My Chelsea experience:
Voices from around the show
Everyone’s experience of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show is slightly different. For most of us it’s a great day out – the opportunity to find inspiration in the show gardens, discover new plants from the country’s leading nurseries and partake in some serious retail therapy. But what does it mean for those who are involved in the show? We asked six participants, a top nursery couple, an edibles adviser, the RHS director of gardens and shows, a first-time designer and an award-winning, experienced designer – about their personal involvement. Each has a different perspective, but they all offer an insight into the hard work behind the scenes that goes into making the show such a success
Sarah Eberle
Long-term Chelsea designer
Sarah Eberle has been involved with the RHS Chelsea Flower Show for more years than she cares to remember. Initially, her role was as design director at Hillier and, since 2006, as the creator of some exceptional gardens, including the so-called Life on Mars garden in 2007, an extraordinary ‘chill-out space’ for astronauts, which was named Best in Show.
“Every year is a thrill,” she says. “The spirit of this show is amazing – challenging, exciting and visually stimulating – and that has always been the same throughout the decades I have been involved with Chelsea. Fashions and themes tend to change and evolve but there is always the most tremendous camaraderie. I think it surprises some newcomers, who worry that everyone will be in competition, but we don’t actually get judged against each other. We are assessed according to a set of rules, although they do get tougher and tougher.
“Each year we are given a massive judging handbook that lists all the requirements and, unlike some other designers, I do always check carefully through it. Frankly it is hard enough to get points in the first place, it seems stupid to throw them away unnecessarily.” Which may, in part, explain why Sarah is Chelsea’s most-decorated designer.
“I do also tend to be a bit adventurous, which can work in my favour, although there is also a chance that it might go horribly wrong.” Her garden this year is no exception. The Medite Smartply Building the Future garden (above) centres on a 6m-high, cave-like structure made out of an innovative MDF construction material. “It has a 50-year guarantee, so I’ve got a tree growing out of it and a waterfall cascading over the roof. It will either be a disaster, or it will be absolutely amazing,” says Sarah. Judging by her track record, it will no doubt be amazing.
Mark Diacono
Edibles expert
Having built his career on encouraging people to grow unusual and forgotten foods, it is no surprise to discover that Mark Diacono’s Chelsea experiences tend to focus on exciting edibles. “I gravitate towards the nurseries, smaller gardens and trade stands. I love seeing who is doing something a bit different.”
The man who helped popularise Sichuan pepper and Japanese wineberries admits that his tour of the show is largely fuelled by bacon rolls and ice cream, but this year he will be washing it down with a botanical cocktail or two.
“I’ve got an ongoing relationship with Alitex, the greenhouse company, and I’ll be back on its stand again this year. I’ve been working with a young garden designer, Jake Curley, to conjure up a combination of a kitchen garden and a cocktail bar – ground to glass, you might say. Around the stand there will be little plant combinations that visitors can copy at home, including rhubarb growing with my new favourite herb, rosemary ‘Green Ginger’. It really does taste exactly how that sounds, and it is delicious but slightly mind blowing.
“We want to show that edible plants can be attractive, and also to suggest a shift from annual to perennial food plants. If you don’t have to dig them up at the end of the season that means less soil disruption and more wildlife habitats, which is great for biodiversity. And if you get a good ecological balance in your garden you won’t get the problems that might tempt you to reach for the sprays. Your garden will be healthier, you will have less work to do on it, and you will have more time to drink cocktails. There’s no downside.”
Lottie Delamain
Debut designer
“The whole thing still feels surreal,” says first-time Chelsea designer Lottie Delamain. “Seeing my name on the RHS website alongside so many award-winning designers is astonishing and, frankly, a bit scary.”
Until five years ago Lottie was working as a textile designer in Vietnam, and it was this experience that has inspired her Textile Garden for the charity Fashion Revolution, which will be one of the All About Plants gardens in the Great Pavilion. “We used to go trekking in the north of the country and stay with families who grew their own vegetables and rice, but also indigo and hemp to make clothes. They certainly didn’t make everything they wore, but their ceremonial robes were richly storied treasures that spoke of a place, a time and a person,” says Lottie.
