RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024 – Part 1 The Show Gardens

I feel extremely lucky to have been able to attend a second RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
The first one I had the pleasure of visiting was in 2021 and as a result of the world wide Covid-19 pandemic it was held in the autumn for the first time in their hundred plus year history.
So it was wonderful to be able to attend this year, with it back at its usual time slot of late May – not that you would have guessed from our unpredictable weather.

Monday the 20th May was the opening day and the sun shone pushing the temperatures up into the mid 20’s. A perfect day for the Royals and celebrities to walk around enjoying the gardens.
Sadly for the rest of us the weather has been rather mixed.

Armed with my rain coat, as yet folded up umbrella, sun cream (just in case the weather forecaster was wrong), folded bags for the irresistible plant stalls, and of course camera, I was off towards main avenue.

Let the show begin!

Show gardens

The National Garden Scheme Garden – Gold Medal

As soon as I glimpsed this, my first show garden, I loved it!

I was looking at a predominately white woodland garden, and as most of you know I have tried to create this at the bottom of my own garden, so it was going to appeal!

The first things my eyes were drawn to were the foxgloves planted on masse, white spikes lifting your eye – something I’m trying to achieve, having sown many more digitalis alba this year.

Under the multi-stemmed hazels I could see a large white shrub so I asked one of the assistants, and was told it was an azalea, he promptly gave me a leaflet telling me about the garden with a link to the full plant list. I can inform you that it is an Azalea, but bizarrely it’s called Rhododendron ‘Daviesii’.

As you move around the outside of the garden you notice the lime green from euphorbias beneath all the frothy white umbels, and little hits of the palest purple from geraniums. Absolutely gorgeous!

Following the brick path to the end of the garden you find a wooden shed, but not any old shed, this one has a tiny Aga cooker inside and was fitted out like a little kitchen, this was to emulate all the tea and cake provided by the generous people that open their gardens to us, ‘the public’ for the The National Garden Scheme .

The WaterAid Garden – Gold Medal

I think from the photo at the top of the page you’ve probably guessed that this is my favourite show garden. Although that’s not to say that I didn’t love most of them.

I was immediately drawn to this garden for its bold, futuristic, funnel shaped, rusty structures. I don’t know why but I love rusty metal which horrifies the garden apprentice (hubby), so I have to sneak little bits at a time into our garden.

Anyway, considering how dominating you’d imagine giant rusty trumpets to be, the naturalist setting surrounding them softens the whole affect.

Water is obviously the main theme of the garden and the large expanse of water with its huge boulders really felt like something I’d come across in the North Wales countryside and brought on a desperate temptation to jump from one to another.

The tall trees are apparently Alder which not only can survive happily when submerged in water but can also take up heavy metals from contaminated soil, isn’t nature amazing!

I loved the smaller, bushier mountain pine ‘Pinus mugo’, it’s perfect for more modest gardens as it only grows a few metres in its lifetime, and you get fir cones.

A wonderful array of plants mainly green, including the common Angelica. Again they’d used a lot of white with swathes of blue Iris with white tips, and dots of colour here and there, noticeably Cirsium rivulare ‘Trevor’s Blue Wonder’, with it’s bright pink flowers.

Very natural and very calming. I can just picture myself on that wooden seat under the trumpets with a glass of something nice.

To find out more about the clean water that Water Aid provide you could have a look at their website.

Stroke Association’s Garden for Recovery – Bronze Medal

Approaching the garden from the left, the first plant that grabbed my attention was Cytisus ‘Lena’, a burnt orange broom that was repeated around the garden.

It always think orange is a more unusual colour to find in most gardens, accept maybe for crocosmia that sneaks in everywhere. I personally seek it out though as as I do like bright colours. There was a lot of it at this years Chelsea, more burnt orange than bright orange but still good to see.

The broom seemed to be going down well as I overheard a few people realising with surprise what that orange shrub was! With comments along the lines of “oh I wouldn’t have thought about using that in the garden”, hopefully starting a new trend.

It did contrast beautifully with the many blue flowers in the garden, including the purple poppy papaver trinifolium, that Monty kept mentioning in his coverage of the show.

The only other colour in the garden was yellow, I recognised Trollius chinensis ‘Golden Queen’ as I bought it for my own garden last year.

Designer Miria Harris, herself is a stroke survivor and set out to create a peaceful, sensory space for recovery and I for one would be very happy to be sitting back in that seating area listening to the water in the small pond.

If you’d like more information from The Stroke Association you can visit their website.

The National Autistic Society Garden – Silver-Gilt Medal

After the mainly green gardens to this point, I was met by a riot of colour from the mixed Candelabra primulas which lined either side of the board-walk. They reminded me of sweeties in an old fashioned sweet shop, a real treat for your eyes.

I was so dazzled by the change in tone that I didn’t immediately notice my favourite celebrity gardener Adam Frost, he was on the garden interviewing the two designers Sofie and Dido. Close up photos to come in future episodes….

