Chelsea Flower Show 2024
A wet welcome greeted our visit to the Chelsea Flower Show this year. But this was rewarded by less crowds and an ability to enjoy the splendid show gardens.
Among my favourites were Ann-Marie Powell’s Octavia Hill Garden. This was bustling with a rainbow of colours from its very clever planting. A true pick me up during the dreadful rain! Not surprisingly Ann - Marie won People’s Choice for this splendid design. www.ann-mariepowell.com
Next on my list of likes was Tom Stuart-Smith’s beautifully serene landscape, created for The National Garden Scheme. This would certainly find itself in the Yellow Book. Our garden is on its way to becoming a show piece, but this is a stunner, with its wonderfully natural cleft oak barn and winding pathways that glide through dense swathes of planting. Tom won a well deserved Gold. www.tomstuartsmith.co.uk
Oh my goodness, The WaterAid Garden. You couldn’t conceive of a more imaginative concept, that actually comes to life thanks to Garden Designer Tom Massey and Architect Je Ahn. It is so pertinent that somebody should think about the changes we are all witnessing in our climate and come up with a concept that delivers a garden that harvests rainwater and provides a wonderful haven for humans and wildlife alike. Another Gold medal winner. www.tommassey.co.uk and www.studioweave.co.uk
St James’s Piccadilly have a lot to thank the ingenious Robert Myers for his magnificent triumph of architecture and garden design, it was truly staggering how this immense structure and garden was created, so hats off to the design and the team who must have worked like Trojans to build it in the time. Not only a feat of construction, but also project management - a well deserved Gold medal winner. www.robertmyers-associates.co.uk
There were so many other great gardens at the show, but these four remain with me as beacons of all that’s great about garden design in 2024.
We are off to Hampton Court soon, so I can’t wait to see what inspiration this offers, maybe also a little sunshine!
