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Sally Nex

Category Archives: design

Postcard from Chelsea: Ideas to take home

28 Sunday May 2017

Posted by sallynex in design, shows

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

ideas, inspiration, RHS Chelsea Flower Show

So farewell then, Chelsea, for another year. Just in case you’re suffering a little Chelsea withdrawal, here are a few ideas I spotted among the hi-falutin’ designery and general razzmatazz, the kind of Chelsea inspiration that’s actually not that difficult to recreate at home.

Chelsea is often criticised for not being relevant to ‘ordinary’ gardeners: but I think there’s plenty of inspiration that translates directly into the average back yard. You just have to know where to look.

Hazel bundle edging: A simple (and cheap) but effective way to edge beds and borders, as seen on Sarah Eberle’s design for Hillier’s in the Pavilion. Wonderful for wildlife, too.

Make your logpile into a garden feature: Logpiles are a haven for wildlife, from frogs and toads to ground beetles, but they’re usually a bit of an eyesore and best tucked away where they can’t be seen. Unless you do what Nigel Dunnett did in the RHS Greening Grey Britain garden and cover them in plants like a kind of garden sculpture.

Match your plants to your sculptures: As seen on the Seedlip Garden, where the coppery tones of Geum ‘Totally Tangerine’ toned in perfectly with the funky artwork.

Sheds without windows: Why be a norm? Rather than going to the expense of fitting your shed with boring old windows, turn one side into a shelving unit instead and display your prettiest glassware and choice flowers instead. As seen on the Anneke Rice Colour Cutting Garden.

Use clay pots as cane toppers: How pretty is this? A great way to stop yourself poking your eyes out while weeding the tomatoes, spotted on the Pennard Plants stand in the Pavilion.

Clothe your sheds: Another great shed idea, this time spotted on the Horticulture Trades Association exhibit in the Pavilion. They used a planting pocket system to cover one end with strawberries and the side wall with a patchwork of different thyme. The roof was pretty cool too. A whole lot better than looking at a load of shiplap.

Make fencing out of old garden tools: Simple, but effective. These were ordinary garden forks and spades, sunk into the ground on the Chris Evans Taste Garden, sturdy garden twine threaded through the handles to make a simple rope fence.

Tabletop tree pruning: Create natural shade and a living pergola by pruning a quadrangle of four trees – here, on the Poetry Lover’s Garden, limes – into a green roof above your head. They’re also known as parasol trees: if you don’t fancy the hassle of shaping them yourself you can buy pre-trained ones.

Do away with your greenhouse frame: These were quite the talking point. I had never realised quite how imposing the frame of a greenhouse could be until I saw a greenhouse without one. These were frameless greenhouses from Pure, and the RHS was impressed, too: they awarded them RHS Chelsea Garden Product of the Year.

Build walls you can read: What a beautiful idea. Here the words were impressions about scents, on the Jo Whiley Scent Garden: but you could carve a poem, favourite saying or quote into your wall for a feature that’s poetic as well as practical.

Malvern magic

14 Sunday May 2017

Posted by sallynex in design, shows, unusual plants

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garden design, Malvern, peonies, RHS Malvern Flower Show

malvern1A happy day yesterday pottering among the plants at the RHS Spring Festival at Malvern. This is one of the most low-key of flower shows, rarely talked about yet hiding treasures at its heart. Not least of which is one of the very best floral marquees of them all: for my money, second only to the marquee at Chelsea in terms of quality, quantity and sheer wow factor. I never tire of it.

By the time I left I was three scented-leaf geraniums, three salvias, a solar-powered irrigation system and a lot of large bamboo plant labels the heavier. All of which, no doubt, more later. But since I also had a camera loaded with pics I thought I would resurrect an old Constant Gardener tradition, last seen in 2012, and dish out a few gongs for the bits of the show that I thought were worth singling out for special attention.

Best Use of a Borrowed Landscape
At One With… A Meditation Garden (Gold and Best in Show)

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Head and shoulders above the rest, and a shoo-in for Best in Show, Peter Dowle’s garden was a study in how to transport you to another place using plants, water and very, very clever design. Not least of which was nicking the grandeur of the Malvern Hills to make your acers look like they’re at one with the landscape.