“It was so different from our Western taste for fast fashion, and that’s what I’m trying to express through this garden. It will include the historic British dye plants madder, woad and weld, planted in blocks to give the impression of a woven textile. The underlying message is that we should make the most of what we have available.
“I’ve always loved that sense of theatre and magic at Chelsea, as whole worlds are conjured out of thin air. Now I’m behind the scenes and experiencing how many moving parts are necessary to make that magic happen. But I am surrounded by the best of the best and so very grateful for all the support and advice I am getting from the old hands at the show. Of course it is still terrifying. Everything comes together at the last minute, which means that a lot of the elements are built in separate places ahead of the show. Whether they actually all add up to a worthy show garden is, at the end of the day, entirely down to me. I just hope that I have measured and calculated everything correctly. This year the buck stops with me.”
Helena Pettit
RHS director of gardens and shows
Having worked in events management for many years, Helena Pettit had rarely visited Chelsea as a member of the public before she took over as the RHS director of gardens and shows in 2018. “I was usually too busy running other events, but the time I did go still sticks in my mind for the colour and vibrancy, the uplifting sense of excellence and inspiration, and the fact that there was just so much to see and do.
“Running Chelsea, unsurprisingly, is really challenging. We work with an awful lot of stakeholders and put a huge amount of effort into engaging with our visitors to give them an amazing experience while making them aware of the important messages around health, environment, and so on. And not many people realise that this show is our single largest fundraiser for the charity throughout the year, so it is really important that we get it right.
“Planning for each new Chelsea starts nearly 24 months ahead and builds slowly, so by the time we open the gates to visitors I am on call constantly. And it has been even crazier this time, since the last show was only in September. In addition to the 39 show gardens, there is so much going on this year, including floral tributes to mark Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, an exploration of the history of gardening with our new sponsors The Newt, and a return of the indoor houseplant studios, which were such a success last year.
“I generally sneak in early in the morning to enjoy a bit of the atmosphere for myself before the madness starts, and I always find time to treat myself to something from the trade stands and buy some plants. My garden is a little rammed as a result, but I just can’t help myself when I am surrounded by all that temptation.”
Rosy and Rob Hardy
Nursery owners and mentors
Rosy and Rob Hardy, of Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants, retired from exhibiting at Chelsea in 2019 after winning an astonishing 24 consecutive Gold medals, but they are back this year mentoring two new nurseries through their Chelsea debuts.
“We’ve been supporting Neil and Niamh Jones from the Kitchen Garden Plant Centre and Graham Austin, a delphinium specialist from Home Farm Plants. Both are fabulous nurseries and they all really know their plants, but we can help them with the practicalities of staging an exhibit,” says Rosy.
“I vividly remember how intimidated I felt during our first Chelsea, way back in 1992. In those days the nurseries still exhibited in a big old canvas marquee and when the wind blew it sounded like you were on a ship. We were a tiny back-garden nursery from Hampshire with the audacity to put ourselves up against Notcutts, Hillier and the other big boys. There was real camaraderie between exhibitors, but you were pretty much left to your own devices.”
It was Rosy’s husband Rob who worked out the logistics of transporting plants, people and everything else they might need. “You can’t just pop back home if you’ve forgotten something,” he says. “We learned the hard way about where to park your van, how many labels you’re likely to need, and why you should always be polite to the grounds staff.” Rob and Rosy’s final display was due to appear in 2020 and was all planned out when the show got cancelled, so they staged it in their own nursery instead. “We kept it in place for three weeks so that people could see it develop, and raised £8,000 for our local hospice, which was just as good as a Chelsea Gold,” says Rosy. “This year, instead of the usual stress we can just enjoy visiting the show and seeing how Graham, Neil and Niamh’s stands turn out. I can’t wait.”