THE CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW GOES GREEN

“Chelsea is always guaranteed to delight … there’s plenty to absorb everyone … from avid gardener to the pure novice.”


The problem with all of the RHS garden shows is that there are so many positive aspects and it is only possible to skim the surface in a feature of this length. Chelsea is the major international show piece of its kind and even if you only have a passing interest in gardens and flora, you cannot help being thoroughly engaged by its content. This year the weather was a great deal kinder than last and exhibitors reported that the conditions were ideal for planting and building their show gardens. This was the 86th RHS Flower Show to be held on the site of the Royal Hospital since 1913 and the popularity forced the organisers to announce quite early that all tickets had been sold and 157,000 visitors were expected to attend during the five days of the event. Despite this I couldn’t help feeling there was something slightly lacking from the usual air of expectancy that usually surrounds the occasion that I could only attribute to a knock-on effect caused by the depressing economic situation.

Sadly there was a notable absence of the popular presenter of BBC gardening shows, Monty Don who had been forced to give up his role after suffering from a recent stroke. I didn’t see that former doyen of the BBC’s ‘Ground Force’ programme Charlie Dimmock either. It seems she has fallen from favour with the BEEB. Press day generally brings a plethora of celebrity guests but there seemed fewer than at previous shows. Those that did make an appearance included Damon Hill, Chris Tarrant, Ringo Starr and his wife Barbara Bach, Felicity Kendal, Michael Portillo, Anneka Rice, Sir Patrick Moore, Brian May and Susan Hampshire. The Queen and other members of the Royal Family did attend later in the day but by the time they arrived the least humble members of the press corps had to vacate the show site.

The large show gardens are always the main attraction and they usually offer something very special on a grand scale. The smaller gardens are also painstakingly put together and are no less impressive even though they are built to much lower budgets. This year there was a distinct indication that the concepts had moved back to basics with strong geometric design and lush planting coming to the fore. Green was by far the theme; not so much as an environmental issue, but as the predominant colour that ranged across the majority of the 21 show gardens. Wild grasses, hostas, tropical palms ferns, perennials, trees and hedges were plentiful and the designers appeared to have adopted peace and calm as their overall themes. One exception was the Oceânic Garden (Bronze winner) by Diarmuid Gavin who had joined forces with Sir Terrence Conran with a flamboyant design that centred on an open sided timber and metal pavilion, complete with espresso machine, overlooking a garden shaded by canopy of mesh and metal daisies. Bamboos, ferns and dicksonias formed jungle style borders around meandering paths and lollipop shaped trees that formed the backdrop. I have the feeling that Diarmuid never quite wins the full approval of the judges, even though Chris Beardshaw had, in a sense gone from poacher to gamekeeper by moving from designer/exhibitor to join the team of judges.

The therapeutic qualities and joy that pleasant gardens can bring to the sick and infirm were evident. The BUPA Garden (Gold) by Cleve West featured plants of medicinal qualities in a tranquil design with a claming water feature that reflected the specific needs of those suffering from dementia and Altzheimers. Similarly the Cancer Research Garden (Gold) by Andy Sturgeon was devised to highlight the progress being made in the fight against cancer by deploying a peaceful design that suggested a journey through different periods in time. The garden contained four reflective pools that became progressively larger towards the front of the garden with Southern beech and large tree ferns planted to provide an exotic woodland setting that formed a series of delightful peaceful glades with orange blue and purple flowering plants brought in to add a brightening element of colour.

The Laurent-Perrier Garden (Gold) by Tom Stuart-Smith was judged Best in Show with a design that was surrealistic in nature that relied on juxtaposing brick-shaped objects around meandering paths arranged in one direction with a random pattern of planting that included a grove of magnificent thirty year old hornbeams that created the effect of floating clouds. Zinc panels on the rear wall and hand-crafted water troughs also of zinc were used to enhance and to break up the strong green by introducing a contrasting shade of blue-grey.

The Cadogan Estates Garden (Gold) designed by Robert Myers reflected how a hotter, warmer London climate of the future might alter the way formal community garden squares are perceived. This used a double canopy of lofty palms to create dappled shade above a layout of York stone paths, a piazza and two parallel canals linked by irrigation streams of harvested rainwater. This created an air of cool calm in a garden that was envisaged to be set among tall buildings. At the rear, a statue of the Cadogan Estate founder, Sir Hans Sloane, proudly overlooked a small terrace while a high feature sculpted from stone and hedges formed the back wall of the garden

Water played a major part in so many of the designs this year and a Far Eastern influence prevailed in several gardens. The Ky Wong Charitable Trust highlighted the cultural links between China and Europe in a creation that they called ‘I Dream, I Seek My Garden’ (Gold) that relied on the imaginative idea of a partly submerged Chinese pavilion and garden being discovered beneath the London soil. Shao Fan is a well respected artist famous for developing old and new Chinese art forms and his garden was an evoking combination of hand crafted wooden buildings, limestone rocks, water and indigenous Chinese plants.

