Presenting a garden at the flower show is not simple, you want your flowers to be at their best all week.
One of this year’s themes was recycling and judges were thrilled with this reuse of decking.
The designer also used a classic bench from the end of the twentieth century.
A popular theme in the modern garden is rewilding. NO Mo May is in full swing, but it’s okay to mow some of your lawn so you can find your way to the washing line.
It takes great skill to create the impression that you have let everything run fashionably wild; a pot of blue paint has been used to great effect.
The blue theme unites different parts of the garden.
No gardener wants wheelie bins spoiling the view and this bespoke bin store attracted great attention from visitors to the show.
As did the recycled Belfast sink, originally from Birmingham New Street Station circa 1960s, though provenance cannot be proved. It has hot and cold running water, appreciated by gardeners and dog owners alike – fits most dogs. The terrace was created with recycled kitchen tiles, circa 1980s.
All the hard work and months of planning is worth it when the judges come round with the medals.
When I arrived, Uncle Brian was furtling around in the compost heaps.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Potpourri potential.’
He was a man of few words.
‘I can’t imagine you will find anything fragrant there.’
‘Potpourri for insects, a quick way to attract all sorts of creatures when you are rewilding your garden.’
‘The customers who come to Grandma’s rose nursery are unlikely to be into rewilding are they?’
‘Sell on the internet, besides, roses are going.’
‘Going?’
‘Yup, going same way as your gran.’
He turned his head and nodded towards the Victorian brick tool shed, behind which smoke spiralled into the air. Now he had drawn my attention I noticed the divine scent of wood smoke and wandered in that direction. My grandmother, his mother, had requested she be cremated and her ashes placed in her favourite rose bed, but the cremation was not taking place till next week. I tiptoed round into the yard to be confronted by a tangle of burning rose wood.
‘Has there been some kind of rose disease?’
I did not know much about Grandma’s beloved roses, but I knew she inspected every leaf and petal for signs of spottling.
‘No, told you, roses are going, getting a rotavator in, then let the grass grow, the seeds blow and the weeds return.’
It was the longest speech he had ever made.
‘Does Mum know what you are doing?’
‘Nope, doesn’t need to, this was left to me.’
It was true that Brian had been the one who lived and worked here and frankly we assumed Grandma left the nursery and house to him as the prospect of him working or living elsewhere was unlikely.
A few weeks later we took Grandma’s ashes with us to the Chelsea Flower Show where she had had many successes with her prize roses. We met up with her good friend Gerald, a Chelsea Pensioner who had a red rose named after him. He was wearing a ‘Captain Gerald’ rose bud in his button hole and took us to a quiet spot in a rose garden where the Pensioners liked to sit and where three of his rose bushes took pride of place. No one was around so we quickly interred the ashes in the bed and left Gerald to his memories.
A few more weeks passed and we hadn’t heard much from Uncle Brian, but that wasn’t unusual. Mum thought we should pay a duty visit soon. That evening we sat down to watch Gardeners’ World, commenting on roses that weren’t as wonderful as Grandma’s.
‘Actually, I never really liked roses in the garden,’ said Mum ‘all that trouble and most of the year they are prickly skeletons. But birthdays, Xmas, new babies what did I always get? Another rose; climbers, ramblers, patio pots, bushes, old classics, new varieties named after us….’
‘How come we have so few in the garden then?’
‘I don’t think roses liked me, they never thrived and often died. Brian had the right idea.’
As if he had heard her the presenter moved on to the next segment.
‘While many people treasure their roses, others feel the need for a change. We visit a former rose nursery in Surrey where all the roses have been dug up and the whole area rewilded. Brian Floribunda has just been recognised as holding the national collection of dandelions.’
There was Uncle Brian standing amongst waist high grass surrounded by tall dandelions waving in the breeze.
‘How long did it take you to establish this wonderful collection?’
‘Few weeks, they pop up everywhere given the chance, quick turn around, not long to breed new varieties.’
‘How many varieties are there?’
‘Fifty Seven so far, just working on creating a blue dandelion.’
‘That sounds incredible or impossible.’
‘Not as difficult as producing a true black… got to get on…’
Uncle Brian turned away and the presenter was unable to get any more conversation out of him. The camera panned round the Field of Gold.
‘Grandma must be turning in her rose bed’ I said.
‘Especially as she never managed to appear on Gardeners World’ said Mum.
For those of us in the northern hemisphere this will be our longest day, though as some bright spark is bound to point out, days are always 24 hours long. In my garden we should have over sixteen hours of daylight and rewilding will be at its peak. To celebrate the solstice our guest blogger Florascribe allowed me to share a few snippets from her new podcast.
‘When I look out of my window I feel I am living in the middle of a field, though my neighbours may not feel so joyful.
