand each time I’ve visited Singapore.

The Hidden Beauty of Kranji was not to everyone’s taste, but deserved a silver gilt medal for pushing Chelsea’s boundaries eastwards. No doubt in Saturday’s sell off a lucky few went home with some choice specimens for their conservatory. Here’s the full plant list:

SHRUBS

• Alocasia ‘Calidora’
• Alocasia ‘Polly’
• Alpinia purpurata
• Calathea insignis
• Calathea ‘Medallion’
• Cordyline fruiticosa
• Costus woodsonii
• Ficus elastica
• Ophiopogon japonica
• Philodendron ‘Imperial Red’
• Philodendron pertussem
• Philodendron selloum
• Philodendron xanadu
• Sansaveria trifasciata laurentii
• Spathiphyllum ‘Lima’
• Spathiphyllum ‘Sensation’
• Schefflera arboricola
• Aeschynanthus lobbianus
• Dracaena cintho ‘Vertakt’
• Calathea orbifolia
• Ananas champaca
• Aglaonema ‘Cretea’

TREES / PALMS

• Areca lutescens
• Vietchia merrillii
• Cerbera manghas
• Musa tropicana
• Rhapis excelsa
• Cocos nucifera
• Cycas revoluta (below)
• Ficus lyrata
• Schefflera amate
• Cyathea brownii
• Cyathea arborea
• Pandanus tectorius var. sanderi
• Licuala grandis

GROUND COVERS

• Scindapsus aureus
• Calissia repens
• Microsorum diversifolium
• Nephrolepsis exaltata
• Humata tyremannii
• Asplenium nidus
• Platycerium bifurcatum

VERTICAL GREENERY

• Tradescantia zebrina
• Asplenium antiquum
• Chlorophytum comosum ‘Ocean’
• Tillandsia usneoides
• Philodendron scandens
• Peperomia angulata
• Syngonium red and pink
• Syngonium ‘Pixie’
• Sellaginella

ORCHIDS

• Aranda ‘Singa Gold’
• Dendrobium ‘Enobi Purple’
• Vanda ‘Miss Joaquim’
• Dendrobium ‘Asian Youth Games Singapore 09′
• Renanthera ’20th Singapore WOC 2011′ (red orchid, below right)

Just two days to go until the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show opens to the public and I’ve finally had five minutes to see what the world’s biggest flower show has in store. As with Chelsea, the jury is out for me on this year’s show gardens, with one notable exception, Paul Martin’s ‘Encore – A Music Lover’s Garden’. Hampton Court is unquestionably the more populist show, but this year I fear the RHS may have gone a little too far in attempting to make room for every anniversary, cause and style going. There are no fewer than five categories of show garden this year; Conceptual, Show, Summer, World and Historic, but will this simply be overload? The grounds of Hampton Court Palace certainly provide the backdrop for great design, but I wonder if the show is in danger of becoming something of a horticultural circus.

Essence of Australia was one of 2014’s showstopping gardens

Happily I can recall more red hot Hampton Court shows than soggy ones and this year looks set to be a scorcher. The forecast suggests we can expect temperatures in the 30s, so if we tire of the gardens we can always lounge by the Long Water sipping champagne. I will be accompanied by Helen of Oz who has timed a business trip to the UK specially so that she can take a day off for the show. With Helen beside me a good time is guaranteed. We will no doubt enjoy a robust exchange of views given that we garden on different sides of the planet. Agapanthus get me wildly excited: they make Helen yawn. I wilt if the mercury exceeds 25: Helen takes off her coat. On one thing we are both agreed: you can’t beat a good English lawn. It’s a pity neither of us can boast of one.

Paul Martin’s garden for Vestra Wealth at the 2014 show

Last year Paul Martin’s garden for Vestra Wealth was my personal favourite. This year the designer returns with a new garden in the ‘Show’ category which looks certain to grab my attention again. Working with the same sponsor, Paul’s latest creation is inspired by music, making a focal point of a sandstone amphitheatre where one might sit and enjoy a recital. The garden is inspired by a love of classical music and in particular Handel’s Water Music, which was commissioned by King George I and had its debut on the River Thames.

The design for ‘Encore’ is inspired by Handel’s Water Music

An sneak preview of Vestra Wealth’s 2015 garden (Photo: Paul Martin)

I can’t recall a time when a garden that was first shown at Chelsea was recreated at Hampton Court in the same year, but I shall not be sorry to see John Warland’s ‘World Vision Garden’ again. It will be fascinating to see if the design has been moved on and an opportunity to share the experience with Helen.

John Warland’s World Vision Garden will be reprised at Hampton Court

When people think about coal mining in England their thoughts normally travel to County Durham or South Yorkshire, but rarely to East Kent. Hadlow College will be presenting a garden entitled ‘Green Seam’, celebrating the regeneration and revitalisation of Betteshanger, a village situated in the part of East Kent that suffered most following the closure of the Kent coalfields in 1989. Dark colliery spoil will be contrasted with the fresh greens and bright pinks of early summer, demonstrating the speed at which pioneer plant species will colonise hostile environments. I am imagining there will be birches, foxgloves and umbels aplenty.

Green Seam celebrates regeneration in the East Kent coal fields

Other gardens this year include a celebration of the signing of the Magna Carta 800 years ago, presented by Amnesty International; a garden inspired by A A Milne’s Winnie the Pooh; a paradise garden created for the Turkish Ministry of Culture and two designs which will attempt to capture the essence of North America’s great gardens.

The selling of plants at Hampton Court Palace Flower Show is both a blessing and curse. A blessing because many of the nation’s finest nurseries are present, a curse because I will buy too many, and so will everyone else. Bare ankles are vulnerable to injuries inflicted by plant trolleys dragged across your path by careless owners, giving all the more reason to use one of the many plant creches. I suppose such minor afflictions keep St John’s Ambulance busy, although this year they are more likely to be dealing with heat stroke.

Avon Bulbs at Hampton Court Flower Show in 2012

One thing we can be sure of is that there will be variety. Whether it’s pleasing or not we shall soon find out. For those of us in the UK there will be coverage on BBC2 on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday (9.30pm) and Friday at 10pm. There are still tickets available on the RHS website. Personally, I am looking forward to a day in the sun, the company of a great friend, a champagne picnic on the grass and an abundance of flowers. What more could one wish for?

Nature takes hold in and around a ruined folly in this naturalistic garden (2014)

I am very fortunate to be able to travel as much as I do, but when I am away from home I miss my gardens and daily contact with my plants. I miss them in the same way I miss my family and friends. I like to imagine they notice my absence too, although frequently I think they quite enjoy the temporary lack of interference (that applies to all the of the above!)

Thankfully I can’t name anywhere I’ve travelled where I have not been able to seek out a garden or green space in which to relax, contemplate and reacquaint myself with nature. The plants may sometimes be unfamiliar, but I feel we speak the same language.

For the last three weeks I’ve been in Hong Kong and China on business. Hong Kong is not quite the urban jungle that some people imagine, indeed it’s surrounded by forested hills which are rarely far from view. Hong Kong supports extraordinary biodiversity which never fails to surprise and delight me. Yet in the city centre, hemmed in by soaring tower blocks, the natural world can sometimes feel very distant.

Kowloon Park, in the buzzing shopping and hotel district of Tsimshatsui (TST), is a truly urban oasis, doing for Hong Kong what Central Park does for New York and Hyde Park does for London. It’s a green lung, providing clean air and breathing space for a population of millions. At the heart of this cosmopolitan city Kowloon Park must be many things to many people: at any given time you might come across young athletes training or elderly ladies practicing Tai Chi; professors writing books or students studying them; tourists taking selfies or locals taking a nap on a park bench. It’s a great place to sit and watch the world go by; a place where one can get a real flavour of modern-day Hong Kong.

Despite having stayed at a number of hotels around the perimeter, I had never set foot in Kowloon Park until this week. Being slightly elevated from the surrounding streets and bounded by magnificent camphor and Chinese banyan trees (Ficus microcarpa) it is not a park that naturally invites you in. Yet once inside the scale and quality of the space is more apparent, extending over 33 acres and laid out on varied levels. There is a sculpture garden (28, below), a splendid aviary (19), a traditional Chinese landscape garden (20), a ‘woodland walk’ replete with pines and azaleas (36), bird lake (23) and, horror of horrors, a branch of McDonalds. The swimming pool complex (8) is the most extensive and well used in Hong Kong.

Opened to the public in 1970, Kowloon Park was originally the site of the British Army’s Whitfield Barracks. The barrack buildings now house the Hong Kong Heritage Discovery Centre. Between 1987 and 1989 the park was renovated and greatly extended at a cost equivalent to £30M.

The current layout is unashamedly municipal, with some fairly crude hard landscaping details in places. Quite rightly the park is designed to accommodate a lot of visitors and to cope with the ensuing wear and tear. The Leisure and Cultural Services Department have adopted a particularly zealous approach to protecting the public from falling up or down steps. This made me smile as in mainland China very little regard is paid to health and safety. It seems Hong Kong wishes to make very sure it is setting a gold standard.

