RHS Chelsea 2016

[shovetheholly]

We're nearly at that time!

Is anyone lucky enough to be going? I've always wanted to, but it's SO expensive!

What will the highlights be this year, do you think?

What I would really, really like is a glossy magazine with loads of photos and a plan of each garden. Then I could see how each of the 'bits' of the garden fit together as I religiously watch every second of coverage on TV.

I'm going (plus dh & dc) on Saturday - we have a friend who runs a stand, so are going to help him with his plant sell off (always fun!) and have a mooch around too. As we are helping out we are lucky enough to get in for free - it would simply be too pricey otherwise for all for of us (although I have paid to go around Hampton before which I slightly prefer - less 'society' and more gardeners, imo....

Me & dd was in the floral marquee at Chelsea last year when they were doing the take down, and she came home with lots of lovely stuff that would have been thrown out otherwise! If anyone is going on the Sat, do hang around until the end (esp if you have a small child who isn't afraid to smile winningly!) Dan Pearson's garden last year was genuinely amazing - you just couldn't believe it hadn't been there for 100 years (we managed to get on and walk through it too - simply magical!)- I'd love to see it at Chatsworth - although I did think part of it's magic was that it was surrounded by so much organisation & structure...

I work from home and often have videos streaming in the background (Ted talks usually) but today have made a change and I popped on Chelsea via iplayer...except it's not very good to listen to, every few moments I'm minimising my work to look. This will not end well.
DeepDark I am very jealous - I would adore to be there on the big sell off

You can't really listen to Chelsea in the same way as most things I guess!

Look away now if you don't want to know who won Best in Show because it's...

Andy Sturgeon! Well deserved too.

Spent some of my daughters nap time sitting in my garden ignoring the mess while I watched Chelsea on Iplayer

Have a confession as just realised the app was not last year but 2013!
It was a good idea though, they should do it again.

Think I'm going to have to save up and try to go next year.

thanks shovetheholly I've watched both of today's shows. of course BBC is all that you need!
I must say, I've loved all the gardens that Kate Adie loved, more than any other.

Oh my God, did anyone else see the veg-growing couple on TV yesterday?

It was absolutely HORRIBLE.

They were entering Chelsea for the first time, and were very much on a shoe-string: just the two of them, isolated on this small holding. And there was clearly an enormous amount of domestic abuse going on. The wife was treated like a second-class person: ordered around, humiliated in front of the camera to demonstrate chauvenist male authority - and clearly in a great deal of pain. The husband actually said 'There can't be two bosses in a relationship'. It was easily the most upsetting thing I've ever seen on a gardening show.

I want to stage a feminist intervention: go to Chelsea, destroy his stand, and yell 'NO SPROUTS ARE WORTH THIS'!

I have been planning on catching up this afternoon, while its raining , though I saw a bit on BBC2 last night. Sorry , but though I liked some of the planting, the best in show Andy Sturgeon was too many sharp angles for me...
That sounds truly horrible shove about the couple

I don't know if I'm going mad or overreacting, so would be very interested in your thoughts book.

There is a moment where he says to her, with this utterly peremptory tone: 'The sun has come out, so go and open the greenhouse'. And she glances at him in this way that is full of humiliation, but is clearly way to scared to do anything but obey. You can just tell it's done to demonstrate his control of her to the camera.

And another, where she is clearly dealing with a wheelbarrowload of plants that are too heavy and he doesn't help her - and she drops one and he closes his eyes as if he's tested to high heaven by her 'bad' behaviour.

Aaargh, I feel so upset and angry I just want to give her a cup of tea and a big slice of cake and tell her she needs to ditch the git and start her own rival nursery!

*way toO scared!

I'm watching the Chelsea FS avidly too, one of the highlights of the gardening year. I saw that husband wife veg growing section and cringed, awful awful man.

I go every couple of years or so, sometimes I'm lucky enough to get a ticket through work. You don't have to spend a fortune there, I usually buy a sandwich and cuppa and find a nice place to sit and admire the gardens and do a bit of people watching. If I have a ticket from work then I have to go alone but that makes it easier to wiggle to the front of the crowd 😄

shovetheholly omg yes... I guess I immediately tried to erase that section from my memory!? but she does deserve better than that.

what an awful example of a narcissistic pervert - horrible.

the presenter was quite at a loss for words after that...

