GARDEN DESIGN
y the time you read this, preparations for the 100th Chelsea Flower Show will be in full swing. The showground opens to visitors in less than three weeks, on the 21st May, and contractors will be starting to build the large show gardens any day now. The statistics for the show are impressive: • 3 times as many applicants as there are spaces for show gardens are received.
• Planning for each show starts 15 months in advance.
• A show garden takes at least 9 months to plan.
• 35,000 visitors visit the show each day. 157,000 over the course of the show.
• The BBC alone broadcasts about 11 hours of coverage and reaches an audience of some 2.2 million viewers.
• The Great Pavilion is so large that you could park 500 London busses in it.
• The showground takes 800 people 33 days to build, starting from bare grass.
So how might all of this be relevant to a ‘normal’ garden?
Chelsea Flower Show is unique. It
represents the epitome, haute couture if you will, of garden design and horticulture. Whilst the gardens created cost many (hundreds of) thousands of pounds and would not work in reality, there is a vast body of inspiration and ideas to be found – if you think laterally.
This is why, as a designer, I happily go and join in the circus every year. Perhaps the most important thing is not
to be overwhelmed by it all and to look for small details that could be reused. The devil is in the detail. Don’t be afraid
to have a go. After all, I expect the colour of your socks was indirectly influenced by the catwalks of Paris or Milan.
By Colette Charsley
colette@charsleydesign.com www.charsleydesign.com Follow me on Twitter @ColetteCharsley t: 01803 722449. m: 07774 827799.
Professional Landscape and Garden Design
Creative and beautiful designs for village, town and country gardens
Colette Charsley PG Dip OCGD 01803 722449 07774 827799
colette@charsleydesign.com www.charsleydesign.com
If you have an old wall mass plant the top with one variety of sempervivum.
Copy the lavender fields of
Provençe and plant lavender, or catmint, in cur ving rows in a gravel bed.
Just like high fashion.
Use rills of water like mini canals which will reflect the sky.
IS CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW RELEVANT? B
Who would have thought that painting a wall grey could create such a dramatic effect on plants and their shadows? The colours sing together.
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