Chelsea Flower Show 2015

[Maggi Young]

Billy Carruthers and Binny Plants won silver Gilt for their Paeonia display 

Binny  Plants stand photo tweeted by Andrea Jones
Binny's medal card

[Maggi Young]

I believe that Sue Beesley of Bluebell Cottage Gardens only had three weeks notice  to prepare for Chelsea - she wasn't fazed, it seems, and produced a display which won a silver medal!

[Maggi Young]

Chris and Lorraine Birchall of Tale Valley Nursery made a garden for  the charity Momentum which won Gold.
Momentum is a registered charity established in 2004 which aims to support children with Cancer and life limiting conditions in South-West London and Surrey     www.moment-um.org

Chris and Lorraine Birchall with Bianca Effemey
Carol Klein with Chris Birchall
View of the display  1 and 2
Dame Jacqueline Wilson, Jayne Torvill,  Christopher Biggins, Chris and Lorraine Birchall

[Maggi Young]

Some more from the stand for Momentum

Well known faces  were around  - Carol Kirkwood, TV Weather person with Chris Birchall
Momentum's Jeff Brown with Dame Jacqueline Wilson  and photo of his daughter Kiera
Jayne Torvill and Momentum supporters
the willow sculptures are by Victoria Westaway

[Maggi Young]

We have heard  a little from Tim Ingram in his diary about the  Kent Hardy Plant Society and their Chelsea exhibit - you can read more  here : http://www.hpskent.co.uk/chelsea-flower-show-2015/

Colin Moat of that team has posted this in  Facebook and Twitter
"Delighted that Roy Lancaster, the President of the Hardy Plant Society, was pleased with our Silver Gilt medal at Chelsea. Been a long slog but very proud of the result!"



 Kents HPS have done  very well!

[SteveC2]

I am off to Chelsea for the first time ever on Friday, just hope it is as good in the flesh as it appears on TV.  Worried about the crowds, I am told I get the mad man stare even at Harrogate Flower Show, but I guess you just have to put up with it.  I lent some plants to one of the displays, but wasn't thinking of going.  Then my wife surprised me with a couple of tickets.  Didn't realise just how expensive they were, by the time we add in train fares and parking we could have had a week's holiday.

But as my wife put it, "it's not every day you exhibit at Chelsea."  (Albeit a very little part of a very big display.)    

[Tony Willis]

Steve

we went last year and also two years  previously. It is a wonderful day out and the crowds are nothing to worry about.

With a little patience you can get right up to the exhibits and we found the exhibitors are very happy to talk about the plants on their displays and give helpful advice.

You just wish you could take some of the plants home with you

i hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

[Maggi Young]

 Funny you should mention buying plants at Chelsea- I think there may be a change afoot - just read from Hardy's Plants that :

"For the 1st time we will be selling plants in blister packs at #RHSChelsea #newplants #magicdragon #goldenparadise "- tweeted with the pix below.

[Tim Ingram]

One of the most interesting displays I have seen watching the Chelsea programmes is the one made by Sarah Cook on the irises bred by Cedric Morris. It is a great combination of detective story - discovering and relocating all these older varieties that can so easily be superseded by modern breeding - researching and then propagating and bringing them out into the horticultural world again. We used to go to Sissinghurst regularly when Sarah was head gardener there and a local artist near to us at Faversham painted some amazing pictures of the garden, including one of the nursery area, so this connection between garden, Art, conservation and nursery really comes out of this. Plus the importance of a Specialist Society such as the British Iris Society which keeps records of all these plants over time. And there is that close friendship between Cedric Morris and Beth Chatto which shows how gardens have such artistic and practical foundations. Would love to see this display in more detail. Does anyone have any pictures?

[SteveC2]

My wife took a few, of one side of the stand and of her favourites.  I guess I am guilty of exactly the kind of thinking that led to these going out of fashion.  For me, possibly due to colour blindness, or just a different taste, they lack the zing of modern cultivars.

[Tim Ingram]

Thanks Steve. I think I will have to go and see Sarah to learn more about these irises. We grow very few of these bearded varieties but have been given a few recent hybrids from Olga Wells (in the BIS), just flowering now, and they really are extraordinary flowers - it's easy to see how you can get hooked on the genus and raise new forms! They are quite difficult to take in en masse like that - individually beautiful but more effective mixed with other plants - but must be fascinating to anyone who knows them well.