The British Heart Foundation Garden Chelsea 2011

After its debut at the RHS's London Plant and Design Show this week, I thought it time to dust down the artist's impression of our garden (more details of the brilliant Richard Lee's work can be found here) and pin it up on my blog for the world to see. And so here it is. Be gentle with me, this is nerve racking.


The garden has been inspired by many things, but has been designed to embrace and reflect the energetic work of the fabulous British Heart Foundation in their 50th year. I hope the garden catches peoples attention and does as much as it can to raise the profile of their life-changing anniversary campaign 'Mending Broken Hearts'. 


In the BHF's own words "At the moment, there's no cure for a broken heart. Once your heart muscle is damaged by a heart attack, it can never fully recover. But there is hope. We need to spend £50 million to fund groundbreaking research that could begin to literally 'mend broken hearts' in as little as ten years time." You'll find more information on the wonderful appeal, and ways you can support it here.

The garden, particularly its arches have been inspired by the bold, colourful work of a piece created for the Mending Broken Hearts campaign by one of its patrons, legendary artist Sir Peter Blake, an image of the structure of heart muscle created by BHF researcher Dr Patrick Hales, and last but not least the power and strength of the human heart itself. These bold arching structures will imitate the movement of veins and arteries, and though I originally envisioned these arches in powder coated steel, an email this week has set me off course. I have a meeting with a supplier tomorrow which may result in an even more eye-catching alternative - of course, you'll be the first to know.

Sir Peter Blake's Image         Dr Patrick Hale's Image

Translucent, internally lit red cell stepping stones float through the garden at ground level, traversing a pond (without water there would be no life), under the vibrant red arches which provide upward thrust to the space and frame views before ultimately leading to a 'floating' terrace at the heart of the space. Here the strands of the garden’s arches become freeform overhead, creating a sheltering structure, a break in the overhead frame providing a space to look back over the garden to contemplate, and assess one’s journey through the garden and so through life.

The garden, which is sponsored by Brewin Dolphin,  will encompass the healing properties of plants   and includes plants used in cardiology treatment, several natives, some marginals, and even some weeds, all creating a jostling foliage jamboree, with very little bloom. Almost entirely green, the textural planting is pushed into the boundaries with a vertical planted green wall system, leading the eye up to the heart shaped leaves of the mature Limes surrounding the 10m x 10m space above. All of this, I hope, will result in the red elements appearing even more rich, positive and bold as they career up, out, over and  through the plentiful, green planting. 

Essentially I hope to create a garden that celebrates life in all its forms...

In the briefest of detail, that's the overview. There's still so much to tell, several bridges to cross, and plenty of decisions to be made, but more on that later... for now, thanks for reading. Hope you like it....

Chelsea Plants

As far as plants are concerned, the Chelsea Flower Show is a little chicken and egg - by the time you have hurdled the commissioning rounds, it is mid November, and just as you're revving up to place plant orders, every plant countrywide has collapsed below ground for a well earned rest.

But, if you want the plants you've specified in tip-top condition, you need to place orders with growers before Christmas, detailing preferred pot sizes, height and girth of the final plants, and specifying the ridiculous quantities you'd like to order,  to ensure you have enough plants in peak condition, before another Chelsea hungry designer beats you to it.

Without the luxury of choosing plants earlier in the year before you know whether you're in or out,  choosing plants is a little like stabbing in the dark - the scheme may be planted in your head, but you don't have the luxury of visiting nurseries in the hope of making new finds, those ethereal lovelies previously unknown to your acquaintance. Leafing through old notebooks, photographs and nursery catalogues becomes a chaotic addiction in the quest for the must have plant which will bedazzle and beguile your clients (the British Heart Foundation, and Brewin Dolphin), the general public, and the judges. 

And choosing plants out of season, its sensible to have some back up plants, and then back up plants for your back up plants. Keeping all within budget is a logistical nightmare, as not only do you have to ensure you'll have enough plants at full tilt for that certain one week at the end of May, all of these plants have to be decided upon and decided within a budget. 

However, with their sudden elevation to super model status, those plants lucky enough to be selected suddenly have to be housed in the nursery equivalent of a serviced five star apartment on Mayfair. And believe you me, this kind of horticultural haute couture comes at a (perfectly justified) price. Plants will be pampered, fed, watered, primed, primped, given sun or shade, and even read a bedtime story if the grower feels it may just be beneficial to the prima donna demands of the plant. It's a tough job, and those that take on the challenge are real heroes, whose hours of devotion are still not truly reflected in the costs charged to the Chelsea designer.

However, after much wrangling with plant varieties, costs and seasonality, I think I'm almost there - trees have been tagged, perennials, grasses and ferns have been ordered, and whilst the marginals for our pond are still not quite finalised, we are well on our way. And I think there's a tiny sprinkling of cash available for some last minute buys.

