I think that the Chelsea Flower Show is one of the most inspiring shows around and I look forward to it every year. It is slightly surreal to be jostling with crowds of flower fanciers, necks craning to catch sight of a rare bud like groupies at a concert. I love the frenzy around giveaway free packets of seeds and the floral outfits that stopped me in my tracks on a few occasions.
There are no words…
I also think you can tell so much about the state of the world through it’s gardens. A few years ago when I started going to the Chelsea Flower Show a lot of the gardens were seriously manicured. Uber modern & structured and although interesting to look at they were unobtainable/undesirable in the way that the overly groomed always are.
Interestingly it seems to have softened and become much more natural and relaxed. A lot of the gardens had pleasingly morphed from stepford wife show garden to tousled “Cider with Rosie” style meadow featuring abundant stretches of wildflowers such as cowparsley,foxgloves, bluebells, poppies…all my favourites.
I guess environmental concerns, financial woes and the ensuing shifting of values is of course going to filter down to the nations gardens. Personally wild unmanicured gardens where you can lose yourself in chin high daisies are my favourite. Another element which was prevalent was the focus on growing your own everything. From salad leaves and wheatgrass to urban hens laying the household eggs. I hadn’t previously seen a designer hen coop or for that matter a portable bee hive. Now they are top of my list of desirable things to have. I welcome the change. I never really cared for a water feature…
Nice and Wild
A cow parsley frame. Divine.
This was genius. An Eco greenhouse made from plastic bottles by Sustainable Communities Initiatives
Lock Stock – Loved this Lock. Wildflowers from Leeds
Love the idea of someone’s sleek black glossy kitchen being over run with flowers. Why cook? Let them eat flowers.
The Urban Plantaholic’s Kitchen Garden designed by Tony Smith
This is a more manicured number but very much liking the misty love seat behind a screen of ferns.
Hampshire carnivorous plants. Strangely intriguing
We are totally growing our own salad. We calculated we spend £1300 on salad leaves at our studio a year
No more. Watch our salad grow. Watch our Louboutin collections grow.
Cloches, Victoriana hits the garden. How gorgeous?
Another garden another cloche…Don’t try this at home. I nearly suffocated a foxglove under a bell jar!
25 ladybirds for £10. I nearly bought some. I was stopped firmly by my mother who coming from rural Ireland thought buying ladybirds was the height of madness.
Still I love the fact that they are feasting on Cheerios
A replica gothic folly from Red Wood Stone. I could really do with one of these…
And no replica folly is complete without a baptismal font. The perfect garden wine cooler
The Green & Black’s rainforest garden. Made by Cameroonian indigenous women to raise rainforest awareness
http://bakagarden.wordpress.com/
