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TAIL OF
THE DOG

Chelsea Flower Show

ne of the most prestigious bricks, bits of concrete, rotting timbers. Pavilion, featuring the plants and their
garden and flower shows in This planting recurred throughout the growers. Dahlias are back in fashion,
Othe world, the Chelsea Flower show, so much so that a cartoonist tulips, gladioli, foxgloves, roses of
Show 2023 fulfilled its promise. The renamed the event the ‘Chelsea Weed course, ferns, water plants, indoor pot
show gardens were based on the Show’. plants, and succulents were there in
theme of ‘the restorative power of abundance. Noticeably absent was
gardens and gardening – both for A spectacular Korean mountainside any sort of lawn. As one presenter
people and the environment’. was recreated with rocks, a waterfall, put it, not a blade of mown grass
and planted with disappearing Korean anywhere.
Top award went to a wheelchair- herbal and medicinal plants. The top
friendly rehabilitation garden for people of the stand featured a herb drying One planter seller demonstrated how
with spinal injuries – level paths with house, made of bamboo poles with to plant up a pot, where you need a
porous surfaces, so no water build-up, mud infill, a truly mediaeval wattle and Pillar, a Thriller, and a Spiller. The
planned with easy to navigate sinuous daub construction. Another eastern pillar is the tall major plant, the thriller
curves, raised metal edges along the garden had colourful Japanese is accompanying planting with smaller
flowerbeds so wheels would not go maples planted round a water feature flowers in a good colour, and the spiller
into soft ground or damage plants, with waterfall, rocks, lichens. One is a trailing plant falling over the sides.
and all the plant interest at the right outstanding calm and peaceful stand
height for a wheelchair user. Another was the Nurture Landscapes garden, The final award for the Plant of the Year
garden was all about homelessness, the colour palette of pale terracotta with was for a new dark purple agapanthus,
and featured a broken-down house, small highlights of magenta and deep with a lush flower head packed with
with the black and red encaustic tiled rust taken from a particularly beautiful blooms, aptly named Black Jack. This
path leading to a fireplace, all that was iris in the same colours. The planting was developed here, so carried the
left to show that the place had been a was quite sparse, so you appreciated torch for South Africa.
home. The garden was an example the flowering plants all the more.
of what was euphemistically called
meadow gardening, but was in fact full As well as the show stands, there was
of weeds pushing up between broken a huge covered area called the Great Gill Butler

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