Best Use of Recycled Materials
Team AK’s Grand Day Out, Ashton Keynes CofE Primary School, Wiltshire (Highly Commended)

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I adore the school gardens at Malvern: they never fail to provide new ideas. I think it’s something to do with the way that kids see the world differently – and that includes gardens. Loved this painted bottle path edging – it just made me smile.

Best Wildflower Planting
The Refuge (Gold)

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Ragged robin and corn poppies in a sublime little mini-meadow on Sue Jollan’s garden for Help Refugees UK.

Wall of the Year
Buckfast Abbey Millennium Garden (Silver)

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How lovely this garden was. Dominated by a delicate wire sculpture of a deer drinking, it combined gentle, airy planting with green oak arches – infilled at the base with cut logs to make a wall which combines natural beauty and elegance.
Highly Commended:
Molecular Garden (Gold)
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Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best: this wooden wall art transformed a stretch of render in the winning garden in the Spa Gardens category, by visiting designers Denis Kalashnikov and Ekaterina Bolotova, on an exchange from the Moscow Flower Show.

Garden Furniture I Most Wanted To Take Home
Ocean Garden (Bronze)

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Colour… and comfort. Love it.

Funkiest Sculpture of the Year 2017
Nik Burns

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Garden grunge at its best. Loved this chap right down to the bulb. Now that’s what I call garden lighting.

Plant of the Show 2017
Peonies

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They were everywhere: breathtaking, blowsy, beautiful. I particularly liked that the ravishing display on Primrose Hall Nursery’s stand was staged close enough for you to be able to smell the blooms and work out which are as perfumed as they say they are. I will be filling my garden with la Duchesse de Nemours forthwith.


Most Astonishing Stem Colour
Acer palmatum “Sango-kaku” (Staddon Farm Nurseries, Gold)

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Extraordinary: and those lime green leaves just popped against the stems.

Plant That Most Resembled a Pillow
Scleranthus biflorus (D’Arcy & Everest, Silver Gilt)

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Hands down the weirdest plant in the marquee. I had to look twice before I realised it even was a plant. Then all I really wanted to do was lay my head down on it and go to sleep.

The “Why? Oh Why?” Wooden Spoon Award for 2017
Bubble Drops (Spa Garden, Bronze)

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It had one slightly lonely-looking plant in it. In a pot. ‘Nuff said.

How not to stake a tree

12 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by sallynex in design, landscaping

≈ 3 Comments

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plant supports, planting trees, staking, supports, terracing, tree stakes, trees

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I’ve been working on an interesting little project lately in Dorset, looking after a newly-designed garden which is learning to settle back in to its landscape after some fairly major re-sculpting of a steep hillside into handsome stone-built terraces.

The (extremely nice) owners are keen gardeners but not knowledgeable, so it’s up to me to come up with solutions to the inevitable little problems that crop up when you drop a garden onto a hillside and leave the evolution into maturity till afterwards.

The owners mentioned to me that three little ornamental Japanese cherries planted on one of the terraces hadn’t been thriving this summer. We worked through the usual possible ailments: drought in this year’s relatively dry summer, lack of shelter (the prevailing wind blows directly onto this terrace), silverleaf disease.

But then I went and actually looked at them, close-up. And it was blindingly obvious what the problem was: the above (bar the silverleaf) may have played their part but the clincher was the way these trees have been staked.

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It’s hard to know where to start.

Bamboo canes. Far too weak, flimsy and flexible to hold a growing tree steady against gales and the knocks and bumps of everyday life. They weren’t stuck into the ground all that deeply either – you could flap them about with one hand. No support whatsoever.

That flexitie. I have issues with this stuff for all sorts of reasons: but in this case, again, it’s far too stretchy for holding a young tree in position.  It’s also tied so loosely around the tree that it’s simply not doing its job.

All this meant these little trees might just as well have been planted without stakes at all. And you could see the damage: the root balls were clearly lifting out of the ground.

