THE PERFECT DAY

Hi everyone

The Chelsea Flower show was wonderful - too tired last night by the time I got back home to write my blog post, but better late than never.  We couldn't have asked for better weather considering how grim it has been up to this week. It was very hot, but not sunny so no heat beating down on our heads, although a little breeze would have been welcome.

We saw some fantastic gardens and displays, we saw some that were a little disappointing and some that we wondered how they had made it through the gates of Chelsea, let alone win a medal.  That may seem harsh, but as a gardener of many years, a regular visitor to Chelsea and someone who has picked up a few horticultural qualifications along the path of my life, I felt I could be a bit of a back-seat judge.

I tend to look at the outside garden displays and ask myself  'can I replicate the design in my garden?'.  Often, more often than not, the answer is no.  Apart from size, it might not fit the style of my garden, may have a planting scheme that didn't appeal to me.  However, I am pleased to say that the garden designed by Cleve West, which was the overall winner, was just perfect.  I could easily live with and maintain his design, it was really lovely and I have included a picture of his plot and know there are lots more on the Internet.  The garden designed by Joe Swift was also lovely - lots going on and a large garden needed to accommodate everything, but it was nice to know that a popular gardener had won a gold medal for his first   Chelsea exhibit.

The following are photographs I took during my visit to Chelsea, some of the outside gardens are shown and I have included lots of pics of the displays in the Marquee.  Sadly, we just ran out of time and didn't get to see all of them and didn't get to photograph all of those we did see.  Crowds were 5 or 6 deep around the perimeters of the gardens and most of my pics would have included just the backs of peoples heads!

Diarmuid Gavin's display - a you can see there are very few flowers and from a distance all you can see is lots of green leaf and scaffolding

The Gold Medal and Best in Show winner designed by Cleve West - this photograph really doesn't do the design justice

The garden designed by Joe Swift - the wooden pergola style structures looked lovely, so smooth

The Blue Water garden designed by Nigel Dunnett

One of the displays in the Marquee entitled Summer Holiday - I could almost hear the waves lapping on the sea shore

A mini that had been decorated with rock plants

A green racing car plus mechanics - this was great

The controversial easy-grass covered car - the display looked great, but is it really Chelsea?  

A beautiful Chinese garden - the colours are stunning and the display included a dragon (see the next photograph) and two flower-covered elephants

A Chinese dragon

I wish my Hostas looked this healthy - later in the season mine often resemble net curtains

A lovely display of Pitcher Plants

Sunshine in a pot - the Lilies on this stand were gorgeous and the perfume was soooo lovely

A dark purple and pale lilac Gladioli (quite unusual colours) - the lilac one did look a little like an Iris

And last but not least, one happy visitor going home with more than she had expected.

As always, I loved my time at Chelsea.  The friend I went with and I are both very keen gardeners and have done several horticultural courses together in the past.  We have been researching for another one to do, but there isn't much locally that doesn't cover ground (forgive the pun) that we have already been over.  We did find one at Chelsea, but just a little too expensive (£1,300).  So back to the drawing board.

I hope you enjoyed my review and the photographs - I have lots more and may add them to a separate page on my blog so that visitors can see some more shots of the beautiful displays at the event.

I will be back on Sunday with my Handmade Monday post, but please do come back tomorrow for my guest blog spot.  this week's post is really great and I know you will enjoy it.

Enjoy the sun

Jill