These nasty, oddly photogenic details do not detract because the planting is so exuberant. Everywhere you look there is lush greenery, colourful blossom and delicious shade cast by glorious mature trees, including foxglove trees (Paulownia fortunei), Lebbeck (Albizia lebbeck) and Queen’s crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia speciosa). Trees are generally well labelled, but being a public park the rest of the planting is planned with ornament rather than botany in mind. Standards of maintenance are high, which is something I always appreciate.

Of all the spaces in Kowloon Park, the Chinese Garden is perhaps the most tranquil, situated in a gentle depression and enveloped by a quiet cloister. It’s here that I found a few precious moments to sit and compose myself before returning to the hotel to pack my bags. It had been a long trip and I had missed communing with nature. Here, surrounded by sculpted greens and the happy sound of birds singing, I found a home from home on the other side of the world.

Situated in the centre of Tsimshatsui, Kowloon Park is easily accessible by bus or MTR (Hong Kong’s underground mass transit system): Tsim Sha Tsui MTR Station A1 exit or Jordan MTR Station C1 exit. The Park is open from 5am to midnight daily. Bird watchers meet between 7.30am and 9.30am on Fridays near the bird lake.

The Chelsea Flower Show opened yesterday, showcasing the best clutch of show gardens in many years. Visitors were treated to magical woodlands, gracious urban formality, alien abstract sculpture, planting inspired by Provence, Japan, Jordan and the Mediterranean and a big dose of contemporary outdoor living.

Inspired by Dan Pearson’s superlative Chatsworth Garden for Laurent-Perrier in 2015, there are several gardens this year that aim to evoke natural habitats. The most accomplished and convincing is conceived by Cleve West for M&G Investments, drawing admiring gasps from the crowds as they arrived at the top of Main Avenue. There is something about this site that makes it devilishly tricky to photograph, added to which Cleve’s multi-stemmed oaks create a gauzy screen of foliage around the boundaries. Never mind, Cleve’s garden, inspired by his childhood home on Exmoor, is utterly transportative, conveying one directly to the damp, moss-scented hills and valleys of the West Country. Wonderful, accomplished work from a master garden designer.

Further down the main drag, Hugo Bugg mirrors Cleve’s essentially timeless design with a contemporary one, inspired by the limestone landscape of north-western Jordan. Centred around a gently rippling triangle of water, the garden is almost volcanic in its colouration, form and strong physical presence. This is a masterful, clever garden design, brooding and dazzling all at once, yet sadly not distinguished enough to land a gold medal.

Clever as it is, James Basson’s evocation of a steamy Provençal summer leaves me completely cold. There is the art of recreating a foreign landscape and the art of creating a garden: they are not the same thing. I admire Mr Basson’s skill and artistry, but found myself wanting to leap over the boundary ropes to start weeding and putting in some “proper” plants. “The voice of a Heathen!”, I hear you cry. Well yes, probably, but we are all entitled to an opinion. The classic line overheard from a smartly dressed lady as the evening wore on was “yes Darling, but we have gardens that look like that at all our French properties already”. Welcome to London.

Hartley Botanic played it safe by commissioning Catherine MacDonald to work with Chelsea favourites, the birch and the foxglove. This garden feels rather shoe-horned in and is hard to distinguish from one of the many trade stands, which is never a good sign. It is alright, but not worthy of show garden status (it might have made an acceptable Artisan garden) and certainly didn’t feel remotely comparable to other silver-gilt winners. As with other gardens that didn’t impress on day one, I will revisit them this afternoon to see if they might be a slow burner.

At the end of Main Avenue Sam Ovens’ Cloudy Bay Garden struggles to find its place in the world. The idea of a garden without boundaries is fine, but the largely unstructured composition is hard to read in such an open position. In sharp contrast to Diarmuid Gavin’s garden, Sam’s airy, textural, naturalistic, less-is-more planting left me wanting more, a lot more. No doubt, the western red cedar pontoon-cum-pergola is a stand-out feature, but perhaps looks a little too clean and sharp in amongst the wilderness-style planting. All a little flat and uninspiring, which is a shame from this bright young garden designer. There’s always next year.

Eschewing any one particular landscape and concentrating instead on innovative planting and fabulous structure is Nick Bailey’s Winton Beauty of Mathematics Garden. I wanted so much for this design to win gold, but alas the judges saw fit only to award a miserly silver gilt. This is a tragedy, as in going for height, water, sculptural elements and adventurous planting alongside a strong narrative I felt Nick’s design had what it takes to get top marks. If I had the space and means to transport any of Chelsea’s gardens home to Highgate it would be this one. Nick Bailey is a great talent, a charming man and one to watch.

In truth there are many other gardens I’d be more than happy to give garden room. Paul Martin’s garden for his regular sponsor Vestra Wealth is cool, calm and wonderfully masculine. Conceived as a space in which a busy city client with a love of Far Eastern travel and yoga could relax, it feels more like the luxury lair of some handsome playboy. The palette of rust, caramel, yellow and green transports me back to the 70’s, in the best possible way.

The Yang to Paul’s Yin is The LG Smart Garden designed by Hay Joung Hwang. Unashamedly feminine, it is drawing admiring gasps from the crowd, almost all of which are women. And no wonder. Here is a beautiful, stylish, modern interpretation of living, planted with every crowd-pleasing plant known to man or woman. There are wisteria, foxgloves, roses and irises emerging bountifully from a froth of white Orlaya grandiflora and pink Hesperis matronalis. This is a sweet, sexy, seductive garden which may live on to haunt many a corporate husband or wife when they return from the show this week.

Across the way, occupying an inexplicably enormous plot, is Chihori Shibiyama and Yano Tea’s The Watahan East & West Garden. Exploring the fusion between Japanese and English garden styles, there are elements of manicured and minimalist zen, asymmetric bonsai and ikebana fused with dense herbaceous planting (presumably the English bit). I’m afraid to say it doesn’t quite work, with the garden feeling overwhelmingly oriental and with rather too much empty space. This garden probably belongs at Hampton Court, where its more contemporary message might read better. Nevertheless there are some lovely planting “moments”, including a riotously pinky red rhododendron (which I am always happy to see) and lots of coppery-bronze verbascum.

I love a bit of formality, which has been missing from Chelsea since Tommaso del Buono and Paul Gazerwitz presented their Telegraph Garden to the world in 2014. The Husqvarna Garden by Australian Charlie Albone is again conceived for a London couple who jet into town out again, but want a relaxing retreat to escape to after a hard day at the office. They would need gardeners to trim all those hedges, that’s for sure. The Husqvarna garden doesn’t quite live up to the earlier Telegraph Garden. A sunken area in the centre combined with very tall standard hornbeams makes the garden a little oppressive, particularly in poor light. I wanted to push the boundaries of the garden out and let the whole space breathe a little. Whilst achingly stylish, experience suggests to me that lounging or entertaining in the swish seating area at the end of the plot, despite any amount of fancy lighting, might be a colder, more midge-infested affair than Mr Albone might be accustomed to. That said, I do very much like this garden, especially the planting, which includes stand out plant Leucandendron “Burgundy Sunset” (anyone selling this, brace yourself for the onslaught) and many other lovely Australasian species.

In front of the Royal Hospital Jo Thompson’s Chelsea Barracks Garden is a classic, beautifully finished show garden. Stylish and sculptural, one could imagine this fitting behind a townhouse in almost any part of London. As an advert for new clients I am sure it will be very successful, as a Chelsea garden it is a tad predictable. And it is wonderful to see a designer celebrating the good old British lawn. Why designers from a country which is so synonymous with its unique ability to cultivate the perfect greensward should be so shy of exhibiting real turf I do not know. God knows there are enough trade stands peddling the artificial stuff!

Chris Beardshaw’s Morgan Stanley Garden for Great Ormond Street Hospital is a garden I feel I have seen a hundred times before, but I am happy to do so. It combines the now formulaic elements of water, a rusty figurative sculpture, intensely green planting and lovely blue, mauve and white flowers perfectly. Nothing to offend or especially to inspire here; just a lovely, calming, visually pleasing garden.

Traditional garden style is left entirely to Jekka McVicar in her “A Modern Apothecary Garden” and she pulls it off wonderfully. I overheard so many visitors commenting that this was their favourite, reminding me that for many Chelsea-goers the majority of the gardens are a little too far from their own reality for them to be interpreted at home. This garden is meant to convey what we can do to improve our own health within the context of gardens and plants, inspired by a quote from Hippocrates, “let food be your medicine and medicine be your food”. In essence Jekka’s garden is simply a very fine herb garden, centred around a distinctly Sissinghurst-like centrepiece, full of useful, tasty and pretty plants.