Arabella Lennox-Boyd created a stimulating water garden for the Daily Telegraph (Gold) that achieved tranquillity by tastefully combining an extensive water feature with large slate rocks set in a border of Purbeck stone and slate mulch with a winding path also of slate. A trimmed line of yew bordered the edge of the garden to compliment the colours reflected in the pool as did the strong foliage at the rear of the garden. The ‘Garden in the Silver Moonlight’ (Silver) owed its influence to the Moon Observation Stage at the 17th century Katsua Imperial Villa in Kyoto with a garden devised to stimulate the five senses. This was the first time that contemporary Japanese show garden had been seen at Chelsea and it was devised Hank Ski and Makoto Saito to celebrate 150 years of cultural unity between Japan and the UK. Every year the popular Australians of Flemings Nurseries bring a crowd of personnel to construct their garden and to entertain visitors. ‘The Fleming’s and Trailfinders Australian Garden’ (Gold) this year was designed by Jamie Durie to provide a flavour of beach and bush. Australian plants and hardwoods were used around a wall of Western Australian sandstone constructed from 3,500 individual pieces. A dining area incorporating a central fire bowl ‘bar-b’ completed the impression of outdoor life in a hotter climate and the feature was adorned by an aboriginal hand-painted artwork by renowned artist Gabriella Possum Nungarrayi that enhanced this small vision of Australia.

The show sponsors, Marshalls called their showpiece ‘The Marshalls Garden That Kids Really Want’ (Silver) that used a theme of an organic playground devised to encourage children to play outside. Beyond the metre high stone sculptured snake that guarded the entrance, the garden opened into areas of bold, jungle style foliage that was used extensively and balanced with soft grasses and turf areas where children could play safely. A skimming pool, den and natural rock stack climbing area reached through an underground tunnel added to the overall adventure theme of a fun garden that youngsters were bound to find absorbing.

Chelsea is not only about the lavish show gardens that provide much of the acclaim. Overall there was plenty for everyone from the experienced gardener to the complete novice and the 250 trade stands offered a massive array of the newest and most fashionable garden products and services from tractors to clothing, books to sculptures, botanic wall art to greenhouses. Plenty of expert advice was also at hand for those in need. There were also numerous exciting designs to be seen in a new category to the show; urban gardens that featured outstanding design concepts for small gardens located in a modern urban setting. The 2008 show included no less than 22 of these small gardens; each of them unique and delightful in their own particular way. While the outdoor gardens displayed an abundance of green planting, the Great Pavilion was alive with a mass of outstanding displays of vibrantly coloured popular and less common garden plants, flowers, fruit, vegetables and miniature bonsai trees with features from places as far away as Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada and elsewhere proudly displaying their own indigenous flora. With the shows at Hampton Court and Tatton Park still to come, this looks like being another exciting year for the Royal Horticultural Society.

More information about Chelsea 2008 and the other shows can be found on the Web site:: www.rhs.org
Further photographs of this year’s event can also be seen by hitting the link on my web site at: www.robertbluffield.co.uk

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

The normal working British people are being thoroughly ripped off and our once great country has already gone to pot. The rich get richer, the poor poorer but there is also a middle ‘under class’ that has evolved that Gordon Brown is succeeding in bringing to their knees. This group forms the majority of good, honest workers that Brown is treating with total contempt. He seems blind to the fact that he is crippling the nation by taxing us to the hilt while he remains happy to continue to blow money on his pet schemes as well as a useless war in Afghanistan and a peace keeping mission that can never succeed in Iraq. All of this is bleeding the country dry. On this score it is interesting how the government steers clear of questions relating to what all of this is costing the tax payer and just how much money is being spent every time a missile is fired.

I believe that Gordon Brown is the most loathed prime minister in living memory; in fact I will go as far as to suggest that he is hated by a vast sector of the population. We don’t like his face; the way he stutters and stumbles whenever he refuses to answer simple questions and we certainly do not like the fact that he doesn't have any ears. If he had then he would hear what the public is saying and for once do something positive about the worsening economic situation he has created. What makes matters worse is the fact that he was never voted into power by the populace and he got there by default. There must be some question about the legality of this? Tony Blair must be chuckling to himself for letting his former colleague loose on the British people and we all know that Cherie is ecstatic. Blair’s action in letting the former chancellor take the hot seat should be deemed in itself an act of high treason which sadly is not worth pursuing because it is no longer punishable by the death sentence.

I feel it is time that an Englishman governed our country. The Scots most certainly would never entertain a Sassenach ruling their country so why should we permit a Scot to rule us? Perhaps Brown is an interloper sent here by those north of the border to destroy our country along with any self-esteem that we have left?

