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Highlights of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2006
Chelsea still reigns in torrential downpours!
Even the wet weather and torrential rain couldn’t dampen spirits at the 2006 RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
During the build-up to the 2006 show, high winds and heavy rain resulted in polystyrene cups being used as umbrellas to protect delicate blooms, exhibitors coping with mud and puddles and luxurious outdoor furniture being wrapped in plastic. As it rained, the world’s leading garden designers pulled out all the stops and created what has been hailed as the finest collection of show gardens in recent memory.
Highlights included Tom Stuart-Smith’s The Telegraph Garden, which won Best Show Garden and was lush with intense and vibrant planting. Chris Beardshaw beautifully recreated a garden by Gertrude Jekyll and Thomas Mawson (The Chris Beardshaw Wormcast Garden - Growing for Life at Boveridge House) and picked up the RHS BBC People’s Choice Award. Another show garden, GardenAfrica, brought a piece of sub-Saharan Africa to Chelsea with red earth and exotic plants.
Within the Great Pavilion nurserymen had contended with a lengthy, severe winter, which had held back growth, followed by unexpectedly warm weather in the weeks leading up to the show. The perfect blooms belied the challenges and visitors to the Great Pavilion were greeted with an explosion of colour, textures and scents. Here floral exhibitors Jekka McVicar and Rosie Hardy were each awarded their 11th Gold Medal at the show, breaking a record that had been set by the legendary Beth Chatto almost 20 years ago. Bournemouth Borough Council was awarded a Gold Medal and the coveted President’s Award, which is given to one exhibit in the Great Pavilion, chosen by the RHS President.
Ironically, considering the torrential downpours, for the first time in the history of the show the RHS had drilled a borehole to source water to water the plants and for water features. A number of gardens also followed a water-wise theme; the focal point of Anna’s Sanctuary in the Shade was a shade ‘sail’ structure, which captured water to water the garden when needed. Another small garden, The MITIE Garden, featured drought-tolerant plants from the Mediterranean, Mexico and South Africa.
The rain held off for the royal party’s visit, which included HM The Queen, who arrived in purple, which was the dominant flower colour of 2007. Other royal visitors who enjoyed the world’s greatest flower show included Prince Charles and The Duchess of Cornwall, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew, Prince Edward and the Countess of Wessex.
As usual, Chelsea was awash with celebrities and over the week Darcey Bussell and Ffion Hague launched flowers named after them; Britain’s favourite gardener, Alan Titchmarsh, unveiled a bust of himself; Emma Thompson launched a ‘plant pink’ campaign to raise money for Breast Cancer Care and ex-England rugby captain, Martin Johnson, walked barefoot in the Bradstone Garden.