And what of Diarmuid Gavin’s whirling, twirling, roof-raising British Eccentrics Garden? One can look at it two ways. Yes, it’s a little bit silly, but the crowds love it, entertained every quarter of an hour by a performance in which bay trees spin around and the top of a brick tower lifts up. It’s a bit of fun and a much-needed reminder that gardens are a) a matter of personal taste b) things of joy as well as contemplation and reflection and c) that we can all get a bit up ourselves from time to time. Inspired by the likes of W. Heath Robinson, Rowland Emett and Aardman animations, Diarmuid’s crazy, wacky, kinetic garden fits perfectly into its half of the Triangle Site and has, I expect by design, created something of a focal point for this year’s show.

If Diarmuid Gavin was in any way concerned about coming bottom of the class, and I don’t imagine he was for a moment, then there were two other gardens to break his fall. The Forever Freefolk Garden designed by Rosy Hardy is supposed to be about the fragility and degradation of the world’s chalk streams. I missed that point, perhaps because I was distracted by the giant alien sculpture, apparently representing the structure of chalk rock, and a rather psychedelic planting scheme. It is all a little bit trippy, and not in a good way. I am sorry to be down on a fine plantswoman like Rosy Hardy, but perhaps this demonstrates, and I would include myself in this, that plantspeople are not always the best designers. Then again, one never knows quite how heavily the sponsors influence Chelsea designs and if this is the case then Brewin Dolphin need to take some of the blame.

I came to Matthew Wilson’s God’s Own County garden at the very end of yesterday. The rock bank site hasn’t witnessed greatness since Trailfinders and Flemings abandoned Chelsea in 2013: its fortunes have not improved in 2016. Whilst the evening, with the light shining through the garden’s plasticky looking stained glass windows, is probably the best time to view the garden, it is not an entirely joyful experience. All rather gaudy, centred around a gargantuan, ugly representation of York Minster toppled on its side. I feel quite horrid having so few kind words for this garden, but I do not consider this brutish creation up to the standard of Matthew’s design last year for the Royal Bank of Canada. Silver here was justified, if not a little kind.

There were only two gardens widely considered to be in the running for Best in Show: Cleve West’s Exmoor inspired design for M&G investments and Andy Sturgeon’s design charting the earth’s geological development for The Telegraph. In the end it was Andy’s garden, complete with fire bowl, dramatic bronze fins and a meltwater stream that won the top accolade, but either (and one or two others in my opinion) would have been worthy winners.

I am back to Chelsea this afternoon to give the Great Pavilion a proper going over. If you have visited, or are watching the BBC TV coverage from home, I hope you are enjoying every moment of a vintage Chelsea Flower Show. I’d love to hear which gardens tickle your fancy and which send you running for the hills.

Keep looking back throughout this week for more in-depth Chelsea coverage at The Frustrated Gardener.

The problem with writing about The Chelsea Flower Show is that there’s so much to say and so little time to say it. And then there’s coming up with a new angle to share. The BBC’s coverage is so fulsome that one overhears almost every visitor to the show quoting little facts to one another as they thrust their iPads aloft to get “that” shot. “The designer collected the seeds himself from the Camargue and grew them on in Kettering you know” says Dierdre. “That’s the one over there with the Murano glass floor that broke Dierdre. How awful!” Marjorie replies. You get my drift. But aware that many of my lovely followers live overseas or, like me, don’t have a lot of time to watch the television or read newspapers, I am going to take time to describe those I consider to be the most interesting show gardens in a little more detail.

On Saturday, Tim Richardson, gardening columnist for The Telegraph, candidly proclaimed the newspaper’s own garden to be odds-on favourite (3-1) for Best in Show at this year’s event. Having predicted correctly for the two previous years, he can now smugly lay claim to a hat-trick. With his jagged, Jurrasic, geologically inspired design Andy Sturgeon claimed a well-deserved gold medal and his second top accolade for his multi-media sponsor.

I will begin by saying that I found this to be an impressive, sculptural and beautifully executed garden but, alas, not a loveable one. For me there were too many choppy angles and hard surfaces for the space to feel either comfortable or restful: I prefer my gardens on softer and cuddlier side.  The only elements I could feel much empathy with were the plants (and then not all of them) and the bowl-shaped fire pit, which provided a focal point at the end of the plot. Practicality and commerciality are not things one should dwell on too much at Chelsea, but I could not envisage this garden in my own personal space, nor could I imagine how I might maintain it: weeding between rocks is not a pleasant task. In fairness Andy recognised that his garden might not appeal to everyone: “The garden’s monumentality and slight chaos may divide opinion, and it isn’t really related to anyone’s real garden, but Chelsea gardens ought to provoke and I wanted it to be dramatic and unexpected” he explained.

Compared to its peers, Cleve West’s M&G Garden in particular, I found The Telegraph Garden lacking either sense of place or atmosphere. In Cleve’s garden one knew exactly where one was supposed to be and how to feel. There were birds singing and the mingled scents of woodland foliage and tiny flowers all around. It was utterly transportative and, in that respect, a triumph. But in Andy Sturgeon’s garden there was very little that helped the average punter understand where this garden rightfully belonged, apart from on the RHS’s pedestal at Chelsea. There was running water, yes, although oddly disguised from view if one found one’s self standing at the front, and the fire bowl was eye-catching, especially in the evening. It may not have helped that so many other gardens this year positioned themselves somewhere very explicit, planting an obvious question of “where is this supposed to be?” in the mind. Andy’s ambition, and I am ashamed I didn’t rise to it, was that spectators would have the imagination to go on a journey back through time with him.

A definite sense of prehistory offered something for us heathens to latch onto. The garden’s procession of 17 bronze-coated metal wedges, representing a stegosaurus’ gigantic bony back plates, leant the composition an unmistakably Jurassic air. Thanks to Andy’s deft hand this idea was not taken to its theme-park limits and the choice of stone was made carefully, sourcing from quarries known for their fossil packed rock. It was a pity that the bronze chutes delivering water into a shallow pool were not especially visible and that the water body itself was not more interesting. Bubbling geysers or steam rising from the surface might have been taking things too far, but without more going on I found the feature a trifle bland.

Andy Sturgeon understands plants and, most importantly, how to deploy them. His idea was not to recreate any particular habitat but to bring together plants from around the world that flourish in the same, Mediterranean climate. There were species from the Karoo in South Africa, alongside those from South America, California, the Canary Islands, Croatia and Italy. Many of the more unusual plants were sourced from a nursery in France specialising in dry habitat flora. They were transported to balmy Spain to keep them growing through the winter, before arriving in the UK in time for Chelsea.

The selection of plants in the garden was artful, controlled and innovative but, again, not terribly approachable. I found it a little fragile and scrubby-looking, the sort of undergrowth that might scratch one’s legs. But I loved the way lusher plants had been arranged behind benches and near the water’s edge, suggesting they had found a niche in which they were truly happy. This attention to detail is the signature of great Chelsea planting and would have garnered all-important points. The stand out plant for me was one of my own personal favourites, Isoplexis canariensis (now Digitalis canariensis) which was the perfect choice for this garden. Not only did the hooded, copper-orange flowers look magnificent against the bronze fins, but they also echoed wonderfully the flames in the fire bowl. An interesting choice was Jaborosa integrifolia, a starry white flower from South America which was completely new to me. From the same part of the world, delicate Schinus molle (Peruvian pepper tree) created willowy veils of feathery foliage around the borders of the plot.

In summary I found The Telegraph Garden interesting rather than beautiful, admirable as opposed to loveable and clever instead of compelling. But by no means was it unworthy of Best in Show, far from it; it just wasn’t my personal favourite. When one sets out to provoke, as Andy did, one must be ready to get a reaction.

I’d love to hear which Chelsea garden inspired you most and if you took a different view of this year’s Best in Show winner.

Hear about what inspired Andy Sturgeon in this short video with its amusingly cuddly and un-Jurassic soundtrack!.

Plant List

Trees

• Arbutus unedo
• Maytenus boaria
• Quercus ilex
• Schinus molle

Shrubs

• Caesalpinia gilliesii
• Cytisis racemosus
• Diosma ericoides
• Fouquieria macdougalii
• Limoniastrum monopetalum “Carnaval”
• Melaleuca gibbosa
• Osmanthus burkwoodii
• Ozothamnus diosmifolius
• Ozothamnus ledifolius
• Ozothamnus rosmarinifolius “Silver Jubilee”
• Parkinsonia aculeata
• Phillyrea angustifolia
• Senecio mandraliscae
• Sophora “Little Baby”

Textural Plants

• Cistus x dansereaui “Decumbens”
• Dianella revoluta “Little Rev”
• Ephedra fragilis
• Euphorbia pithyusa
• Euphorbia rigida
• Euphorbia seguieriana subsp. niciciana
• Jaborosa integrifolia
• Marrubium bourgaei “All Hallows Green”
• Ridolfia segetum
• Sarcopoterium spinosum
• Westringia longifolia

Flowers

• Acaena microphylla
• Ampelodesmos mauritanicus
• Anigozanthos flavidus
• Bituminaria bituminosa
• Bulbine frutescens “Hallmark”
• Catananche caerulea “Tizi n Test”
• Centaurea bella
• Crithmum maritimum
• Achium russicum
• Glaucium flavum
• Hesperaloe parviflora
• Isoplexisis canariensis
• Limonium pruinosum
• Lotus hirsiutum “Lois”
• Polygonatum scoparium
• Salvia “Violette de Loire”
• Sphaeralcea incana
• Teucrium ackermannii
• Tragopogon porrifolius
• Tulbaghia violacea “Alba”
• Zizia aurea

The great thing about the show gardens at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show was that they were all completely different. Yes, there were common threads – a preponderance of pines, the full gamut of red metals and exceptional visions of nature – but every design took a different angle on garden making. There really was something for everyone; one could validate this by the number of different gardens where visitors confided to one another “this one’s my favourite”. Yet the garden I kept returning to again and again was the Winton Beauty of Mathematics Garden designed by Nick Bailey. As the light changed from the cool, dappled shade of morning to the uncompromising glare of midday and back to the golden glow of evening, this richly textured garden revealed its many faceted quality.

