Thoughts on This Year's Chelsea gardens

I’ve spent the past three days completely immersed in the world of the Chelsea Flower Show, and my goodness what a whirlwind it has been.

It’s my second year attending the show creating installations for clients and, having spent last year feeling a little like a rabbit in the headlights, I arrived this time with a much better understanding of how it all works and how to make the most of my time there.

This year I was there working on the RHS garden with Francis Tophill as well as decorating two trade stands for clients, which I will share more of in a separate post.

There’s a real energy at Chelsea when you’re involved in the build, no matter how large or small your role within it. I’m very used to creating either alone or with just a handful of people around me, so building work surrounded by hundreds of others takes a huge amount out of me. I find it quite exposing and my nervous system is usually on fire by the end of the day.

I was grateful to be able to retreat back to my sisters where she had a warm bath and home cooked food waiting for me.

I’m a very focused person and made a conscious decision this year to keep my eyes firmly on my own work during the build days, resisting the temptation to peek too closely at the gardens themselves until the pressure of work had passed. I wanted to experience them properly, with the time and headspace to really absorb the details.

So this article is really about yesterday, my time spent walking around the gardens (rather than through them, which is reserved for the truly important people!) and noticing the quieter details that caught my eye.

As a relative newcomer to Chelsea, I don’t have decades of shows to compare this year against, but I did notice a distinct shift in mood and planting style from last year.

Of all the gardens presented, many felt noticeably more spacious and restrained. Only a couple carried that abundant, romantic cottage garden feeling, one of those being Francis Tophill’s garden.

That isn’t a criticism at all, merely an observation. To my eyes, this year felt less about dramatic floral excess and more about nuance and detail.

Across many of the gardens there was a softness to the planting, delicate unexpected species, subtle textures, grasses catching the light and movement, and a real appreciation for negative space.

I also noticed a huge amount of planting directly into substrate and gravel, giving many of the spaces a looser, more naturalistic feel. Especially when paired with moving water, where the planting seemed to take on an even greater sense of softness and movement.

I also noticed corten steel appearing throughout many of the gardens this year, a material I’m particularly fond of and have recently introduced into my own studio garden. I love the tension between its rusty, industrial surface and the looseness of naturalistic planting. The contrast makes both elements sing a little louder.

Here are my Chelsea garden highlights - so hard to whittle down as there was a lot to see: