Dearest gentle readers, are you dreaming of a day frolicking through pastel flower beds, idling away in romantic gardens? Well, if you’ve caught the latest season of «Bridgerton», that wouldn’t be surprising.
24.05.2024 - 18:49 / houseandgarden.co.uk / Chelsea Flower-Show / Clare Foster
The goal from a visit to the Chelsea Flower Show is to come away with your head full of ideas and inspiration. Sometimes the show gardens can feel unattainable – too esoteric, too wild or too zany for your own back garden. This year however there are plenty of clever, stylish and down-to-earth gardens that offer ideas for real gardens. Here are a few of the best.
This is a garden that you can imagine recreating like–for-like in your own plot. Featuring a corten steel pergola that doubles up as a water channel to capture rainwater, the garden is divided into several different areas. A handsome dry stone wall is interspersed with clipped evergreen hornbeam for visual interest, while on the ground, oak setts have been used as an alternative to stone. A relaxed seating area is shaded by multi-stemmed silver birch and surrounded by soft planting including field maples clipped into soft mounds. More plants are grown in raised timber planters with built in seating. Simple, elegant design means that the space has been used efficiently and the planting is designed to be low maintenance and drought-tolerant.
The most ingenious of the container gardens is this tiny courtyard with its series of geometric planters and water tanks made from hypertufa. This material can be homemade in your own garden using a mixture of portland cement and spaghnum moss or perlite, and it is much lighter than concrete or terracotta. The designer has incorporated a small plunge pool into the design, with a small rill and water feature to provide the sound of running water. The containers are beautifully planted with ferns, hostas, tiarella and other woodland plants underneath multi stemmed hawthorns.
Designed by Tsuako Asada, this tiny balcony showcases an
Dearest gentle readers, are you dreaming of a day frolicking through pastel flower beds, idling away in romantic gardens? Well, if you’ve caught the latest season of «Bridgerton», that wouldn’t be surprising.
Craving some Instagram-worthy greenery for your home? Indoor vines are trending as the best plants to decorate your home with! Make your drapes, walls, columns, and windows come to life with climbing plants, and replenish your selfie deficit with these easy green home decor hacks!
Summer is arriving and, all of a sudden, the kitchen garden is coming into its own. I am harvesting masses of salad leaves, broad beans and strawberries, and hopefully the first new potatoes. I can almost see things growing before my eyes, including the weeds, which I make an effort to keep on top of every few days (although I leave self-seeded dark pink poppies and some mauve linaria to encourage insects and add colour). To make the most of a small space, I grow salad leaves in large galvanised metal troughs, making sure that I sow a new crop every few weeks so I have a constant supply through the summer. Salad leaf mixes, including swift-growing, cut-and-come-again lettuce, rocket and mustard leaves, are available from almost any seed company, or at garden centres. Winter salad leaves, including mizuna, are best sown after midsummer, as they tend to run to seed quickly. I grow my salad leaves in the least time-consuming way, scattering the seeds thinly on the surface of the prepared soil or compost, and raking them in gently with a hand rake. Keep them watered and they will germinate within a few days and be ready to harvest in about six weeks. If you want to grow them in your vegetable beds, it is better to sow them in drills, so that the emerging seedlings are easily distinguishable from the weeds.
Marchelle Farrell
In 2020 a rather unusual virtual Chelsea Flower Show took place online instead of at its usual Royal Hospital location due to the coronavirus lockdown. As you can tell from our gallery of archive pictures from Chelsea, the royals are among its most enthusiastic attendees; the Queen almost never missed a visit, the Duchess of Cambridge had her own garden there last year, as has Prince Harry in the past, and various other senior royals are regular visitors. That year, since they were unable to visit, the royal family took part in the #MyChelseaGarden campaign, which encouraged the public to post pictures of their own gardens on social media to celebrate the show.
With Chelsea fast approaching, we thought we'd give you a sneak peek into what you can expect from members of The List by House & Garden. From sensational show gardens to the very best in garden accessories and furniture, you won't want to miss out on seeing these members at this year's show…
The gardens at Charleston
For the ultimate in low-maintenance planting, intersperse small balls of box with a seasonal display of bulbs and summer bedding: tulips in spring, geraniums in summer and winter pansies in autumn — or almost any annuals that take your fancy.
Did you ever wonder what it would be like to get exclusive access to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show? Well, your dreams have come true because in this exclusive interview we got an all-access pass to THE horticultural event of the year thanks to Annie Guilfoyle, a 2024 judge. Annie is co-founder of Garden Masterclass in the UK and an award wining garden designer who earned a Silver Medal at Cheslea years ago for her innovative landscape design. Annie is just back from the show this year and shares details from her favorite gardens, interesting new plants that caught her attention, and even some celebrity gossip from those stars that were in attendance at the show. (Spoiler alert: she did not see Lady Whistledown at the Bridgerton -themed garden). We discussed how native plants and sustainable practices played a role in this year’s event and talk about themes of water conservation and hardscape upcycling.
June growing with Cel
2024 is a big year for football fans and punters assessing the best sign-up offers, with Euro 24 in Germany kicking off in June. However, when studying the form of the players and sides ahead of the summer showpiece, have you ever stopped to wonder what a footballer has in his garden?
Tom Massey's WaterAid garden at the Chelsea Flower Show 2024