Endowed with a wealth of rare and interesting plants and bestowed with great structure, Winton Capital must have been delighted with the return on their investment. Although only awarded a silver-gilt medal by the judges, this garden could have been no more than a hair’s breadth away from the gold it so richly deserved. No matter, Nick Bailey is a man with many strings to his bow and this, his first Chelsea show garden, will have cemented his career both as a garden designer and TV presenter. Nick has the casual smartness and ringing timbre that suits the modern-day BBC. His recent slots on Gardener’s World have been a hit.

At first one might imagine demonstrating the beauty of mathematics through the medium of a garden to be a pretty tough gig. Not at all it turns out. Every plant is driven by mathematical algorithms and many display these outwardly in the way their trunks, stems, leaves and flower petals are arranged. Nick based his design on the symbol for infinity (∞), using a band of copper, cut through with complex plant algorithms, as the sculptural form sweeping a figure of eight through the space. These symbols and equations were illuminated at night, something few people would have been lucky enough to witness.

Nick’s garden was always going to win my heart, using as it did plants of structure and character from around the world. The complete plant list is staggering – surely the longest of any Chelsea show garden – and is summarised in my preview post. Behind the belvedere and the steps leading up to it there was a forest of eucalyptus, banksia and Ceratonia siliqua (carob). Then to the left we were treated to a dense planting of perennials including Lupinus “Masterpiece”, Polemonium ‘Bressingham Purple’, Cerinthe major “Purpurascens”, Campanula ‘Summertime Jazz’, Allium atropurpureum and Hesperis matronalis “Alba”.

Towards the middle and front of the garden the planting became more eclectic, picking up the copper tones of the sculpture and mingling that with complementary blues, whites and purples. Here could be found bearded iris I. “Kent Pride”, Calendula officinalis “Sherbet Fizz”, Geum “Mai Tai”, Reseda ordorata and Helichrysum bracteatum ‘Scarlet’.

Finally, at the front of the garden, taller plants gave way to bushy Westringia fruticosa, Aeonium arborescens “Zwartkop”, Elegia capensis and tufty Libertia “Taupo Blaze”. The ultimate low growing plant, the fabulous flat-topped aeonium, Aeonium tabuliforme, featured at the very front of the plot where visitors could appreciate the intricacy of its overlapping prostrated leaves.

If there had been one garden I could roll up, tuck under my arm and take home to Highgate it would have been Nick’s. Whilst many of the plants used were a little tender for most parts of the UK, and would certainly be intolerant of our dense London clay, they might have stood a good chance in the warmth of the capital’s urban heat island. The only part of the design which didn’t please me as much as the rest was the very front, bordering Main Avenue, where the very pale gravel screed was so clean and bright that it looked a bit too manufactured. A small niggle which I was more than happy to overlook. It pains me to think this garden will be dismantled tomorrow, but it will live long in the memory. Hats off to Winton Capital for helping us all to appreciate the beauty of mathematics and introducing us to the exciting talent that is Nick Bailey.

Below I have described a handful of the most fascinating plants in Nick’s garden, explaining how they embody the gardens central theme:

Yucca rostrata (beaked yucca, silver yucca, Adam’s needle): This fine, tree-like plant from Texas and New Mexico played a starring role in Nick’s garden. Yuccas display mathematical patterns, akin to a pineapple’s scales, on their trunks and in their leaf arrangements. Borderline tender in the UK and would need exceptional drainage to survive.

Pinus sylvestris “Glauca” (blue Scot’s pine, shown top of post): The “top worked” pines in Nick’s garden produce beautiful cones displaying perfect Fibonacci spirals. Unlike other plants in the garden this one is perfectly hardy in all parts of the UK.

Stewartia pseudocamellia: A japanese tree of great grace and beauty, Stewartia pseudocamellia has single, white peony-like blooms and smooth copper bark. Nick chose stewartia because of the colour of its trunks and its perfectly divided seed pods.

Eucalyptus camaldulensis (red river gum): hidden away behind the belvedere these towering giants were chosen to demonstrate how eucalyptus trees change their internal algorithms dramatically when they move from youth to maturity. The foliage on younger trees will be round, and on older trees, sickle-shaped. Eucalyptus camaldulensis is considered the most widely planted exotic tree in the world, though not suitable for smaller gardens.

Leucospermum cordifolium (pincushion): Related to the proteas and hailing from South Africa, these tender shrubs produce brightly coloured flowers arranged in perfect Fibonacci spirals. Requires frost protection in a cool greenhouse over winter.

Corokia cotoneaster (wire netting bush): The L-system (please don’t ask me to explain!) drives a plant’s stem arrangement. This disagreeable looking New Zealand native creates near perfect heptagons with its twisting, turning stems.

Iris “Kent Pride”: the flowering plants in Nick’s garden represent the way in which plants make sensitive calculations all year round to determine when they should flower. Sunshine, warmth, day length, competition and nutrient availability are among the factors that may trigger a plant’s inner mathematician.

Aloe polyphylla (spiral aloe): from the tiny kingdom of Lesotho this beautiful succulent creates the most perfect Fibonacci spiral of any plant in the world. Needs cool air and bright sunshine to thrive, so might grow well in the UK given the right conditions.

Nigella orientalis “Transformer” (love-in-a-mist): This diminutive annual inspired the design of the garden’s belvedere. Unlike other nigellas, N. orientalis “Transformer” produces a curious crown of sickle-shaped seed pods.

Despite the unpredictability of the British weather, the idea of outdoor living has always appealed to me. In another life I’m convinced I lived somewhere tropical; the Caribbean or South East Asia perhaps. When Country Life International drops onto the doormat I ogle at the mega-bucks houses in Sydney, Barbados, Marbella and Thailand, their sumptuous living spaces merging into wide verandahs, sunlit terraces or lush tropical vegetation. I want to be there, living the dream, gliding effortlessly between my luxury living spaces.

Back in the real world I’d still rather be outdoors than in, but if I must be indoors I prefer to be as close to nature and the elements as possible. No surprise then that the garden that came close to being my number one at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show was created by a designer who I’ve long admired for gardens that bridge the gap between indoors and out.

 

I first became aware of Irish garden designer Paul Martin at Hampton Court Palace Flower Show in 2014 where I so admired his garden for sponsor Vestra Wealth entitled “Vista”. Paul’s stylish, gold medal winning garden oozed contemporary class, incorporating a generous entertaining area centered around a huge cantilevered dining table. Enveloped by a cool blizzard of agapanthus, nepeta, tulbaghia and Hydrangea arborescens, the garden fizzed and sparkled with summertime chic. Slick, glamorous international style combined with meticulous attention to detail are Paul’s trademarks, marrying perfectly with the type of clientele his sponsors work with day-in, day-out.

 

Paul’s latest Chelsea garden, based on the idea of mindful living, ticked all my boxes. As well as being superbly crafted it was also subtly masculine and beautifully controlled. The hard landscaping was dominated by smoothly polished and precisely cut limestone, here and there channeling cool water down the left hand side of garden. Where the rivulet plashed gently into a final pool, the limestone was cut out just sufficiently to hold a couple of bottles of fizz. Perfection. And then there were great chunks of Corten steel, as bold and manly as an old leather sofa. The use of this rudimentary material, once omnipresent in Chelsea gardens, was criticised by some commentators as out of date, but I could not disagree more in this context. The character of the rust-coloured surface complemented brilliantly the tender greens and flaming oranges of the planting and provided a fabulous contrast to the virginal limestone.

 

Paul’s planting was a treat. Resisting the urge to throw everything at it, the designer worked with a tight palette of well-chosen plants, leaving bare earth (again controversial) where the design called for it. Between the masculine, sculptural forms of Dicksonia antarctica, Blechnum tabulare and Rogersia “Irish Bronze” crept little jewels such as Sagina subulata “Senior” (above, to the right of the ferns) and Melica altissima “Alba”. There was a nice mix of quieter moments, for example the woodland planting beneath the multi-stemmed trees, and riots of bright colour. Here again the lovely bearded iris I. “Kent Pride” featured, rising above a cool sea of swaying green foliage studded with the luminous blooms of Trollius chinensis “Golden Queen”, Geum coccineum “Cooky” and baptistas in shades of creamy yellow and dirty plum.