I can’t say that I was too keen on the structures, but I did like the fact that there were three seating areas linked by the board-walks, I think you need lots of seats dotted around a garden.

As I moved to a different view of the garden there were swathes of blue and white Camassias and I could again see multi stemmed trees and lots of green. Definitely a theme building here!

The National Autistic Society sponsored this garden to highlight ‘masking’ which is a strategy used by autistic people involving consciously or unconsciously hiding autistic characteristics in order to fit in.

St James’s Piccadilly: Imagine the World to be Different – Gold Medal

This is probably my least favourite of the show gardens, which is strange considering how many walls I’ve built in our garden!

I didn’t mind the brick-work with the formal water feature and beautiful perennial planting but something didn’t feel quite right to me, the palm tree at the back looked completely out of place.

At the back of the garden was an unusual, tall, wooden structure with curving pathways leading to it softened with plants and trees. It was fabulous, I would imagine it was supposed to mimic the steeple on a church but it just didn’t look like it belonged to the rest of the garden.

In fact as I was walking towards the garden I could see the brickwork and also the tall wooden structure beyond it and I assumed they were two separate gardens.

Obviously this is just my opinion and the judges still gave it a gold medal. The garden is going to be relocated to St James’s sister church St Pancras.

Muscular Dystrophy UK – Forest Bathing Garden – Gold Medal

This is in my top three favourite show gardens, which is bizarre because when I saw it on TV the night before my visit, I commented on not liking the flint on the building but that’s the difference of seeing things with your own eyes.

I was also very sceptical of the whole forest bathing concept, although I like the idea of lying looking up at a tree canopy I’d rather be on a comfy reclining seat. Despite my love of wildlife, I really don’t fancy lying amongst them!

I love trees and here over forty silver birch trees (one of my favourites) were used, making the garden feel enclosed, protected and safe. Of course plenty of the trees were multi-stemmed continuing the theme.

The naturalistic planting theme also continued here with green as the predominate colour, just a few blues and pinks to lift it. A perfect large round water feature and a wall constructed as a bug hotel made the whole space feel calm and relaxing.

The flint on the building, which looked far better than I expected, is reminiscent of muscle cells high-lighting the condition Muscular Dystrophy and what it does to muscles.

Terrence Higgins Trust Bridge to 2030 Garden –

I loved this garden, but then I would wouldn’t I? I was transported back home to a slate quarry set in North Wales, home from home. And of course I should mention that our Welsh slate is the best in the world!

Slate is such a dramatic material to use in a garden with its bluey grey contrasting fabulously with green, which you’ve guessed it, is the main colour in the garden again.

As it was supposed to represent a disused quarry that nature had reclaimed, the mainly green palette was to be expected. The few colours came in the form of, what was now feeling like this years ‘Chelsea flowers’ Iris, foxgloves, and Monty’s purple poppy.

Not surprisingly slate is used a lot around here, mainly in the form of chipping’s but you do see a few large pieces, especially used on industrial estates with companies names carved on them. It always looks a richer colour when wet, which is no problem here in Wales as we have rather a lot of rain!

Unlike some of the show gardens this one felt like it could have been someone’s real garden, the pond with steps down and a fabulous rusty water shoot.

The planting was incredible it’s so clever how they make it look like it has seeded itself into nooks and crevices between the slate.

A representation of the tomb stone that those of us that are old enough to remember from the terrifying HIV Aids adverts from the 1980’s, was now being used as a bridge across the water to a secluded terrace. A place of hope for the future and a world without any new HIV cases by 2030.

The Terrence Higgins Trust was set up in 1882 and named after the first person to die of Aids in this country.

The Octavia Hill Garden by Blue Diamond with the National Trust – Silver-Gilt Medal

Talking of Monty and his poppies, look who I found on the next garden, the one and only host of BBC’s Gardeners World programme for the last 21 years, Mr Monty Don!

It was fabulous to stand right behind the cameraman and see what he was seeing as Monty interviewed the designer Ann-Marie Powell. She is also a very familiar face on gardeners world, making many appearances over the years.

Ann-Marie’s garden seemed brighter and more colourful than the other show gardens, I think the light wooden seats helped and certainly looked very inviting, especially the one that overlooked a wildlife pond.

Despite again being a very naturalistic garden using a very restricted colour palette of mainly yellow, purple and peach, including those dark purple poppies, it looked a more flowery garden.

It certainly impressed the public, and after only being awarded a silver-gilt medal by the RHS, it was voted ‘the peoples choice award’.

During the day I did overhear people sounding a bit disappointed at the general lack of colour at Chelsea this year and I think the peoples vote going to this more colourful garden shows what people really like.

So I think we can conclude that the theme of this years show gardens was naturalistic planting, with a lot more foliage plants, a very restricted colour palette consisting of huge amounts of foxgloves, rather a lot of Iris, and a good handful of poppies. And don’t forget all of those multi-stemmed trees!

Next time I make my way around the great pavilion.

Take care & happy gardening.

RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024 Part 2 – The Great Pavilion

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