The longer it is between posts on this blog, the harder it is to decide what to write about. It’s tempting simply to post a list of things I’ve been doing by way of catching up, and to justify my absence. But that would be dull. So I’m going to skip the lot and just write about Chelsea.

In previous years I have gone on my own, or with a friend. Dave has declined on the grounds that the crowds will be insufferable. But he’s become something of a show gardening junkie and an increasingly confident plant admirer, so he broke his duck and came with me. Did he enjoy it? Well, you’ll have to ask him yourself, but he wants to come again next year, so it can’t have been too dreadful. Here he is helpfully comparing the hardiness of an array of Arisaemas for two lovely ladies.

So, my verdict. I thought the judges were right about Bunny Guinness’s garden. It looked a bit claustrophobic and I didn’t see any vistas I wanted to photograph (not that I could get close enough), and personally I wouldn’t have stepped on that glass floor – my knees would have gone. But I did like the woven wicker raised benches and the curved wooden tops.

The Cornwall garden was confusing. Gorgeous carved rivulet water feature – I loved that. But Meconopsis? In Cornwall, next to a sun-baked swimming pool? I don’t think so. The planting didn’t do it for me.

Sarah Eberle’s Monaco garden was simply stunning. The warm orange wooden deck stretching out over the deep, glass-sided pool, the colour picked up by the Geums and the Osteospermum climbing the green walls. The cool structure at the back and the lavender roof perfectly matching the lavender loungers down below. So poised, so confident, so clean and uncluttered. She’s very, very good.

Cleve’s Libya garden looked very good, but it took me a while to see why the judges gave it best in show. I don’t know for sure of course, but I saw the round columns and the round water spouts, the planted borders giving way to repeated echoes through the sunken route through the sparsely flowering desert, the wall painted ochre to match the sand, the brilliant use of Dianthus cruentus, its blood red flowers leading they eye on through the garden to the shade area at the back. But was it best in show? Was it? Why exactly?

I can clearly see why Cleve’s garden beat Luciano Guibbilei’s Laurent Perrier garden – I don’t understand why the Independent thinks otherwise. Yes the plant colours were stunningly blended. But it was nothing we haven’t seen before – a central path with prettily planted borders each side under trees leading to some kind of structure at the end. It was boring and unoriginal, I thought.

Which leads me, skipping neatly over the ones I didn’t really respond to, to Diarmuid’s Sky garden. I could do without the crane. A hydraulic pole would have been better. And Wonkovator was a truly stupid name for the pod. The florid planting flopping out of the inside of the pod looked a little out of kilter. But the garden itself – the yew and box mounds, the softly rippling Hakonechloa macra moving gently amongst the fixed topiary shapes. The green Hostas, the trees, the round, still pools and the steel walkway. I loved it all. I didn’t expect to, I expected it to be naff. But it wasn’t. It was fantastic and fantastical. It got the media’s attention and it deserved it.

In the Grand Pavillion, I fell for a beautifully simple display of box topiary and Euphorbia leucocephala (which I believe is marketed under the snappy pseudonym of ‘Silver Fog’). The stunning display of alpines at Kevock Plants’ stall bowled me over. Surely it deserved a gold? I know it’s a monocarpic perennial/annual but that Meconopsis punicea was an absolute beauty. I like some Heucheras, but increasingly prefer the ones with less showy leaves and more traditional Coral Bells type flowers. A trip down the road to Plantagogo is called for to stock up. Crug Farm Plants’s planthunter’s collection not only scooped a gold at the first attempt but the President’s medal as well. Just as at their nursery, I barely recognised a single plant on their display. Leaves me feeling a total amateur.

I’m beginning to imagine creating a display in the Pavillion one day. Especially since Dave’s up for it. One day.

Possibly the most mind-blowing display was the Singapore

May 31, 2011