Chelsea Flower Show 2018

February 18, 2019 • Leave a Comment

While waiting for a new Chelsea Flower Show, it is worth looking back at the amazing gardens shown last year.

My favourite was a modern garden for a residential apartment with sunken seating area with pastel cushions edged with box hedge in front of modern pavilion and colour co-ordinated soft pastel naturalistic planting of yellow lupins and orange geums and a multi-stem tree: plants perfect for pollinators and reducing pollution. It was a beautiful example of blurring borders between interior and exterior. The kitchen boasted modern appliances and as well as a vertical vegetable and herb farm powered by solar lighting. A garden for the future.

LG Eco-City Garden - Designer: Hay-Joung Hwang - Sposor: LG Electronics

Gold Medal-winning designer Kazuyuki Ishihara created yet another of his gem Japanese gardens evoking a feeling of calm and peace with water, rocks and shade loving planting of Japanese maples, moss balls, Iris 'Caesar's Brother', Pinus and Enkianthus campanulatus. Sheer perfection!

O-mo-te-na-shi no NIWA -The Hospitality Garden- Designer: Kazuyuki Ishihara
Contractor: Ishihara Kazuyuki Design Laboratory Co Ltd.
Sponsor: G-Lion & Cat’s Co Ltd.

People's Choice 2018 was a traditional charming Yorkshire rustic stone cottage on the edge of a woodland, with meadow, a brook, limestone dry walling and romantic planting flowering wisteria, Viburnum opulum with white flowers and Anthriscus sylvestris, celebrating traditional crafts. Just picture perfect and so romantic!

Welcome to Yorkshire - Designer: Mark Gregory - Sponsor : Welcome to Yorkshire - Gold and People's Choice

Chris Beardshow finally got his Best Show Garden for 2018, too, s he was somehow overlooked with not even a Gold medal the previous year. Some thought that he deserved Gold anyway and so did the pubic as but he got People's Vote. Both gardens had beautifully textured and elegant woodland planting in cool shades with Meconopsis 'Lingholm', Halesia carolina, Euphorbia, Hosta ‘Halcyon’, Lamium orvala, Meconopsis 'Lingholm', Primula and Valeriana pyrenaica. It also featured a stunning garden room and water feature.

The Morgan Stanley Garden for the NSPCC- RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2018- Designer: Chris Beardshaw -Sposor: Morgan Stanley

It's been a traditoin to 'cut and cut and transport' a piece of natural landscape from a far away place and we had two such garden in 2018.
One of them tried to and succeeded quite well in recreating a South African wine estate with native fynbos landscape featuring eucospermum 'Soleil', Leonotis ocymifolia, Polygala myrtifolia and Kniphofia uvaria among a Mediterranean-type shrubland.

The Trailfinders South African Wine Estate - Designer: Jonathan Snow - Sposor: Trailfinders Ltd

Another native planting example was Gold medal winning M&G garden, with informal wild Mediterranean planting and hard-edged, textured clay and terracotta rammed earth walls. The planting was very soft and ephemeral with poppies, herbs, silvery sub-shrubs, blue Catanache caerulea, Cistus, Digitalis isabelliana and single flowered roses. Lovely light and breezy against earthy structures.

The M&G Garden - Designer: Sarah Price - Sposor: M&G Investments

The David Harber and Savills Garden offered planting inspiration with colourful perennials blended into rich variety of soft grasses with caper spurge (Euphorbia lathyrus), vibrant pink Dianthus carthusianorum, Thalictrum, Dianthus cruentus, Euphorbia, Stipa tenuissima and Salvia 'Caradonna'

The David Harber and Savills Garden - RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2018- Designer: Nic Howard - Sposor: David Harber Savills

There as also an Islamic influence garden built for a refugee camp, combining past influence and simplicity of form and materials: rills in concrete with metal pipes, and simple wooden top benches with modern finish and drought tolerant planting in gravel, Punica granatum - pomegranate trees with herbs, citrus, and edibles against brick wall. Another garden taking us to a faraway place and offering simple ideas for our own garden.

The Lemon Tree Trust Garden - Designer: Tom Massey - Sponsor: Lemon Tree Trust

Soft planting with Iris 'Deep Black", Foeniculum vulgare 'Purpureum', Salvia x sylvestris 'Mainacht' and lime-green spurge and spectacular purple Lupinus 'Masterpiece' against the laser cut corten steel panels supplied by Stark and Greensmith - truly inspirational contrast of form and colour.

Urban Flow Garden - Designer: Tony Woods - Sposor: Thames Water

This artisan garden has the nicest green wall with bundance of grasses, ferns and heucheras on flowing into borders of foliage plants and more grasses. There are two distinct colour schemes, with autumnal copper shades on one side and silvery tones on the other. I loved the steam-bent oak bench with copper fixings by Toby Winteringham and ceramic tile path by Sue Ridge in the Art and Crafts tradition. Modern and traditional in a harmonious blend.

The Embroidered Minds Epilepsy Garden
Designer: Kati Crome - Contractor: Conway Landscapes - Sponsor: Embroidered Minds

These were my favourites - looking forward to May to see if the last years trends will continue- any more green walls with ornamental planting and edibles, drought-tolerant planting, juxtaposition of stark structures and ephemeral planting, colourful lupins and geum.. or something totally different and surprising?

Keywords: flower show, garden, hard-landscaping, inspiration, planting, stylish, summer, texture

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Chelsea Flower Show 2018

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