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The reason you stake a tree while it’s getting established is to hold the rootball firmly in place. If you don’t, when the top of the tree whips about in the wind it will also pull at the rootball, which (because you haven’t staked it properly) is free to move within the soil. That rips away those delicate feeder roots a tree puts out to explore and colonise the surrounding soil, effectively repeatedly preventing the roots from anchoring the tree in the ground. This keeps the root ball loose, and because the tree can’t develop a better root system than it had in the pot, it cannot grow. That’s why these trees were suffering.

So here’s what I did:

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This is a proper tree stake: around 7.5cm (3″) diameter, sturdy round wooden pole about 1.5m (5ft) long (you can use squared timber, as long as it’s good and robust). It dwarfs the tree trunk a little but that’s the point: it’s meant to be stronger.

I’ve driven it in to the ground with a mallet at a 45° angle, firmly enough that you can’t move it easily by hand. Opinion is divided about whether stakes should be parallel with the trunk to about halfway up, or like this: I’ve always favoured the 45° approach as it holds the rootball while letting the top of the tree move, and you’re driving it in a little way away from the rootball itself so you don’t have to damage any roots by sinking it closer to the trunk.

You’ll notice it’s pointing away from the wall, into the wind: this is deliberate. When the wind blows at this tree, the force is pushing the tree against the stake’s anchor, so it shouldn’t move. If I’d pointed it the other way (or straight upwards) the wind is effectively pulling at the tree rather than pushing it into the stake – much less stable.

And last but not least: a proper, collared tree tie. This holds snugly around the trunk and around the stake, the collar making sure the two don’t rub, and is stretchy enough to allow growth but not stretchy enough to give in to the wind. I’ll be checking that tie each summer as the trees grow and loosening it off if it’s needed: hopefully, in a couple of seasons’ time, this tree will be fully recovered from its bad start, well rooted and growing on so strongly I can pull the stake out and let it strike out on its own.

Problem solved!

 

How to make a compost bin #2

13 Thursday Oct 2016

Posted by sallynex in design, kitchen garden, landscaping, Painting Paradise, Uncategorized

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compost bins, garden carpentry, how to

(You can find part 1 here)

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Clear and level the ground before you so much as lift a hammer

So – now you’ve got the upright bits: what’s next?

Well, time to bolt it all together.

Before you do anything, clear and level the ground you’re going to place your bins on until it’s a flat piece of ground: this will be your workbench too, so make sure it’s easy to use.

 

Stand your ends up at each side (propped up on planks if you don’t have spare people to hold them) and then stand up the inserts too, measuring to make sure they are exactly 1.2m apart. Slipping a 1.2m plank across between the front slots helps.

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Sides and inserts carefully positioned, and the first back board in place ready to cut to size

Once you’re happy, place your first 2.5m plank across the back of two of the bays. This is a really important stage to get right – so take your time.

 

Double-check the two bays are exactly 1.2m wide at the back, then cut the plank to fit so it runs across the back of both bays.

I find it all moves around too much if you try to nail it on while everything is still vertical, so at this point I prefer to tip the bays over onto their fronts so the backs are uppermost.

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Bays tipped onto their fronts and the back starting to go on

Again, you’ll need to prop them upright using planks or people; and again, measure and re-measure to make sure they’re all 1.2m apart, and level (use a spirit level in both directions to make sure they’re absolutely upright, and also horizontal).

 

Now it’s much easier to line up the first plank across the back and nail it in place. Then cut a shorter length, a little over 1.2m, to fit across the back of the third bay, butting up nicely with the longer piece.

Once you’ve got those two pieces in place everything gets much easier. Work your way up the back, lining the planks up with the boards you used on the sides (you can use a spacer, but you usually don’t need to).

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Stagger the joints between long and short back boards like bricks for extra strength

Stagger the joints like bricks, so the longer board starts on alternate sides – this gives the back a lot of strength. And if you’ve done the alternately overlapping boards thing on the sides, you fit one board so the end shows, and the next so it tucks in behind the side board (I didn’t take a pic of this so will add this after my next visit).

