This is the journal of my endeavours to grow a range of fruit, veg and flowers from seed, grow organically, and my attempts to create a personal paradise with 1/2 acre of maintained gardens and 1/2 acre wild meadows. Northern Ireland's average daily high temperatures are 18 °C (64 °F) in July and 6 °C (43 °F) in January. Soil type: Clay

Monday 26 May 2014

Chelsea Photos part 1

My first time at the Chelsea Flower Show in London and it was a great way to spend the weekend. 

Getting from the underground to the show grounds was relatively easy. Walking down the street, there were a few eye catching displays like this one with the welly boots!

I noticed the weather in London was much better than Northern Ireland (less rain and more sun in London!).
The signage in London is great! 
Above: The first area I went to within the Chelsea show was what they call the 'Artisan Garden' area. These are gardens designed on small plots to engage visitors with a naturalist approach using traditional workmanship and skills. This garden is called Togenkyo - A Paradise on Earth and received the award for Best Artisan Garden. I was amazed at all the moss used in the show gardens at Chelsea. Ireland is full of moss and I usually try to get rid of it!
Above: A main show garden called 'Vital Earth The Night Sky Garden'. This garden was packed with plants and features like seating areas, pond, etc. Meadow planting and planting to attract wildlife seemed popular at the show, which was good to see.
Above: This is one of the main show gardens called 'Hope on the Horizon' and it was chosen as the People's Choice public vote for best garden. The garden is designed to represent the process injured servicemen and women go through on the road to recovery. It was a lovely garden with attractive planting.
Purples, blues and whites seemed to be the popular plant colours and they looked well. Some of the show gardens even featured weeds such as buttercups! Something I only discovered halfway through my visit, was that each garden design had staff handing out a description of the garden,the design and a list of plants they used, which I thought was very useful to take away.

More on Chelsea later. I must sort through the 500 or so photos I took!

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

6 comments:

  1. You surely had a great time and came home with good ideas. Be sure to tell us what you liked the best.

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  2. One of the problems with the Chelsea show is that it's just so big! So much to take in and remember. I like the idea of the leaflets describing the gardens. Can week look forward to seeing more moss in your garden then?

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  3. I'm glad you had a great time, I love the idea of the staff handing out the planting guides to each garden, it sounds very useful.

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  4. This is my kind of planting - I'm trying for a white and blue theme on one of my borders but it is shaded by a tree which makes life more complicated.

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  5. How beautiful, Kelli, are the displays you have shown us. Can't wait to see more. I love the planted Wellies...think I will buy a pair just to plant up! The moss was my favorite in this group. How did they form it so round..it seemed almost like round sponges.

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  6. What a great event. Somehow, I pictured something less amitious so it's candy to my eyes! The workmanship & imagination are to envy! I hope you got some great ideas you can use.

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