About the Harrods garden
Diarmuid Gavin's quirky design promises to be a real crowd-pleaser
The Harrods British Eccentrics Garden
Harrods is pleased to announce a second year of participation at the Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show where, this year, it will be showcasing The Harrods British Eccentrics Garden, designed and created by award-winning gardener and TV personality Diarmuid Gavin.
At the forefront of luxury retail, Harrods continues to offer its customers the finest merchandise and the most unforgettable experience, with craftsmanship, innovation and provenance at the heart of the famous Knightsbridge store.
For the first time ever at RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Gavin intends to let go of his contemporary architectural style of planting and embrace a different feeling – like Harrods, one that is more British, full of colour and fun, and stylish in an altogether different, quirkier way.
Waving goodbye to his usual pared-back colour palette of greens and russet tones, he has chosen to paint a picture, tell a story; a pastiche of a typical British garden from days gone by and inspired by that most British of illustrators, William Heath Robinson, best known for drawings of complicated machines designed to achieve simple outcomes. This is a garden that will intrigue, enchant and amuse show visitors in equal measures – and promises to be one of the must-sees at this year’s event. It is a show after all!
Michael Ward, Harrods Managing Director, said: “This year, we wanted to create a garden that would embody the essence of tradition, beauty, innovation and excellence – a garden that would capture a quintessential British style and perfectly reflect Harrods’ values and traditions, but with a playful twist. Harrods has had a working relationship with Diarmuid for more than 10 years, and we felt he would be the perfect person to design our garden and bring this vision to life.”
Deborah Bee, Director of Creative Marketing at Harrods, said: “The Chelsea Flower Show is one of the first big events on the British summer social calendar, an amazing event that many Londoners visit faithfully year after year, and we feel a real synergy between the RHS and Harrods. The RHS launched its first garden in 1862 in Kensington, Harrods moved from Southwark to the Brompton Road in 1851, and both institutions have stood the test of time, appreciated over the years for their solid Britishness.”
The team that Gavin has pulled together includes experts from the worlds of architecture, engineering and blacksmithing. There are also, of course, some of the best growers, plantsmen and plantswomen in the UK and Ireland.
And Gavin regards it as important to draw on skills from a range of generations across both the design and horticultural worlds. He is working with a technical college on the design of the garden’s moving parts, and has invited one of the most celebrated plantswomen in the world – garden writer, lecturer and broadcaster Helen Dillon – to join him on the project.
