NEWS EXTRA
Other exhibitors
included Paul
Vanstone, who showcased huge stone heads as well as Bull & Stein and James Parker Sculptures, which both drew crowds with a selection of huge, oversized fruit sculptures, including Bull & Stein’s vibrant blue banana and graffiti-covered apples.
Lovely lupins
One woman described this year’s show as “lupin-tastic”; and she wasn’t wrong. Whilst they are a firm favourite with Chelsea-goers and always make appearance – as Burgon & Ball’s Alison Edwards says “people just want to look at the lupins” – this year lupin lovers were spoilt for choice, as the beloved bloom took centre stage on gardens throughout the show in a host of vibrant hues.
Catherine MacDonald’s Seedlip
Show-stopping sculptures and artwork took centre stage in gardens at Chelsea this year, seen here on the Myeloma Garden
brand also highlighted its recent win at the DIY Week Awards on stand, with its innovative EasyCut and EasyPrune tools selling particularly well. Even on press day at the start of the show, Bosch had to re-stock its EasyPrune rack twice, said DIY brand director
Andrew Booth.
“Press day has never been a big day for us in terms of sales, so I’m delighted,” he said, adding that it wasn’t just visitors who had been making purchases but that other exhibitors had been coming over from their stands to buy too. “Having the EasyPrune on the big
central product area has definitely helped,” Andrew added. Also a DIY Week Award winner,
garden furniture and wood treatment manufacturer, Riverco Trading had a great show, with a seemingly-endless stream of visitors coming on stand in the mood to buy. “It’s
visitor placed an order for £600-
worth of goods within just a few minutes of arriving. “People love to say that they bought something at Chelsea,” Peter added.
always a good show for us,” said owner Peter Wootton. “Although we take a lot of orders here too, we actually have more after sales from this show than at any of the others we do. A lot of people walk on and order straight away but others like to mull it over.” Surprisingly,
although garden
furniture is at the higher end of products on offer at Chelsea in terms of price, Peter told DIY Week: “Every single sale I make is an impulse buy. People love the price and the fact that it is all delivered fully-assembled. They actually ask ‘is that price real?’” Whilst we were on stand, one
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Amazing artwork Show-stopping sculptures were at the heart of this year’s event, with examples on a number of gardens, including The Myeloma UK Garden, which counted Born na Mona amongst its sponsors and featured a giant sculpture of a woman made from layers of blue acrylic; and the Gold medal-winning Norgan Stanley Garden for the NSPCC, which showcased a number of sculptural pieces, including a kinetic art table. The growing focus on art in the garden shows no sign of slowing and can only be good news for the ever-increasing number of exhibitors in this category. Mara Sculpture, which offers Zimbabwean stone sculpture, had another great show at Chelsea this year. Owner Bernard Mavunga told DIY Week he had been non-stop, having already had to re-stock the stand several times by the middle of the week, with a number of days of the show left to go. He was also delighted to have received five stars from the RHS judges for the first time for his stand this year.
Westland Horticulture showed visitors how to get creative with container gardening, planting up re-used and recycled contain- ers with houseplants and indoor edibles
15 JUNE 2018 DIY WEEK 9
Garden featured vivid yellow and red varieties, whilst a beautiful display of purple shades were on show in the Urban Flow garden by Tony Woods and softer pinks and pale blues in Nic Howard’s sculptural show garden. Hillier Garden Cestres showcased a huge array of striking varieties – from the smoldering orange Towering Inferno and two-toned Manhatten lights, to vivid blues and shades of bright purple, including one of the RHS’ best-selling Chelsea species, lupinus Persian Slipper. In fact, wherever you looked lupins were on display – even adorning trade stands and the BBC outdoor studio for its TV broadcasts. Some of the other hottest flowers
at the show this year were irises and foxgloves and, on the whole, woodland-style soft planting and favourite
cottage plants were
another firm fixture on a number of the gardens and exhibits. In the Great Pavilion, The Botanic nursery wowed with a stunning display of foxgloves, earning a Silver-Gilt medal from the RHS. Out in the Artisan Gardens, the Supershoes, Laced with Hope Garden, which was sponsored by Frosts Garden Centres featured a beautiful selection of West Country lupins, which had been bred by Sarah Conibear in her Devon nursery, as well as bearded irises and foxgloves. The varieties proved extremely popular at the show and Frosts helped inspire its customers by stocking the flowers in its centres to help them recreate their own piece of Chelsea. The family-run garden centre business earned a Silver medal for its garden, which highlighted the work done by charity Supershoes to empower children who are battling cancer. James and Jeremy Frost visited the garden, which also played host to celebrity David Walliams on press day. Frosts Garden Centres said: “We are incredibly proud to have sponsored such an inspirational garden and support Supershoes. A huge well done and congratulations to everyone involved” The charity, which founded by Sarah White – wide of Frosts’ managing director Ken White – boasts a team of 360 volunteer artists who customise canvas
Supershoes for children
who are fighting cancer, with each pair personalised to reflect all of the things that child holds dear. The charity sends out around 30 pairs of customised shoes a week and marked its 2,018th pair this year. Talking to DIY Week at the
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