 

When you’re about halfway up, call in a couple of friends and get them to take a bay each, then tip the whole thing back upright (you’ll need one person in each bay as otherwise it can twist catastrophically out of shape).

Pause for a while to make sure absolutely everything is where it should be: your bins will be too heavy to move once you’ve finished, so make sure you’ve left access for maintenance all the way around, and that it’s all sitting level on the ground. Bricks under the corners can help the boards sit a little way off the ground so they don’t rot; they also help get everything level, too.

Once you’re happy that everything’s level and in the right place, you can finish off the back in situ (by now it’s all bolted firmly enough in place to be able to work upright).

Finally, slot the first board in to the front of each bay, and nail it in place through the back upright so that it’s fixed. This helps keep the bays square, and holds the compost in better, too.

wp_20161007_16_02_57_proAnd that’s it! As you fill each bay with compost, just slot another plank down the front until it’s full. Then start the next one. Remember to turn regularly, and in six months or so you’ll have your first wheelbarrows of lovely home-made soil improver to work its magic on your garden.

How to make a compost bin #1

10 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by sallynex in design, kitchen garden, landscaping

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

compost bins, garden carpentry, how to

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The above set-up is all you will ever need by way of composting.

Three bins is the nirvana of perfect compost-making: you have one bay you’re filling (usually the one on the left), then the middle one is rotting down over six months or so, and the one on the end is rotted and ready to use.

Once you’ve used the compost on the right-hand side, you simply turn the compost from the middle bin into the right-hand bin, then empty your newest compost into the middle bin. Cover and leave to rot, and start a new heap in the left-hand bin. As you move it across you mix it all up, accelerating the rotting process and generally improving your compost making.

Each bay measures about 1.2m square and tall – it holds around a cubic metre of compost. I find this is about as much as an average veg garden (or allotment) can cope with, both because it takes up a fairly large chunk of garden (1.2m x about 4m altogether), and it’s as much as I can do to keep up with filling it even with my fairly hefty array of material including garden waste, kitchen waste and the, ahem, rear-end products from horses, sheep and chickens.

We gardeners are nothing if not multi-taskers, so I made one of my triple-bay compost bins for a client last week. This is the third set I’ve done now; if you don’t fancy the full three bins right away, just scale it down and make separate 1.2m x 1.2m boxes instead. Then you can build your compost empire at the pace and volume you wish to have it.

It takes about two days to do – a comfortable weekend’s work.

Day 1: Make your middle bits

First, cut your boards. I used 15cm planks (they’re about 2.2cm wide).

For the entire three-bay set of compost bins you will need:

12 x 1.2m boards for the two central dividers

6 x 1.2m boards and 6 x 1.22m boards for the two ends (all will become clear)

and 14 x 1m lengths of 5cm x 5cm uprights

6 x 2.5m boards plus 6 x 1.5m boards for the back

18 x 1.2m boards to slot into the front

You’ll also need a lot of 50cm (2″) nails, plus a few 75cm (3″) nails too; and a drill to pre-drill the holes and prevent the wood from splitting.

Make the two central dividers.

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Boards nailed onto single uprights for the central dividers

Space two of the uprights 1.2m apart on the ground, then nail six of the boards to them, using a spacer to leave a gap between each board. This spacer can be any width you want as long as you use the same spacer throughout: I find a scrap bit of plank is ideal.

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An offcut of board (approx 2cm) works well as a spacer

Next, nail another upright onto the other side of the planks at each end (you’ll need to use the 75cm nails for this bit). And finally, nail a second upright behind the first on each side at the front of your divide: the gap should be about 3cm (this is to slot the removable planks into).

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Uprights in place (here for a divider – the ends only have the uprights on one side). The 3cm slots formed at the front will hold the removable boards.

Make the two ends.

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End boards nailed into place, showing the ‘staggered’ effect of using different length boards – the back will be fitted onto here

These are made in just the same way as the central dividers, with a couple of little added extras.

First – you alternate between 1.2m boards fitting snugly to the uprights, and 1.22m boards to overlap by a couple of centimetres to allow the back to fit on neatly. If you find this a bit fancy, don’t worry: just make them all the same length and adjust the back accordingly in part 2.