And though you'd think this would bring relief, in reality the end of one concern makes room for another. Now sleepless nights and empty moments are spent worrying about whether I've ordered enough of a particular variety, if I should have chosen another Hosta, or whether my Angelica will be tall enough. It seems that the time spent between selection and delivering the garden on show week, is mostly spent biting one's nails; by the time Chelsea arrives, mine will be down to the quick.

As for the hard landscaping - well, that's still slightly in flux, but we'll get there.... meanwhile, has anyone got any finger nails they can lend to me?!

The British Heart Foundation Garden Chelsea 2011

On a Friday afternoon in the middle of November, the long awaited email from Alex Denman (Chelsea Show Manager) regarding our submission for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2011 finally arrived with ominous aplomb.

Having initially met with the wonderful Mike Napton of the British Heart Foundation in August, this email would be the end, or the beginning of several weeks of meetings, sleepless nights, nibbling of pencils and general head scratching in designing a show garden meant for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2011.

Now, for those who have never been through the proceedings, let me assure you that the show garden application process is by no means a walk in the park. After a nerve racking lunch with Mike of the British Heart Foundation, the masterful Sir Peter Blake (a world famous iconic artist who is a patron of the British Heart Foundation), and members of their teams, my concept was drawn up then nervously delivered to be agreed by Sir Peter, the British Heart Foundation, and the financial sponsor Brewin Dolphin.  Gulp.

Thankfully they loved the sinuous curves of the bold design, with its vibrant colours and naturalistic planting. Phew.

So a more detailed plan was drawn up with a brief, a plant list and various other documents, and all were emailed (and posted!) for the deliberation and scrutiny of the faceless Chelsea Show Garden Panel, all to be decided in competition with the world's leading garden designers. More gulping.

After the first round, no yay or nay was received, simply a polite request for several more construction drawings alongside probing questions, and requests to simplify certain aspects of the design. Several sleepless nights later, I was again relived to have met the tight re-submission deadline, and the waiting game began once more.

And finally, after being asked if "I knew yet?" by so many people after so many weeks,  it all came down to this;  a pulsing email on a computer screen daring me to open the attached letter from the Show garden panel to let me know whether we were in, or out.

It took me a palm sweating, sickening, petrifying half an hour spent pacing around the office before I plucked up the courage to press the open attachment key on Alex's extremely polite mail.

And the answer was.........yes.

To say I was floored would be an understatement, and to describe my emotions is impossible. Is it enough to say that my screams of delight mixed with floods of tears and general quivering, make me relieved that I was alone in the office? (Though James Alexander-Sinclair swears he could hear me in Northamptonshire).

So at the start of 2011 I find myself in full swing with our Chelsea preparations. The process has so far been comparable to riding some kind of professional see-saw; in turns I'm thrown up in the air or down to the ground without warning, to be filled with joy, or fear at any time of the day or night.

And yet, I am loving every moment, and am thrilled to be working with, and for the benefit, of such an amazing, important charity. I only hope I can do them credit....

Forgive me bloggers for I have sinned. It has been at least six months since I last blogged.

I hope to atone myself, but believe me, it's been a hell of a six months.

In brief:

I have designed various gardens, large and small ranging from a long large oak (yes oak) rill which strides though the client's new jungle, under a tree-walk and house, past a shade sailed fire-pitted bar area and ultimately to a swimming pool, through a couple of now delivered courtyards, to a vast meadowed native space set to build in the next few weeks, and finally an 'outdoor room' garden overlooking a tennis court with a terrace designed to proportions which allow table tennis tournaments.

I have seen a multi gold Chelsea-medalist dressed as a flower on a west end stage, danced and laughed my socks of at the best festival ever (Vintage at Goodwood, I salute you), celebrated my sons first and sixth birthdays with cake, tickles and water pistols, grown far too many green beans, enjoyed various raucous nights under stars and canvas and celebrated several fortieth, fiftieth and even a seventieth birthday in equally boisterous style. I have debuted in the Financial Times House and Home pages, finished my third book (released spring 2011), met the Queen (yes, really) and visited several jaw-droppingly beautiful gardens, my favourite of which has to be Waltham Place (though if we're talking company alone the Highgrove visit was an absolute hoot).

Oh, and I've become seriously addicted to Twitter.

It has seriously been a fantastic season.

But the highlight of it all has to have been working with Jane Owen on The Green and Blacks Rainforest Garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show in May, more of which can be read about here. It was such an honour and a priviledge to be involved with such an important project at Chelsea, and to work with so many passionate people, not least the Cameroonian contingent. To say the team were thrilled to receive a gold medal for our efforts would be the understatement of the year.

However, on a personal level the pinnacle of all the immensely hard work has got to be this. Last week receiving, then showing, my actual real-life RHS gold medal to my children who were so patient whilst I was away.