 

I can give or take the idea that mindfulness, a concept very much in vogue at the moment, influenced this garden as much as the blurb suggested. Paul’s design was intended to appeal to a busy urban client with a love of Far East travel, yoga and a need for a relaxing space. That may well be the case, but for me this was a garden would suit an International city slicker, probably a single man, that wanted to display his wealth and exceptional taste. An illuminated image of Big Ben and Westminster Bridge behind sliding shutters, the feature I liked least in the garden, positioned Vestra Wealth’s garden firmly in London where, let’s face it, we’d all like to relax more, if only we were not working hard to afford such priceless views.

Paul, as charming an Irishman as you’d expect him to be, was kind enough to let me and Him Indoors stroll around his garden on Wednesday evening for which I’d like to extend my thanks. As I have two gardens, if there were a second I could have taken home it would have been this one. Now, where’s that yoga mat?

Plant List

• Ajuga “Catlins Giant”
• Alchemilla mollis “Thriller”
• Aquilegia vulgaris var. stellata “White Barlow”
• Arum italicum
• Aruncus dioicus “Zweiweltenkind”
• Asarum europaeum
• Asplenium scolopendrium
• Blechnum tabulare
• Cenolophium denudatum
• Crocosmia “Solfaterre”
• Deschampsia cespitosa
• Dicksonia antartica
• Digitalis “Dalmation White”
• Digitalis “Suttons Apricot”
• Dryopteris erythrosora
• Euphorbia wulfenii
• Epimedium grandiflorum “Lilafee”
• Geum “Cooky”

 

 

• Hakanochloa macra
• Hosta “Devon Green”
• Iris pseudoacorus
• Luzula sylvatica “Tauernpass”
• Matteuccia struthiopteris
• Melica altissima “Alba”
• Osmanthus armatus
• Rogersia “Irish Bronze”
• Sagina subulata “Senior”
• Saxifraga urbium
• Tellima grandiflora “Rubra”
• Trollius chinensis “Golden Queen”

 

And now for something completely different, a garden that should appeal to those of you with more freestyle sensibilities.

There are always one or two show gardens that linger in the mind from one year to the next and they are frequently conceived by Cleve West. His 2016 design for Chelsea Flower Show sponsors M&G Investments will surely be remembered as one of the most effortlessly beautiful creations in the event’s recent history. Best in Show was always going to be a close run thing, a two-horse race between this exquisite evocation of an Exmoor landscape and Andy Sturgeon’s homage to the Jurassic period. The latter won the coveted prize but was so different in tone and concept that it could not overshadow the brilliance of Cleve West’s romantic, naturalistic scheme.

Despite giving the impression of being a bit wild and wooly, the M&G Garden had fine structure, great planting and plenty of interest. What clinched it for me was how the designer had transported the damp, cow dung, cut grass and cow parsley scented essence of Somerset to the heart of London. Water settled in shallow depressions hewn from cool grey stone, rough-barked oaks cast dappled deep shade on the ground, and a dense carpet of “wild” flowers jostled to secure the brightest positions before the canopy closed over for summer.

Cleve West spent his teenage years living on Exmoor when his family moved to the pretty village of Porlock to run a hotel. It was the memory of this happy time and the ancient oak woodlands surrounding the village that inspired his garden. The stone and gravel path leading from the front of the garden to the sunken terrace and pool at the back was a metaphor for his own journey into garden design, which was not one he had planned. Unsure at first, the path is surfaced with gravel and pebbles, transitioning into smooth, sawn stone at the far end. There can be no question that Cleve has attained incredible maturity during his unexpected career as a garden designer and he’s relaxed about the hype surrounding the judging and medal allocation: “I’ve done it enough times not to get too involved in all that speculative stuff” he says.

As I stood admiring his garden at 7am on the first day of the show, shafts of bright sunlight filtering through tender oak leaves, illuminating the sharp green foliage and bright flowers beneath, I could imagine myself in any one of hundreds of peaceful, sheltered woods in the West Country on a mild spring morning. Droplets of water, dispensed about 10 minutes previously by a ruggedly handsome landscape contactor, hung on the tip of every leaf, making the whole garden sparkle. An incredible sense of permanence and lightness prevailed, solid rocks swamped by a glittering flood of fresh new growth.

There was nothing not to like about the M&G Garden although, had this been a real garden, the following season would have been a symphony of green rather than a carnival of colour: exactly what you’d expect of a West Country woodland in summer. As a show garden, views through the plot were also shrouded by a veil of translucent oak leaves, which was lovely and frustrating at the same time.

Having won five RHS gold medals at previous Chelsea Flower Shows I am sure the Best in Show award would have been a welcome addition to Cleve West’s trophy cabinet. Happily for us punters I think we can guarantee that the designer will be back to have another go next year or the year after, which means that by the time the memory of this heavenly garden starts to fade there will be another sent to replace it.

Hear more about the partnership between M&G and Cleve West in this short video:

Plant List

trees, shrubs and climbers

• Quercus pubescens (downy oak)
• Hedera helix “Arborea”
• Lonicera periclymenum
• Rosa pimpinellifolia
• Vaccinium corymbosum
• Vaccinium myrtillus

Perennials

• Acanthus mollis “Rue Ledan”
• Ajuga reptans
• Alchemilla erythropoda
• Amsonia hubrichtii
• Anemone leveillei
• Angelica dahurica
• Aquilegia alpina
• Aquilegia chrysantha
• Athamantha turbith
• Asarum europaeum
• Bunium bulbocastanum
• Bupleurum perfoliatum “Bronze Form”
• Campanula persicifolia “Alba”
• Cardamine pratensis
• Centranthus ruber “Albiflorus”
• Cirsium atropurpureum “Trevor’s Blue Wonder”
• Digitalis grandiflora
• Digitalis lutea
• Disporopsis pernyi
• Epimedium “Amanagowa”
• Epimedium “Flowers of Sulphur”
• Euphorbia amygdaloides “Purpurea”
• Euphorbia “Whistleberry Garnet”
• Euphorbia wallichii
• Fragaria vespa
• Geranium pyrenaicum “Bill Wallis”
• Geranium robertianum
• Geranium sylvaticum
• Geum “Savannah Sunset”
• Gillenia trifoliata
• Gillenia stipulata
• Helleborus foetidus “Wester Flisk”
• Hosta “Devon Green”
• Iris foetidissima
• Iris sibirica “Tropic Night”
• Lamium maculatum
• Lamium galeobdolon
• Libertia grandiflora
• Ligusticum lucidum
• Ligusticum scoticum
• Lunaria annua “Chedglow”
• Lunaria rediviva
• Meconopsis cambrica
• Molopopspermum peloponnesiacum
• Mukdenia rossii
• Omphalodes cappadocica
• Phlox divaricata “Clouds of Perfume”
• Ranunculus acris “Flore Pleno”
• Saxifraga urbium
• Silene fimbriata
• Soleirolia soleirolii
• Symphytum x uplandicum “Moorland Heather”
• Thalictrum “Black Stockings”
• Trollius x cultorum “Cheddar”
• Valeriana officinalis
• Valeriana pyrenacia
• Zizia aurea

Ferns

• Asplenium scolpendrium
• Asplenium trichomanes
• Blechnum spicant
• Dryopteris felix-mas
• Polypodium vulgare
• Polystichum setiferum

Grasses

• Briza media “Golden Bee”
• Deschampsia flexuosa
• Luzula sylvatica
• Melica altissima “Alba”
• Melica nutans

Bulbs

• Allium cowannii
• Camassia leichtlinii “Semiplena”
• Muscari armeniacum
• Nectaroscordum siculum

Annuals

• Taenidia integerrima

Before I wind up my coverage of the 2016 Chelsea Flower Show there are two posts I feel compelled to write. The first is a follow-up to my preview post describing the Royal Bank of Canada Garden designed by Hugo Bugg. The second will be a compilation of delicious delights from the Great Pavilion, including lashings of irises, alpines and hepaticas.

Despite the slightly gloomy design renderings, I was pretty confident that Hugo Bugg would claim a second Chelsea gold for his Royal Bank of Canada Garden, inspired by the plants and landscapes of Jordan. Sadly it wasn’t to be. Instead this interesting, conceptual garden, like its neighbours heavy on symbolic stonework, landed a commendable, but doubtless disappointing, silver gilt medal. Had this been the same award as Andy Sturgeon’s Telegraph Garden I might have kidded myself that I understood the RHS judges decision-making, but it was not: Andy claimed both gold and Best Show Garden. Given a choice between theses two similar but different gardens, I think I’d have chosen Hugo’s. Why? Because for me the concept was clearer, the execution stronger and the planting more artful.