Second: because they’re the ends, you don’t need to put uprights on both sides, just the ‘inside’. It helps to stand them up to work out which side to put the extra uprights on: one end should have the double uprights at the front on the right-hand side of the boards (looking at them end-on), while the other end should have them on the left-hand side. Both have an inside upright at the back as well.

Now you have your kit of parts, you can install your compost bins. For which you need…

Part 2!

Learning from the master

18 Thursday Aug 2016

Posted by sallynex in design, garden design, garden history, landscaping

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Denmans, design, john brookes

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Hydrangea ‘Annabelle’ catching the sunlight: note the silver-variegated shrub echoing the effect behind

This week I made something of a pilgrimage, to the garden of John Brookes OBE at Denmans in Sussex.

I have a personal debt of gratitude to pay to John Brookes as it was the 1970s edition of his classic book, The Small Garden, that formed my first ideas about garden design. In fact I shamelessly nicked (slightly adapted) one of the designs in that book for my first-ever garden in London, at a time when I was still feverishly taking notes while watching Gardeners’ World (I know, I know).

He has broken new ground in so many areas of garden design we now take for granted that his legacy can’t really be overstated. He was the first to come up with the idea of the ‘inside outside’, making garden rooms – as advocated by Lawrence Johnstone et al – an extension of the living room in the house they surround.

He was – astonishingly – the first British designer to take his inspiration from modern art, specifically Mondrian via his revolutionary geometric garden of interlocking squares for Penguin Books at Heathrow. And he was the first to create a design-focussed garden at the Chelsea Flower Show, at a time when everyone else was just creating showcases for plant nurseries.

Denmans is still his home, and where he runs his garden school. It’s looking a little tired these days, mainly I suspect because there’s just one heroic gardener looking after four acres of intensively-garden landscape and do lone battle with an encroaching army of ground elder. A garden of this stature deserves a few more staff.

But the mark of good design is that it holds up even a slightly woolly garden and gives it bones and structure. And so it is with Denman’s: it’s a softer garden than John Brookes’s usual designs in any case, and the fluid, sinuous curves and gentle naturalism are deceptive as underneath it all lies the solid, well thought out geometry and subtle design touches which are a John Brookes hallmark. Here are a few tips from my notebook I’ll be trying out once I get home.
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1: Don’t ignore the buildings. Reflect the materials used in the buildings in hard landscaping; and echo architectural features in the planting. Here a tall fastigiate yew emphasises the strong verticals in the Clock Tower.

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2. Don’t get too hung up about giving beds clear edges. At Denmans plants flow over the edges of curving gravel paths, sometimes spilling over into the hard landscaping and self-seeding into the edges, giving a soft, organic, very natural look that also, incidentally, evokes the Sussex coastline of the wider environment.

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3. Always be aware of the picture you are creating, and use sculpture to complete the scene. This sitting boy was delightful and added a focal point and a little vignette to an otherwise nice-but-ordinary wildlife pond.

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4. Create a sense of mystery and intrigue by cutting curving (not straight) paths through the planting, giving a glimpse of another part of the garden beyond but not revealing it all at once. It makes it all but impossible to resist following the path to explore further.

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5. Lawns are intrinsically boring. So make them more interesting (and save yourself some hours behind the mower) by only cutting the middle bits once a month. The outer paths you mow once a week – creating a contrast in texture and keeping the sensuous curves of the design at the fore.

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6. Remember your backgrounds – in every direction. This Achillea ‘Moonshine’ shone out in contrast with the dark purple smokebush (Cotinus coggygria) against the wall behind it: what a combination. But turn around, put the smoke bush behind you, and the brooding effect is completely gone to be replaced by airy woodland:

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Same plant, completely different effect. So as you compose your perfect combination looking one way, don’t forget to turn around and look at it the other way, too – and seize the chance to create a wholly new scene.

