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Most show garden designers have 18 months to plan their design. Kate and I had
five. Kate listened patiently as I explained that I would like the moorland
that occupied the rear of the garden to slope downwards through pines and
birch trees – with a meandering beck coursing between them – and that
I would like lumps of millstone grit, drystone walls and wild flowers,
bracken and heather, to merge into a coastal scene with a beach hut, sand
and even waves lapping on a shore that was planted with maritime plants and
cabbage palms. To her undying credit she batted not an eyelid, and went away
to sort out the supply of such esoteric horticultural requirements at 20
weeks’ notice.
But the one thing that all three of us – Mark, Kate and myself – felt from the
outset was excitement. We knew that our garden was not to be judged
alongside the other show gardens and that it would, therefore, not be
eligible for an RHS Gold Medal – the highest accolade of all. This was to be
an “exhibit” on behalf of the RHS, and yet we knew that our garden would be
judged every bit as much as the others by anyone and everyone who walked by.
That’s how it was during the build – we would turn around to see other
contractors eyeing us up. Most of them smiled.
We began building on May 1 – a day that turned the Chelsea showground into
something resembling the Somme. But the weather bucked up – with occasional
lapses into torrential rain and high winds – and progress was made more
quickly than we had envisaged.
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Flower Show
The raised moorland area at the back of the garden was erected within the
first week – held up by great sections of concrete that became known as the
“Great Wall of Chelsea”. But the concrete soon disappeared under a bank of
huge boulders weighing as much as 12 tons apiece – heavy enough to bend the
prongs of our forklift truck. A length of drystone wall was dismantled in
Yorkshire and shipped down to London SW3, where it was rebuilt on top of the
boulders – moss and all – snaking its way down towards the coastal part of
the garden. It was finished within three days by Andrew Loudon and his small
team who spend their working lives building these works of art in the
Yorkshire dales and wolds. Among the team was Lydia Noble, a 19-year-old
apprentice who, with bare hands, quietly set to work creating some of the
finest drystone walling I have ever set eyes on.
“Is it true,” I asked her, “that once you pick up a stone, you don’t put it
down until you have found a place for it?”
“Ah,” she replied, “the trick is not to pick it up until you know where it’s
going.” Neat that.
We planted woodlanders and wild flowers, cabbage palms that towered over our
beach hut – to be painted in a fetching shade of pale green and cream – and
spires of echiums and foxgloves, carpets of heather and rugs of samphire to
reflect our own love of the British countryside and the folk who tend it so
passionately.
And passion is what this garden is about – the passion of Mark and Kate and me
for the job, and in sharing that love of growing things and creating those
bits of man-made landscape we call gardens.
We have almost finished it now, and the excitement has reached fever pitch.
The butterflies have begun fluttering deep inside, for tomorrow I’ll show
our garden to the Queen. I hope she likes it. On Tuesday, the gates will be
opened to members of the Royal Horticultural Society, and to the public on
Thursday right through until Saturday. The tickets are sold out, they tell
me; they sold faster than those for Eminem’s concert. That’s nice.
I am not involved with the television presentation this year. I shall miss it,
but what my absence from the screen (barring an interview or two) has
allowed me to do is to remind myself of the thrill of working with a group
of people of like mind in making a little bit of garden magic. An
inspiration. A snapshot of perfection. It will be a chance for folk to see
if I really can do the thing I have been wittering on about for all these
years.
Next week I’ll let you know how it went. In the meantime, wish me luck. You
may not see me on the garden, but you will see my wellies just inside the
beach hut. With any luck, this week, I won’t be needing them.
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