While they are busy jet washing their brick paving and vacuuming their artificial lawn, I put pots and tubs everywhere to hide the weeds, or rather the plants that identify themselves as wild flowers.
What is that irritating buzzing while I’m trying to enjoy my breakfast in the garden? Oh yes, it’s the bees I’ve been attracting to the garden. My wildflower meadow now has a solitary cornflower.
I managed to photograph this special rose which only lasts one day before its petals fall off.
Rewilding your gates is an excellent idea if they won’t close properly.
Dandelions thrive if you don’t mow your lawn, in fact judging by my neighbours’ front gardens, they thrive even if you do mow your lawn. Dandelions have lots of medicinal qualities and there is only one downside…
When the sun goes in their radiant beauty disappears…
All sorts of flowers might appear in your wild garden, but Do Not proudly share your pictures on your local Facebook pages, just in case you have grown a prohibited invader that is about to rampage through the neighbourhood.’
My thanks to Florascribe and our thoughts go out to her family who have just reported her missing, believed to be lost in long grass.
Didn’t get into the Chelsea Flower show again this year? Your hydrangea not quite ready? Never mind, just have your own show at home. No garden is too small or too untidy to join in.
Show gardeners spend all year and vast amounts of money to recreate that shabby corner of your garden where last year’s plants are trying to regenerate.
The Garden of Good Intentions
Let nature take over and who doesn’t love to be welcomed home by their pet dandelions?
Put pots everywhere and never mind the weeds, some of them will turn out to be flowers.
You can never have too many pots and tubs, or can you?
No Mow May
No need to do any gardening, just call it your woodland corner. How tall will grass grow if the cats and foxes don’t flatten it?
Answer: Grass will reach for the skies, the more obstacles, the taller it will grow.
When Findlay Cummings cycled up the long driveway of the country mansion on his latest visit to interview Doctor Chowdry, he was astonished to see the usually restrained doctor up an old oak tree. Circling round the trunk in great excitement was the head gardener’s loveable ten month old Labrador. Grabbing hold of his collar wasn’t as easy as Fin expected, the dog thought it was part of the game, while the doctor appeared in fear of his life.
‘Have you got a gun? Fetch help, I think I’m going to fall.’
‘No, no, it’s okay, Ptolemy is just a big old softy.’
Despite loving dogs Findlay was still glad to see Ptolemy’s owner hove into view, he did not want to have to explain to the boss that their precious visitor from the future had broken his neck falling out of a tree.
A sharp whistle from the head gardener and the dog retreated; Ptolemy knew who the pack leader was.
The gardener marched off, not wishing to get involved with the strange guests and visitors to the normally peaceful mansion, but Findlay raced after him to ask if he had a ladder.
‘Thanks Mr. Cummings, that’s the last time I venture outside’ said Doctor Chowdry, as the woman who seemed to be responsible for medical checks bathed a few cuts and scratches.
‘I presumed it was the first time you had ever climbed a tree and I remembered, from when I used to play with my big brothers in the woods, that climbing down is often harder than climbing up. But honestly there is no danger in the grounds.’
‘All animals are dangerous, especially ones with teeth and I have read in the newspapers that dogs kill people.’
‘Oh em, well not often and not that sort of dog.’
‘And cows.’
‘What?’
‘Your cows kill people.’
‘No, they just wander round fields eating grass…’
‘Come with me to the library and I will show you my reading and studies, why I haven’t had time to do more interviews, go exploring outside. I wanted to gather evidence to explain my theories, to myself as much as to world leaders.’
The normally sedate and dusty library was full of newspapers and scientific magazines, in piles on the floor and spread over tables with cuttings and photos snipped out. Children killed by dogs, walkers trampled by cows…
Initially the doctor had been entranced by the wonderful old books, but then he became obsessed with fresh writing. Brought up in the bunker with only a few old books and tatty documents it was paradise for him to see freshly printed paper and glossy magazines. Intelligent articles on science and medicine were an antidote to the mindless prattle of Belinda Billington and Lauren Smith and the various persons looking after or guarding Belinda and himself.
‘Look Mr. Cummings, your citizens don’t need to be scientists, play with DNA to create new breeds. Bully dogs bred from the toughest specimens and what happened when they roamed wild? And this, introducing strange animals, calling it rewilding… your people don’t know what they are doing, if they saw the real wild lands …’
‘But plenty of countries have all sorts of wild animals, people have always co-existed…’
‘But when man started interfering with nature, changing DNA; safe in the laboratories perhaps, but when infrastructure breaks down, when all the beasts escape, mixing breeding, evolving…’
‘Okay, I understand your theories, but how did cities fall apart as you say they will?’
‘Look at today’s paper, Artificial Intelligence.
It is not me making things up. I am just beginning to understand how it all started to go wrong and we must tell everyone.’
Times and Tides of a Beachwriter 