I went to Chelsea for the first time on members day with my great friend Sara. Apparently the numbers are lower on the Wednesday than for the rest of the week, but it was still a squash. I’m glad I went – I managed to solve some supply problems for my Tatton garden so it was well worth it for that alone – but I’m not sure I got a lot out of it from a design inspiration point of view.

I think the problem is that the show gardens especially are quite large and you can’t go onto them. After waiting patiently to get to the front of the crowd, you secure one viewpoint onto part of a garden. To see it from another angle you have to go through the same process somewhere else on the boundary and with so much to see and so many people waiting it just isn’t possible to get a proper impression. So I think the best way to see the big show gardens is on the TV. Also, there was a kind of sameness about some of them. Purple is the colour, vertical is its form. Someone must have delivered a job lot of Salvia nemorosa ‘Carradonna’ to Chelsea – it was everywhere. Stipa tenuissima and Stipa gigantea also featured heavily as did irises and alliums. I think that’s why the Fetzer organic garden stood out. The riotously colourful planting of Californian wild flowers was simply stunning – and no Carradonna in sight.

May 25, 2007