Instead of the anticipated gloom, Hugo’s naturalistic scheme cast a sunlit Mediterranean spell over its gently sunken plot. Elements I was afraid might be oppressive – the huge Aleppo pines (Pinus halepensis) and black basalt “mounds” – were warmer and brighter than I’d expected. On top of that a lively palette of ephemeral looking plants, including intense blue Lupinus pilosus (surely destined to become a star plant at future Chelsea Flower Shows?), shocking yellow Asphodeline lutea and pillar-box red corn poppies (Papaver rhoeas) gave the composition an energy boost. A sparing use of primary colours against a monochrome background put me in mind of Mondrian’s abstract artwork.

Continuing to highlight the Royal Bank of Canada’s committment to protecting the world’s natural sources of water, Hugo’s design aimed to demonstrate how a beautiful garden could exist in an area of minimal rainfall. The geometry that guided the scheme radiated from the core of an icosahedron, the polyhedron with twenty equal triangular faces identified by Plato as the symbol of water. At this point the garden’s mythology started to veer towards its neighbour, the superb Winton Beauty of Mathematics Garden designed by Nick Bailey, although it ultimately developed its mathematical themes more subtly.

The only perfect triangle in the garden was held within the heart of a central, basalt rock feature, representing the sanctity of water. A gentle, almost imperceptible current kept the water’s surface moving, although not free from the dreaded fluff shed in abundance by surrounding plane trees. It amused me to watch a rather earnest looking assistant using what looked like his girlfriend’s stockings to clear the mirror-like surface of unsightly flotsam. It was a thankless and ultimately futile task.

Following the BBC coverage of Hugo’s garden, every visitor wanted to get a feel of the goat hair material that had been woven to order by women of Jordan’s Bedouin tribes. It was rich, dark and coarse, forming a strong belt around the perimeter and covering a series of faceted, fluff-catching shapes along the garden’s boundary.

Hugo Bugg went to great lengths to guarantee the authenticity of his planting, taking time out to visit Jordan to collect seed from the dry, limestone Dibeen landscape in the north-west of the country. For those, like me, who thrive on the discovery of new plants there were rare treasures on show including Tabor’s delphinium (Delphinium ithaburense), Jordan thistle (Onopordum jordanicolum) and inky-black Iris nigricans, the national flower of Jordan.

Now that the show is over the Royal Bank of Canada Garden will move to a permanent home in the grounds of a not-for-profit hotel and conference centre in Guernsey, where it will be open to the public. It will form part of a new floral trail through the Island’s capital, St Peter Port. Given the absurd cost of staging a Chelsea show garden the relocation of all or part of a scheme has become fashionable and increasingly expected. It will be interesting to see how this Middle-Eastern extravaganza translates to the middle of the English Channel.

Strongly designed and sensitively planted this was a handsome, modern garden, perhaps better suited to a public space than to a private garden. Hugo Bugg is slowly but surely cementing his position as one of the UK’s most exciting, forward-thinking garden design talents and will surely be back at Chelsea again soon.

PLANT LIST

TREES

• Pinus halepensis

PERENNIALS, ANNUALS, GRASSES & BULBS

• Acanthus spinosus
• Melica persica
• Adonis annua
• Moluccella laevis
• Ajuga genevensis
• Nepeta curviflora
• Anchusa azurea
• Nepeta italica
• Artemisia sieberi
• Onopordum jordanicolum
• Asphodeline lutea
• Origanum syriacum
• Cerinthe palaestina
• Papaver rhoeas
• Crambe hispanica
• Phlomis cashmeriana
• Delphinium ithaburense
• Ranunculus asiaticus
• Echium angustifolium
• Salvia judaica
• Echium glomeratum
• Salvia napifolia
• Eryngium maritimum
• Scabiosa prolifera
• Euphorbia myrsinites
• Silene aegyptiaca
• Ferula communis
• Silene vulgaris
• Fibigia clypeata
• Stipa tenuissima
• Foeniculum vulgare
• Teucrium chamaedrys
• Geranium tuberosum
• Teucrium creticum
• Hordeum vulgare
• Trifolium annua
• Iris nigricans
• Umbilicus rupestris
• Knautia integrifolia
• Urginea maritima
• Lupinus pilosus
• Verbascum sinuatum

 

“We reached Stourhead at 3 o’clock. By that time the sun had penetrated the mist, and was gauzy and humid ….. Never do I remember such a Claude-like, idyllic beauty here. See Stourhead and die.”

James Lees-Milne, May 1947

It is incredible to think 20 years have elapsed since I last visited Stourhead. Incredible because I don’t consider that I’ve lived long enough not to have done something, except eat rusks or use a potty, for 20 years. Incredible because Stourhead is worth visiting much more often and incredible because I know it. So, on a gauzy, humid evening this week, armed with my iPhone, I re-entered the famed gardens to remind myself what I’d been missing for two decades.

It’s hard not to gush when one describes the loveliness of the landscape gardens at Stourhead. They are as close to a vision of earthy paradise as you are likely to witness, in England at least. And that, of course, was the hope and intention of generations of the Hoare family, the creators of these idyllic acres. Started by Henry Hoare in 1743, Stourhead was conceived as a garden in the Arcadian style, incorporating ever-changing vistas around a man-made lake, replete with temples devoted to Apollo and Flora, a rock bridge, a cascade, a grand pantheon, a gothic cottage, a grotto and acres of artfully positioned trees and shrubs. The aim was to create an idealized version of classical antiquity that would amuse, provoke and thrill visitors, and the Hoares exceeded themselves in delivering their romantic concept.

Despite the vision of Eden, all about you is false. From the lakes and islands to the tiny village with its green centered on the medieval Bristol Cross, everything was carefully contrived to create a scene of perfect peace and serenity. I recall, on a university field trip, being told of the allegories that informed the creation of this outstanding garden and its many set-pieces; how visitors were intended to experience intense emotions – good and evil, happiness and melancholy – as they circumnavigated the lake. It was the 18th century version of a roller-coaster ride.

Together with his chief adviser and designer Henry Flitcroft, Henry Hoare employed 50 gardeners, under the supervision of steward Francis Faugoin, to plant and tend thousands of beech, oak, sycamore, Spanish chestnut, ash, yew, larch and holm oak trees. He worked “con spirito” (as the spirit moved him), planting his “naked hills and dreary valleys” in picturesque swathes of varying greens. Inspired by Claude Lorrain, Nicolas Poussin and Gaspard Dughet he worked in a painterly fashion arranging different trees so that dark masses would contrast with lighter, airier ones. Eventually his grandson, Richard Colt Hoare, would add splashes of colour in the form of the rhododendrons for which Stourhead is now famous.

 

“Nymph of the grot, these sacred springs I keep. and to the murmur of these waters sleep; ah! spare my slumbers, gently tread the cave. and drink in silence, or in silence lave”

Alexander pope

 

We were blessed on our evening stroll by perfect conditions: golden sunlight, not a breath of wind, hardly a soul about and a pub at the end of our perambulations. Not just any pub, but The Spread Eagle, one of several estate buildings built specifically to complete the picturesque illusion of an English village. I can confirm it looks even better after two pints of bitter.

As we slowly circled the lake we were enveloped by the distinctive, sickly sweet scent of Rhododendron luteum and watched the white bracts of the handkerchief tree, Davidia involucrata, fluttering lazily down from the shady canopy. In every direction there was a view across the lake towards a temple, or a glimpse across a hazy meadow, or a delicious carpet of fallen blossom to trample through. In places groves of Crinodendron hookerianum, philadelphus, rhododendron and Kalmia latifolia (mountain laurel) were in full bloom.

As a landscape garden, Stourhead stands head and shoulders above its contemporaries: a greater vision of loveliness it’s hard to imagine. This would doubtless have pleased Henry Hoare enormously. Risen from the ranks of the merchant class he sought land on which to make his mark, and that he did. My excursion may have been long overdue, but I am determined that a return visit to Stourhead will not wait another 20 years.

Stourhead, Wiltshire, is owned and managed by the National Trust.

As I alighted from the train at Bristol Temple Meads station on Saturday, I worked out that it had been 25 years since I had last set foot in the city. Whilst it’s a fine place, and not without its allurements, I have never really warmed to Bristol. I was born in Bath, so there might be a hint of snobbery in my chilliness towards my home town’s bigger, less refined neighbour. Returning to celebrate a 21st birthday (alas not my own), it took at little while for me to find my bearings – apart from the inevitable gentrification and burgeoning cafe culture, I found Bristol largely unchanged.

Extensively damaged during the Blitz of November 1940, the city’s eclectic architecture bears the scars of WWII, both in the pock-marked fabric of the buildings that predate the bombing and the ugly modern development that followed. The gutted frame of St Peter’s Church in Castle Park always made me feel particularly sad and uneasy as a child, frequented as it was by the less savoury elements of society.

Now, parallel to St Peter’s ruined nave, fragrance company Jo Malone London has supported homeless charity St Mungo’s in creating the Castle Park Physic Garden. The garden opened in June 2015, replacing a sensory garden that had become neglected. Given my previous misgivings about the place it was a lovely surprise to stumble over such a pretty, airy display of herbs and flowers. The story behind the garden is even more refreshing.