I'm SO glad it's not just me!

Every time I think about it, I get the rage! I want to glyphosphate his polytunnels.

don't you mean you want to glyphosate HIM!?

the only glimmer of hope would be that they tried a kind of funny angle for the program and it was just for show? It still would be very bad taste and badly thought-through, but if we reversed the roles (woman = bossy boss, man = slave) we probably wouldn't have been so outraged?

I am kidding myself obviously.

ugh

well, I saw it , mmm - it was so odd, could it even vaguely have been 'scripted' ? If not, I wonder if she is likely to see a replay of it, and see all that is wrong? I do hope so....
I saw tonights coverage. I thought it was telling that every judge was male - again, wrong.
After having a look at them all, my favourite is the Modern Apothecary garden. Maybe as there was less hard landscaping .I did like those paths

Does anyone know the name of the bronzy orange iris that is ubiquitous in Chelsea gardens this year? I love it and wondering if I can shoehorn it in my garden somewhere!

I was wondering the same thing! Quite inspired by the use of copper at this year's show.

Sadly, I can only grow iris siberica in my soil - no chance of bearded ones. Does anyone know why the former are so much less colourful than the latter?

Another thing that grates on me is Monty Don's use of language. I'm fed up of hearing him describe plants as being 'discovered' in places like Asia in the eighteenth century. They weren't bloody invisible to the people who lived there until Western people arrived!

Thank goodness for James Wong!!

that gorgeous iris looks to be Kent Pride but alas for ShovetheHolly it is bearded.

I liked the guy from Kelways - so laid back, with such a huge responsibility. And his growing tunnels looked relaxed as well.

I went yesterday - bloody freezing but as lovely as ever. I can see why Andy Sturgeon got best in show, his garden was wonderful in the flesh. Star plant was adonis annual (pheasant's eye) which there is just one of nestling in a grassy bit towards the top of the long side of the garden - it's teeny weeny but so beautiful. Dairmud Gavin's garden is bonkers but fun, the surprise beauty for me was the Chelsea Barracks garden - the shapes were so pleasing and soothing.

I would say the plant of the year is Geum this year - they were everywhere. Hardly a poppy in sight.

Also if you go you must have a Purbeck ice Cream - stands near the artisan gardens - which is double triple yummy.

Off to pop my annual purchase of a new blade into my Felcos and despair at my own garden...

I went today. Had a lovely time. Most beautiful gardens were the mathematics one, the husquana one , the exmoor one and the artisan one with the flower arranger and interior designer with a hospital bed
The ones that made us smile with pleasure were the Harrods moving one, the Yorkshire one and the mekong one
The ones that made us think were the modern slavery one and andy sturgeon's one.
Some absolutely brilliant gardens didnt get gold eg the mathematics one
Some gardens were not very good.
Will write more tomorrow. Twas lovely to come home to my own little quiet and pleasant garden and put my feet up with a cup of tea and some bean stew and watch the light play on the flowers and foliage.
We bought 3 Kent Pride irises and some lychnis alba seeds and some blackmore and langdon delphinium seeds
We got given wonderful bags.
The morning is the time to go. The rubbish map in the catalogue (which omitted hepaticas from the index) cost a tenner which is a major rip off imo. Last year they had a free map. So much better.

My Mum and my sis are going tomorrow. I'm so jealous!

Oh yes: Kent Pride irises are in. Cow parsley is out and so last year.
Plain leaved hostas are in. So are rills as water features.

Lysimachia beaujolais and Lupin Masterpiece remain in as do Brizia and Stipa and Angelica. Anthracis Sylvestris is out. Little white verbascums are in.

Viburnum Plicatum looks lovely everywhere. Geums are combined with Kent Pride in many show gardens.

Some of the gardens are works of art conceived by masters of gardening and geniuses. One could look at some of them forever and never tire of the scene.

Thank you for finding the iris! Now where can I put it.............

I watched the afternoon Chelsea show, and was infuriated by how far up Alex Polizzi's arse they seemed. Fine - she's posh, well-spoken and the daughter of a garden enthusiast, but she wasn't that well-informed herself.

Yet the interview with Kelly Brook just appeared to be one long gasp of You? REALLY?!.

agree Spotted - wasn't that just a great big free advert for her Mothers hotel? grrrrrr