The Tax Payer’s Alliance has estimated that more than £101 billion … yes one hundred and one billion pounds of our money has been totally wasted by the former chancellor during the last year alone. This not only goes to fund a war that is killing and maiming our young soldiers, but is also blown on consultants the government hires but refuses to listen to and costly computer systems that are never likely to work. He pumps money into education and the National Health Service but completely in the wrong places that allows money to flow down the drain while areas that should be supported are left void of cash. One such example relates to the allocation of life enhancing drugs to cancer and Altzheimers patients that are given only to patients that live in the right places.

Then we come to fuel tax. We were told to buy diesel powered cars in favour of petrol and now at my local filling station there is already a 14p per litre price differential in favour of petrol. Everybody is affected by the cost of fuel and it reflects heavily in the prices of every commodity that we buy but Brown appears totally blind to the facts. Our haulage industry has long been under threat from operators from mainland Europe who not only fill their tanks considerably cheaper in France and Belgium before arriving on our shores but then add insult to injury by using our roads totally free of charge. Will there ever be a time when this prime minister comes to his senses? Nothing short of a major blockade or an all out strike by our truckers will be sufficient to make Gordon Brown realise exactly what he is doing to our nation. At a recent Prime Minister’s questions, the Milton Keynes Conservative MP Mark Lancaster put the direct question “Does the PM know what a litre of fuel costs?” Bumbling Gordon was unable to answer and had to rely on a prompt from Alistair Darling to provide an answer which only goes to prove how completely out of touch Brown is with reality. But of course, if he travels by road it is usually in a fuel guzzling Jaguar that is hardly environmentally beneficial and lucky Gordon never has to pay for a tank of fuel. Neither does he have to pay for his TV licence, his carpets, his furnishings, his kitchen … enough said. No, we pay for everything which probably comes down to his underwear.

Like all of these things, the continuing issue of taxes will hit the poorest the hardest. The so called green tax issues relating to increasing the road tax levied on older and supposedly more polluting cars will only hit those unable to afford to buy new, energy efficient vehicles. There is a strong argument here; if you can afford to buy a new car then you can afford to pay higher taxes but the situation will only apply in reverse by charging the poor extra because they cannot afford new cars and have to rely on older models to get to and from work. Could it be that the PM has a hidden agenda that he tries to disguise with green issues? Maybe this is a way of getting as many cars as possible off of the roads. But, if he succeeds then this will create mass unemployment and force countless businesses to go to the wall.

Then there is the issue of MPs pay and expenses claims. Are there any honest Members of Parliament remaining out there who are prepared to stand up and be counted on this issue of coming clean about their expenses? How can you respect a bunch of well-heeled bureaucrats that seem only intent on rubbing salt into the public’s already festering wounds by expecting to grab a 64% wage increase when the Home Secretary has failed so abysmally in the underhanded way that she has treated our police? Nobody else is allowed to get away with unjustified expenses claims nor can most people vote on and approve their own pay deals. The Speaker’s underhanded way of dealing with things has really put him in the spotlight and there is very real justification in ridding Parliament of this self-centred parasite. It is time to review the entire way that Parliament operates and for politicians to come clean about the vast sums of public money they are claiming to line their own nests. In the private sector company bosses that get up to a mere fraction of the tricks performed by the MPs would be sufficient to label them as corrupt embezzlers but a Member of Parliament (I refuse to use the term Honourable because that they are not) sees fit to award his or herself a massive pay award while the under-classes who really need the money are deemed unworthy. What Gordon should be doing is being forced to live on an average worker’s wage for a year and be subjected to all of our household expenses; only then would he start to appreciate exactly how difficult he is making life for the average British citizen. Sorry, did I say ‘life’? This was a slip of the tongue because Brown and his control freaks have succeeded in creating a nation that has had so much stuffing knocked out of them that they barely feel capable of existing.

One would have thought that the hammering Labour took at Crewe and Nantwich would have announced loud and clear that the party’s days are well and truly numbered. The only thing that might prove me wrong here is his reliance on the votes of the ‘free society’ and the Chavs that have prospered by his handouts. These number tens of thousands and my only fear when it comes to the election is that they might just remain loyal to their friend that feeds them. Typically Gordon Brown refuses to accept that the writing has long been on the wall and he has passed his sell by date. He is either blind or simply too stubborn to accept that in the party’s own parlance ‘he is not fit for purpose’ nor for that matter are the are the arse licking Cabinet members that he has around him. I cannot believe that they have any respect for a leader who appears to listen to nobody. But to be more to the point they are probably so scared to death of the man that they are unable to publicly register their disapproval. Behind the scenes one can only imagine the levels of sniping that is going on but there could be a light at the end of the tunnel if this causes New Labour and Gordon Brown to implode.

This government has come far closer to destroying our once proud nation than any Nazi bombs and it sucks. Come on Brown … it is time that you came clean and accepted that you simply are not wanted and step down because there is no way that a tyrant of your calibre should be running our country.