St Mungo’s works to end homelessness and help people recover from the issues that create homelessness, often related to mental ill-health. Each night the charity provides housing and support for 2,500 people. The Castle Park Physic Garden is a place where trainees on the charity’s “Putting Down Roots” programme learn practical horticultural skills, get the chance to function as part of a lively community and enjoy some respite from their troubles. There’s an opportunity to gain new qualifications in horticulture, paving the path to long-term employment.

Since the garden opened there have been 1,500 gardening hours on site and more than 400 guided learning hours leading towards recognised accreditation. Thirty one trainees have participated in the project, five have completed a horticultural qualification and three have gone into full-time employment, including one as a landscape gardener.

The garden flourished in its first year, work continuing through the autumn and winter with thousands of daffodils, bluebells and snowdrops being planted. The Putting Down Roots team keep the beds weeded, the shrubs pruned and the site generally clean and tidy. On occasion the Jo Malone London team come and help with planting under the guiding hand of designer Emma Coleman.

Funding for the Physic Garden and five others across the UK helping people with mental health issues comes from the sale of a special Peony and Moss scented candle created by Jo Malone London. 75% of the retail price of £44 goes towards the upkeep and planting of the different sites. At a time when an “every man for himself” ethos seems to be gaining ground it’s great to witness the partnership between a large commercial organisation (Jo Malone has been part of the Estée Lauder group since 1999) and a charity working to combat homelessness and create a nicer environment for everyone.

Beautifully presented, lovingly maintained and contributing significantly to the amenity of a busy urban area, the Castle Park Physic Garden is living proof that if you create an attractive environment people will respect and cherish it. Further collaborations of this kind could serve to enliven other lacklustre public spaces and introduce those less fortunate than ourselves to a rewarding career in horticulture.

n Bristol. As one of the UK’s leading homeless charities   Trainee gardeners are moving on to the next phases of their horticultural qualifications.
“It gives me a big bundle of confidence and is helping me to see how capable I am. I really enjoy studying and may even further my education after this course.” – Trainee Gardener

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I am not a negative individual by nature, but I had misgivings about this year’s Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. Some of the design drawings on the RHS website looked positively ghastly and I am still scarred (or should that be scorched?), by the furnace-like temperatures Helen of Oz and I had to endure last year. Happily it turns out that this year’s garden designers are much better designers than they are draftsmen. The show gardens, so numerous that I gave up checking to make sure I had seen them all, are diverse, interesting and, unlike Chelsea, packed with ideas one might readily try at home.

My only criticism of the show is that the standard of construction and plantsmanship is, with a few notable exceptions, a shadow of what one sees at Chelsea. Make no mistake, Hampton Court Palace Flower Show is as good as it’s ever been, better perhaps, but it is moving firmly down a populist route, leaving its sister show to deal with matters of high horticulture. This is fine, because Hampton Court is bigger, brighter and bolder than ever with a lot of space to fill. In addition the public want to shop, in a Brexit free zone, and boy, did they shop today. There was nary a trolley without a corkscrew stake, a sunset orange zantedeschia, a gimmicky hydrangea or a coral-red delphinium in it. Some nurseries definitely had a good day; how many of plants purchased will still be alive this time next year is another matter. With Chatsworth coming on board next year, I wonder how the RHS will differentiate yet another show – the subject of a future post perhaps.

Meanwhile the Hampton Court show organisers have clearly decided that more is more, creating no fewer than five show garden categories and inviting 43 designs to compete. Relatively speaking the standard is high, as is the amount of innovation. Unfortunately one or two gardens, and I will not name names, are not quite up to scratch, which is surprising given the RHS’ rigorous selection process. There are plenty of water features, although the number of shallow metal bowls filled with inky or swirling water, or a combination of the two, gives the impression that someone, somewhere has been offering a good deal. There is a lot of yellow, mainly of the sulphur variety, paired with blues and purples (pleasing) and with burgundy (not so pleasing). Sunshine shades, starting with pale yellow and moving through orange to poppy red, certainly seem to be in vogue, as do all the blues. In the Floral Pavilion, which has taken steroids since 2015, there are more salvias and ferns than I have ever seen, but fewer grasses and foxgloves.

I have two favourite gardens. The first is the Bowel Disease UK Garden for Crohn’s Disease which, despite its unattractive title, is a garden after my own heart. Designed by Andrew Fisher Tomlinson and Dan Bowyer it has more joie de vivre than any of its neighbours, as well as a fabulous plant list. It richly deserves a gold medal and Best Summer Garden award. More on this design in a future post.

The second garden to tickle my fancy is John Warland’s reprise of his design for World Vision, first staged at Chelsea. At Hampton Court the RHS has granted the charity a much larger and more prominent spot, allowing the designer to let his undulating turf strips fly across a blousy meadow of ox-eye daisies. This is both a stimulating and show stopping garden. After two strong years, I can’t wait to see what the World Vision has in store for 2017.

The summer gardens are the most consistently high in standard, so much so that I went back to see them three times during the day, each time witnessing them bathed in a different light. Simple yet beautiful is the Japanese Summer Garden designed by Saori Imoto. This elegant, paired-back garden demonstrates the principle of ‘less is more’ with great deftness. The lavender blue hydrangeas remind me of Cornwall, pulling hard at my sense of belonging.

At the opposite end of the fussiness spectrum comes Kate’s Garden, designed by Carolyn Dunster and Noemi Mercurelli. In this compact little plot the flowers are almost falling over themselves with enthusiasm, as are the lovely people giving out plant lists and information. The garden has been made to raise awareness of lymphoedema, a painful side effect of breast cancer surgery. It shows how to grow cut flowers in a small space, and champions seasonal, locally-grown blooms. Dried seedheads on display show the cyclical nature of life. In this garden the obligatory round, metal water feature, this time filled with floating dahlia flowers, represents the flow of the lymphatic drainage system. Not something one normally considers in the garden, but worthy of consideration nonetheless.

A Summer Retreat is the ultimate crowd pleaser, sending huddles of ladies of a certain age weak at the knees. Those that don’t require the attentions of the St John Ambulance can enjoy a garden inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement. Designers Amanda Waring and Laura Arison have created a garden awash with delphiniums, nepeta and roses in front of raised summerhouse. Naturally the central water feature is a) round , b) full of inky black water and c) bowl-shaped. Perhaps the RHS are awarding extra marks for these attributes in 2016? Meanwhile, I suspect many a husband will be pestered for a petite black and yellow summerhouse over a bedtime sherry tonight.

On the windswept plain that is the blank canvas for the Conceptual Gardens a couple of designs stand out. My favourite, the Near Future Garden designed by Arit Anderson, depicts a scenario where rising temperatures radically alter the plants we can grow in an English garden. At the centre is a swirling black vortex symbolising our oil resources draining away as we use up all our fossil fuel resources. Sobering stuff. Arit has employed some very tempting plants, including Salvia lanceolata (rusty sage), Bulbine frutescens “Hallmark” (burn jelly plant) and Bituminaria bituminosa (pitch trefoil), so called because the leaves smell of bitumen. Three dramatic wooden sculptures representing sun, wind and water implored visitors to harness these natural energy sources to power the world sooner rather than later.

Nearby, The Red Thread is a garden inspired by an ancient Chinese myth which says that when we are born the gods tie our ankles to all the people whose lives we are destined to touch, using a red thread. This thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break. I liked this garden very much and felt a similar structure of wooden pillars and red rope (other colours are available) might make an interesting boundary, plant support or climbing frame in a family garden.

Sadly the vision presented by UNHCR Border Control is all too familiar to us Brits, which makes it especially poignant and politically relevant. This is not a pretty garden by any stretch of the imagination, but a thought-provoking, perhaps chilling one. Visitors enter through a forbidding turnstile to be greeted by the message “Nobody Left Outside” imprinted on the floor of the central building. Thankfully the water feature here is a moat: circular, yes, but not bowl-shaped or brooding. Thank heavens! I feel the garden achieves very effectively what it sets out to do, highlighting the plight of refugees and the risks many take to find shelter somewhere welcoming.

The big show gardens are, well, big. They struggle significantly to rival anything we see at Chelsea because they lack a decent backdrop and are not grouped together. Honestly, I didn’t like many of them, except the Dog’s Trust Garden designed by Paul Hervey-Brookes taking a gold. It’s the first garden I’ve come across that’s designed specifically for dogs and their owners, which poses the questions why, when so many of us have dogs as pets? John’s design includes tunnels and sniffer tracks playfully woven into the colourful herbaceous borders. A cosy pavilion retreat rests at one end of the garden enabling “dogs to survey the landscape with their human guests” – a nice way of looking at things.

With 43 gardens to cover, a few less if you exclude the ones I didn’t get to, I think it’s time to take a break and come back with more over the next day or so. If you are visiting Hampton Court Flower Show during the next week you are in for a treat. It’s perhaps the best ever. Be sure to wear comfy shoes and sun block (I didn’t) and have your route home planned as you’re going to be buying a lot of plants. Happy Days!

