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Clean, green and good enough to eat
Designers at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show are set to highlight how the garden can help you be healthier, greener and more wildlife friendly, while still being attractive and functional.
Reflecting our current enthusiasm for healthy eating and desire for fresh, flavoursome food, vegetable patches and fruit trees feature strongly. In the Great Pavilion Jekka McVicar urges us to grow our own salad bag and Chef Raymond Blanc and Newington Nurseries aim to tempt us with a display of ‘exotic edibles’ from Malaysia, all of which can be grown in the UK.
Demonstrating that growing fresh nutritious food is accessible to everyone, even those in inner city flats, is Henry Doubleday Research Association’s Lifelong Learning exhibit, which illustrates its’ Organic Food for All campaign, a mentor-led programme aimed at enabling people on low incomes to grow their own fruit and vegetables.
Attracting wildlife into the garden and promoting biodiversity continue to be core themes and the many garden owners who delight in watching visiting wildlife will be treated to an unprecedented number of displays that include homes and shelters for animals, birds and insects.
The Wildlife Trusts Lush Garden, where decaying logs, reed beds and nest boxes are just some of the features that provide shelter for animals, highlights the RHS and The Wildlife Trusts Wild about Gardens project, which aims to bring the worlds of gardening and nature conservation closer together, increase understanding of the significance of local wildlife character and celebrate what garden owners are already doing to support wildlife.
Ellen Landscapes’ natural swimming pond - a first at Chelsea - and Writtle College’s use of edible, easy to grow, plants to make a striking and functional wildlife garden, will both demonstrate how a garden doesn’t have to be wild to be attractive to wildlife.
As concern about waste management issues continues to grow, a number of designers have included materials that have been reclaimed, recycled or reused. Featuring reclaimed timber, broken household items and copper pipe Claire Whitehouse’s The Real Rubbish Garden aims to highlight the amount of waste we produce and the ways we can reduce it. This environmentally-sensitive garden also attracts wildlife, such as the declining house sparrow, butterflies and bees.
Visitors to the show will be offered a wealth of gardening ideas, with 19 show gardens, around 33 small gardens and outstanding displays from over 100 of the world’s best nurseries and specialist growers to enjoy. Added to that, displays of top-class horticulture sundries, the latest plant launches, floral arrangements, floristry and expert gardening advice, make Chelsea Flower Show the ultimate event for gardeners.