 

Postcard from Chelsea #4: Visions of loveliness

26 Thursday May 2016

Posted by sallynex in design, shows

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Hay Joung Hwang, planting combinations, RHS Chelsea Flower Show

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Planting combination of the week for me was this soft confection of ethereal pastels from Hay Joung Hwang on the LG Smart Garden: Eremurus robustus, Digitalis purpurea ‘Alba’, Geranium phaeum ‘Album’, Phlox divaricata ‘Clouds of Perfume’, Persicaria bistorta ‘Superba’, Rosa ‘Royal Philharmonic’, and Iris ‘Jane Phillips’. Just sublime.

Chelsea 2016: What to look out for

14 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by sallynex in design, garden design, news, shows

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RHS Chelsea Flower Show, show preview

GetAttachmentThe RHS launched the 2016 Chelsea Flower Show in style yesterday: we had Alan Titchmarsh interviewing Mary Berry and canapés with caviar. I felt positively spoilt.

As always the launch press event is all about the details you want to know but can’t (always) get off the press releases. So here’s the lowdown on what not to miss at Chelsea this year – and I’m not, on the whole, talking gardens:

The Queen’s 90th birthday party: Yes, HRH is a nonagenarian. It didn’t surprise me to learn that she’s now clocked up 51 visits to Chelsea: getting kicked out at 3pm on press day so she can view the gardens without the hoi polloi bothering her is one of the traditions of Chelsea I look forward to every year, mainly because it means an early shout on a Monday.

Queen Elizabeth II in the Great Pavilion at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2015.

Not bad for nearly 90, eh? Queen Elizabeth II in the Great Pavilion at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2015 (c) RHS/Bethany Clarke

Anyway: the RHS is laying on an exhibition taken from their back catalogue of photos, plus a floral arch inspired by made for Queen Victoria in Reigate, of all places.

Poppies will be much in evidence and no doubt much discussed: an installation of 300,000 crocheted poppies (yes, you did read that right) will cover 2000 square metres either side of the walkway leading up to the recently denuded front facade of the Royal Hospital in a sea of red. It is – as one journo pointed out – reminiscent of the Tower of London poppy installation a couple of years ago: but cosier.

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Boy, that’s a lot of poppies…

Poor old Alan got a lot of stick for his part in wiping away centuries of ancient tree and replacing them with a new design by George Carter: but as he said, ‘a Grade I listed building by Christopher Wren deserved better than an overgrown Victorian shrubbery’. Quite.

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Ann-Marie Powell is designing the ‘RHS GGBG HHH’ (as we will henceforth refer to it)

Ann-Marie Powell is designing the RHS garden (better to just say that than its full title, The RHS Greening Grey Britain Garden for Health, Happiness and Horticulture – snappy, eh?). I love Ann-Marie’s gardens: they burst with a kind of irrepressible energy, all enthusiasm and verve. There will be much gorgeousness including a perennial meadow, kitchen garden and demonstration beds. And you can walk through it. Divine.

There’s a new award: the poor folk who work their socks off constructing every painstaking detail of the show gardens yet barely getting a mention in the footnotes by comparison with the glitzy designers (a bit like the drummer in a glam rock band) will – at long last – get their very own award, the Best Construction Award. All gardens which score ‘excellent’ for construction on the judging sheets will go forward automatically for the gong.

There are seven female designers on Main Avenue this year: not, the RHS was at pains to assure us, because of any particular positive discrimination during the selection process but rather because of all the chat last year about the fact that there were only two prompted some of our best female designers to think about putting themselves forward. It’s still not 50:50 (there are 17 show gardens) but it’s a good start.

Artist's illustration - Hillier in Springtime designed by Sarah Eberle

Sarah Eberle’s design for Hillier

Sarah Eberle is designing the Hillier Garden in the Pavilion (as well as her beautiful watery Artisan Garden). Seasoned team member Ricky Dorlay – 50 Chelseas and counting – is there though of course the designer of the last several dozen gold medal winning exhibits previous to this, Andy McIndoe, and ever-smiley plantswoman Pip Bensley have moved on to pastures new. We’re promised a more designerly garden with a central water feature and plant groupings which will work not only with each other, but also in your garden. It’ll be right alongside their old plot around the monument, now taken by Bowden Hostas and the Orient Express’s sister train: the urge to compare-and-contrast will be hard to resist.