Priceless.

Has spring sprung for you?

Now I know its not quite spring (as Lilgreenfingers tweeted yesterday, its not officially spring until we reach the vernal equinox, this year on 20th March), but with the sun shafting through the office windows illuminating shimmering motes of dust dancing in its beams, well this girl feels like a seasonal corner has been turned.

And whilst I could write about the beautiful carpet of snowdrops, aconites and crocus through which I have to tiptoe to reach my office; my garden to do list; the merits of seed catalogues; or the last rush to plant bare root trees and shrubs; this has been done by others hundreds of times before. Plus, there's only so much spring panic a gardener can take.

I could attempt to take a more serious line and write about something of global importance, which would hope to change your garden habits as we plunge into the growing season of 2010. But recent weeks have seen some amazing blogs on important subjects such as carbon sequestration and offsetting by Mark Diacono, and both 'how horticulture is political' and forest gardening by Lia Leendertz . These make for brilliant reading and if you haven't already, I urge you to read them; they are written more knowledgeably and eloquently on the subjects than I could ever hope to achieve. So this is out too.

Time for a different tack. Now call me shallow, but to me, spring doesn't just herald the reawakening of the garden and the ideas, theories and methods of gardening within it. Spring arrives just after London fashion week, itself a cornucopia of colour, design and wonder. Spring promises not just the unfurling of startling green upon green upon green, daffodils, longer days and the smell of freshly cut grass, it also promises a whole new season of clothes; clothes to lust after, fabrics to stroke, colours to revel in, new garments to treasure, (and immediately hide from my boyfriend to be seen at a later date with a 'what this old thing' casually employed), and occasionally new clothes in which to garden in.

Thinking of Jane Perrone's recent tweet re floral tool wraps made me think of how often we associate gardeners with what they wear. Monty Don is often referred to as 'The lord of Cord', is Sarah Raven ever without a great coat or lace up wellies, and dare we imagine James Alexander Sinclair bereft of his hat (ok, and his iphone)? Looking to add a certain 'je ne sais quoi' to my own gardening apparel, I looked to the web for inspiration and found some interesting insights into other gardener's preferred choice of attire.

A gardenweb thread on garden fashion revealed that many gardeners favour the inevitable clogs, straw hats, gloves, aprons and visors to dress for cultivation purposes, but one comment in particular stood out. Now no giggling please, there may be other readers, who like 'Donna37' from Missouri, herald from the other side of the pond who find this behaviour nothing out of the ordinary. Anyway, said Donna had an interesting, alternative to the well worn bandana, used by many to keep hair and perspiration in check. By her own admission, when she gardens she 'sweats a LOT' , but thankfully her husband has found a thrifty solution that works for her, which must save on a lot of washing in the process. "He took one of his old socks, folded it lengthwise and pinned it around his head. Worked great and really absorbs the sweat.....they fit well and are a good way to recycle those socks with a hole in the heel". Helpful 'Cajungardener' enhances the design by suggesting the inclusion of swell gels to make this makeshift 'sockdana' cooling as well as practical, and when some other contributors suggested that this could be a toxic disaster, even more helpful 'Tasymo' suggested substituting the swell gels with the absorbent crystals from disposable diapers. Nice. Could this be Spring headgear 2010? Somehow I doubt it.

Not feeling in the least bit tempted to reach for a pair of Jules' threadbare socks and slam then around my brow, I further dived to find something slightly more elegant in a quest to improve my soil stained gardening garb for 2010. Eschewing the new Garden Collection by H&M as too flimsy and short to be practical whilst on ones hands and knees, (even though all the garments have been produced using sustainable materials or using recycled PET bottles or textile waste I could not inflict this sight on anyone), I was relieved to find that to move forward in the horticultural fashion stakes, I simply needed to look back into time.

Courtesy of the eminently readable blog by Martha B, Nibs, I was alerted to 'Garden People: Valerie Finnis & The Golden Age of Gardening' by Ursula Buchan, Anna Pavord, and Brent Elliott. Apologies if you have seen this book before, and huge recommendations to buy it if you haven't. Page upon page of an age since past, Finnis's pictures capture the elegance and quirky style of gardeners from the 1940s to the 1970s.

Though not all of those featured are dressed up to the nines, it is the images of those that are that I love the best. Here was my answer to my fashion conundrum. I am sure many of the women dressed up expressly to impress Ms Finnis on her arrival, keen to be photographed at their best, with their legions of gardening staff safely tucked up in the shrubbery for the day. And I know that double digging, laying a lawn, or turning the compost would be made distinctly difficult if hampered by a long gown and incongruous footwear. But what a lovely idea, to treasure, revel in and enjoy gardening so much so, that an afternoons weeding was certainly worth dressing for. And how glamorous and decadent to care not a jot whether 'your best' would get covered in mud, torn or stained in the process. So, though I think I'll keep my everyday gardening uniform of fingerless gloves, combats and well worn boots, I shall at least look in the mirror as I stride out of the back door, I might even wear a slick of lipstick, and perhaps even a sparkly broach, with a nod and a smile to these grande old dames of our gardening heritage's past. Hey, this may not be 'only gardening' after all. Pictures below......