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The Medici of Florence were not only one of the richest families in Europe for a time, but also phenomenal garden makers. They laid out the grounds of their multitudinous palaces and villas to demonstrate power and control, making extensive use of precious water, shading trees, citrus fruits and fragrant roses. The Medici gardens were conceived as open-air galleries in which to display vast collections of fine statuary and sculpture and as pleasure grounds where family and friends could play at hunting. A great many Medici properties having survived the ravages of time, twelve are now included within Tuscany’s UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The grandest of all Medici gardens, and a superb example of a garden alla italiana, is the complex of Boboli, situated behind Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici’s monumental Pitti Palace. The palace itself is austere and hulking in appearance, no doubt created to impress and intimidate lesser mortals, which would have included almost everyone else in Italy at the time. Indeed the Duke was so fearful of coming into contact with his subjects that he commissioned Giorgio Vasari to build him a corridor from the Pitti Palace, across the Arno to his offices at the Uffizi and the government palace at the Palazzo Vecchio. That way he could move freely around Florence without ever being seen in public. The Boboli gardens were laid out on the site of neighbouring orchards in 1550, just a year after the Medici bought the palace from the banker named Luca Pitti. They are, if you like, the Italian answer to Versailles.

The modern-day entrance to the garden is via a tunnel from the gloomy Ammannati courtyard, then a huge ramp which cuts the palace off from its garden. It’s not a great start. My first impression of the garden was that it felt rather “municipal”, which is not to suggest in any way that Boboli is unkempt, just to say that the garden wants to be appreciated for its scale and ambition rather that its intimate details.

Things soon get better, although anyone hoping for a garden packed with flowers will be disappointed. Those areas blessed with flowers – the forecourt of the colossal Limonaia (Lemon House, P) and the formal garden created on the L’Isolotto (Little Island, L)) at the centre of Island Pond – are sadly not accessible to the public, which is a pity. Elsewhere dense plantings of bay, holm oak, plane, lime and cypress create a decidedly green framework, criss-crossed by grand avenues, serpentine paths and shady arbours. Vistas were carefully planned to offer views over Florence and to increase the apparent scale of the Medici estate.

Boboli is bisected by the impressive Viottolone (Cypress Lane, J), created by order of the first duke’s successor, Cosimo II. Planting of cypresses trees along a broad avenue, plunging downhill from the heart of the garden, began in 1612. I am not sure if the current cypress trees date from that time, but they are certainly very fine old specimens.

At the same time, a series of wooded labyrinths were set out one side of the avenue. Only fragments of the these remain thanks to radical alterations made in 1834.

The traverse of the Viottolone is flanked by numerous sculptures created at about the same time as the cypresses were planted. If the bright path of the main avenue is too much on a hot day, one can follow one of the narrow pathways, arched over with holm oak, that run parallel.

The Viottolone is interrupted, but not broken, by the Vasca del’ Isola (Island Pond, L). Today, an oval basin of soupy green water is surrounded by numerous 16th and 17th Century sculptures depicting rural Italian folk, set into a dense, slightly overgrown espalier of holm oak. This is a lovely place to stop and cool down in the heat of the day. From a shady vantage point one can enjoy the colossal statue of Oceanus fashioned by Giambologna. The original now resides in the city’s Bargello Museum and what one sees is a copy. Masculine Oceanus presides over smaller figures representing the Euphrates, Nile and Ganges, and all four stand atop a gigantic fountain basin carved from a single block of granite transported to Florence from the island of Elba.

The Isolotto has recently been restored and is now home to hundreds of potted citrus trees and a collection of historic rose varieties, all fringed with colourful geraniums. I was aching to get in to have a closer look, but the gates, upheld by tall columns topped by lithe capricorns, stood firmly closed.

As the garden narrows one arrives at the Prato delle Colonne (Meadow of Columns, N) which is something of a disappointment – a vast semi-circle or grass bounded on its curved edge by towering plane trees and punctuated by two red porphyry columns. A nice spot for a picnic perhaps, otherwise no reason to dwell for long.

Working one’s way back to the heart of Boboli one passes Zanobi del Rosso’s immense Rococo barn, built in 1777 to overwinter over 500 potted citrus trees. The Medici held citrus in high esteem, valuing their therapeutic, aromatic and aesthetic beauty. The Lemonaia (P) is still used to protect Boboli’s citrus plants to this very day, many of which are now rare in cultivation. In July the vast doors stand ajar and the Spartan, whitewashed interior is cool and empty. The box-edged flower beds in front of the building are used to cultivate and display ancient varieties of rose, camellia and bulbous plants. Sadly they may only be appreciated from the far side of Giuseppe Cacialli’s impressive wrought iron gates.

Returning to the rear of the Pitti Palace, with the Fontana del Carciofo (Artichoke Fountain) at one’s back, one can admire the spectacle of the Anfiteatro (Amphitheatre, F). It was from this area that the caramel coloured stone used to build the palace was quarried, hence the large level expanse of lawn and gravel. Originally the terraces (G) were planted with beech, oak, ash, olive, plane and cypress. The six tiers of stone topped by a balustrade were added at a later date, creating a perfect arena for the first ever opera performances. In the centre of the Amphitheatre stands a Egyptian obelisk, transported to Florence from the Villa Medici in Rome.

From the Anfiteatro, the route is all up hill, which is quite challenging in 38ºC of heat. Sadly none of the garden’s water features is seems capable of producing more than a dribble of water, or looking clean, so one has to imagine how the Medici would have taken pleasure in watching their mighty fountains play. Up a gentle incline visitors arrive at the Vasca del Forcone (Forcone Basin, H). At its murky centre stands a bronze sculpture of Neptune brandishing his trident.

Having climbed several flights of steps we are almost at the highest point of the garden and here stands the statue of Abbondanza (Plenty) which began life in 1608 as portrait of Giovanna of Austria destined to crown a column in the Piazza San Marco. The piece was rededicated in 1636 to symbolise the prosperity of the Tuscan State. Abbondanza reminded me a little of the Statue of Liberty, a sheaf of wheat in place of the familiar burning torch.

One final set of steps and one is on top of the world, or Florence at least. On one side all the city is laid out below, train lines straggling into the hazy distance. On the other there are delicious views over olive groves and smart suburban villas to the Tuscan countryside beyond. July is too late in the year to really enjoy the flowers in the Giardino del Cavaliere (Knight’s Garden, I), which is home to roses, peonies and pomegranates. In this exposed spot the cool shelter of the Porcelain Museum is very welcome. The building, known as the Knight’s Lodge, was originally conceived as somewhere to store pots (!), but was later used by the Medici as a meeting place for scientists and scholars. The garden is named after the Bastion of Cavaliere Maltesta designed by Michaelangelo in 1529, and was originally filled with medicinal plants.

From the Giardino del Cavaliere one can trace one’s footsteps back past Abbondaza, through dense, fragrant shrubbery to another lovely rococo building by Zanobi del Rosso called the Kaffeehaus (D). This pale green and white-painted building reminded me of those I’ve seen in Russian gardens. Designed as a resting place for the Medici Court on their lengthy perambulations around Boboli, the Kaffeehaus is now home to one of the most humorous sculptures you may ever see, depicting a fat, naked dwarf riding a turtle. The sculpture by Valerio Cioli is made of white marble and shows Cosimo I’s court dwarf, styled as Bacchus, astride the tortured creature with no small detail left unobserved.

There are hundreds of other features at Boboli worthy of mention, but alas the heat and hunger had taken their toll over a three hour period and we retreated to the banks of the Arno for a long, boozy lunch. Admission to the Boboli Gardens, Porcelain Museum, Silver Museum, Costume Museum and the neighbouring Giardino Bardini is €10 at the time of writing but, this being Italy, this could change at any time. One could easily fill a day by visiting all five attractions.

There’s no doubt there are more beautiful Medici gardens, but few compare with Boboli’s scale grandeur. As much as it is a garden Boboli is also an open air museum. When visiting Florence Boboli is a must if you’re craving fresh air, respite from other tourists, or if you just want to enjoy some of the best views over the city.

Top Tips

1. The Boboli gardens can be baking hot in summer and freezing cold in winter. Visit in spring or autumn for the most pleasant experience. If visiting in July or August, as we did, wear sun block, a hat and take lots of water as there is very little shelter from the sun, especially at midday.
2. The complex is enormous, so if you plan to make a complete circuit then leave a good 2-3 hours.
3. There are absolutely no catering facilities within the garden, not even a kiosk selling gelato or water, so take all refreshments in with you. The café in the palace courtyard is very expensive, but your only option if you don’t plan ahead. A small consolation is that there are toilets both immediately inside the garden and in the courtyard café.
4. There is a small bookshop with guide books published in different languages to the left of the amphitheatre. At €6.20 the official Boboli Gardens guide book is small and informative.

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