Nurseries are going conceptual: several are working with designer Kate Gould to bring a ‘more conceptual bent’ to exhibits in the Pavilion. The Mayan inspired temple pyramid at T3 Plants should be good…

You can wear a bobble suit with some kind of sensor system that lights up and tells you when you’re gardening badly. Have a go at digging on the stand and the team from the University of Coventry will tell you why your back always aches afterwards.

There are two new RHS Ambassadors: Young Hort Jamie Butterworth (is it me or are gardeners getting younger, like policemen and teachers?) and the redoubtable Jekka McVicar have both been recruited to the RHS cause. Both already do such a lot for the RHS we’ll be hard put to spot the difference, but it’s great that their huge efforts and achievements are being recognised.

 

Chelsea here we come!

Wordless Wednesday

09 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by sallynex in design, wordless wednesday

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

coastal gardens, design project, garden renovation, Lyme Regis, redesign

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The view from my latest garden renovation project. My first proper coastal garden…

Art in the garden

29 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by sallynex in design, news, shows

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art, art history, gardens in art, paintings

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Kandinsky: Murnau the Garden II (1910) – at the Royal Academy’s exhibition (love love love this)

Gardens and art walk hand in hand. Gardens inspire art; art inspires gardens. No wonder, really, for both draw their reason for being from instincts for beauty, form and the ability to change the way the person who looks at them views everything that follows.

I’m a bit biased, of course, and I know I’ll scandalise ‘proper’ arty folk, but I’ve always secretly thought gardens the superior art form. Gardens are, after all, four dimensional, to painting’s two and sculpture’s three. Gardens are not only there to be looked at: they are there to be smelled, and touched, and felt. And they exist in fourth dimension, too: that of time. It takes some artist to create a vision that transports the visual and every other sense too, and then keeps it beautiful while it constantly changes with the turning of the seasons.

But anyway, before I start getting too pretentious, the reason I’m going on about this is that anyone who’s a gardener and also likes art (so that’s all of us, then) is positively spoilt at the moment.

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‘Flower Garden’, Emil Nolde, 1922, also at the Royal Academy (love this one too)

I was blown away earlier this year by the Painting Paradise exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery, at the side of Buckingham Palace: breathtaking art, garden history and heaven for plant-lovers all in one deliriously happy visit.

And now it’s the turn of more recent paintings to feature gardens: the Royal Academy of Arts is exploring the way gardens led artists from the literal to the impressionistic in ‘Painting the Modern Garden’. Not ‘just’ Monet and Manet, but also Klimt, Matisse, Kandinsky, Van Gogh and – a personal favourite of mine – Mary Cassatt. It opens on 30 January and I will be first in the queue.

edward-chell-exhibition-banner

Edward Chell’s cyanotypes at the Horniman Museum

And there’s more: Bloom at the Horniman Museum is an exhibition of exquisite and other-worldly plant silhouettes created by Edward Chell, inspired by cyanotypes – the same photographic process which produces blueprints – made by 19th century naturalist Anna Atkins (this one closes on 6 December, so get there quick).

strawberrythief_williammorris

‘Strawberry Thief’, William Morris, 1883

At the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (it’s not all London, you know) Rosa Nguyen – last seen making ceramic trees in a London park during the 2013 Chelsea Fringe – is one of the artists featured in The Arts and Crafts House: Then and Now.

Leading light of the Arts and Crafts movement, William Morris, was of course largely responsible for bringing the house into the garden and the garden into the house: his influence spread far beyond wallpaper, and I suspect we owe him much more than we’ll ever realise.

rosa_nguyen

Rosa Nguyen creating her installation ‘Gardening With Morris’ at the Laing Gallery

Then there are the exquisitely detailed paintings of fruits by Shirley Sherwood at Kew Gardens; intricate watercolours of orchids by naturalists The Bauer Brothers at the Natural History Museum; and if your tastes are more hard-core modernist and allegorical there’s always Ai Weiwei’s sunflower seeds (at the Royal Academy again). What a feast.

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