Parsley Muir enjoying a little light watering.....

Lady Birley readying herself for some heavy pruning......

And the inimitable Valerie Finnis herself, attired for the potting shed, naturally.

Herculean Annuals

Finally I have banished the giant stems of our long faded sunflowers from the borders, a hugely satisfying experience which went something like this. Heave out the erratically swaying monster dead plant (with banshee like wail), put a boot over the rootball, snap hollow stem away from the roots, revel in satisfying almighty crack, then chuck roots into wheelbarrow (ready for the base of the hedge), and stems on the burning pile. Repeat, seemingly ad infinitum.

Last year Archie (my 5 year old) and I grew a sunflower forest, planting 'Giant Single' and 'Velvet Queen' at the base of a sleeper retaining wall, their towering mightiness to inspire awe from the lower garden whilst easily enjoying the flower heads from the higher green oak deck above.

Never wanting to do things by halves, we planted dozens and dozens of home grown seedlings to give impact to the newly planted sparseness of the perennials growing at their feet, and to disguise the sleeper retaining wall behind them. And whilst their growth rate was astounding to both Arch, myself and all of our friends (they pumped skyward from the ground with such force and power you could almost watch them gain height in front of your eyes), keeping them upright through the gales of last summer was an 'interesting' challenge (much running around in blind panic at night, armed with canes, twine and a head torch). And though I should not have been surprised, the obvious fact that each 'Giant Single' only produced one, albeit huge, bloom which took an age to arrive, still left me feeling somehow cheated. Though Archie enjoyed his first success growing gargantuan plants, i revelled in the shorter, more generous, multi headed, deep wine red blooms of the sublime 'Velvet Queen', which Archie did not care for a jot.

Time gently passed in the way summers do, and the sunflowers passed over, turning from green leafy giants into wizened, bleached sticks marching through much of the bottom garden. However, though not much to look at in themselves, there's no doubting that my laziness prevailed in the end, and leaving them insitu through autumn and winter made our garden's bird population extremely happy (watching birds strip the heads of seed was a wonderful distraction whilst I washed dishes at the kitchen sink).

But being a firm believer that plants should deliver maximum interest to warrant inclusion, especially in a small garden, this year I shan't bother with the giant yellows, but will grow lesser numbers of glamourous Helianthus annuus 'Moulin Rouge' mixed with 'Chianti' instead.

I just hope Archie will forgive me......

Gardens are for people

It's brilliant when a day turns out so much better than expected, and Wednesday this week was a perfect example.

I hotfooted it up to the Royal Festival Hall in London for the launch of the National Garden Scheme's 2010 yellow book. If I'm honest, I thought this would be a small affair, full of candy floss haired ladies of a certain age, knitting through a rather laborious talk as I gently snoozed, whilst secretly anticipating the lunchtime canapes.

However, as I hurtled up to floor 5 in the lift, the laughter, hilarity and the general cacophony of joyous noise drifting down the shaft alerted me to the fact that I had got this lot completely wrong.

Now I've known about the NGS for all my gardening life, have visited a few open gardens and in my past capacity as roving TV reporter, I worked with a couple from Lincolnshire as they prepared their garden for the NGS's public. I really ought to have known better. This lot have more energy than I have witnessed in a long time.

After a swift cup of tea, a veritable celebration of the NGS's work ensued, delivered via the genuinely thrilled-to-be-newly appointed President Joe Swift and the efficacious and charming NGS Chairman Penny Snell. Following a slideshow revealing some surprisingly contemporary new garden additions, a delivery of cheques (all including more noughts than any I could ever hope to receive) handed out to the NGS beneficiary charities and some well deserved exceptional service awards, I was sold. This was inspirational stuff.

3700 gardens will open this year on behalf of the NGS. That's a lot of gardens and gardeners, industriously priming their private gardens for us to visit, garden owners which are keen to share ideas, experiences, successes (and failures) with us, whilst raising money for charity. Together through the NGS they hope to raise £3 million in 2010. And just a cursory flick through this years Yellow Book (which lists dates, entry fees and gardens open by area) reveals several gardens of appeal close to me. So I shall endeavour to do my bit for the NGS, whilst partaking of one of the joys of life, gardens. This year I am going to diary, then visit, as many NGS gardens I can. www.ngs.org.uk

The picture is of Great Dixter's produce table carrying the weight of some stunning dahlia varieties, taken in October of last year.