RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024 – Episode 6+7

6. Sophie Raworth and Joe Swift launch the BBC RHS People’s Choice Award and take a look at all the show gardens in contention. Dame Mary Berry shares her recipe ideas, using ingredients she has discovered in the Great Pavilion. And Toby Buckland helps ease one of the biggest complaints when spending time in the garden… noisy neighbours.

7. Monty Don and Joe Swift take a look at how the RHS Chelsea Flower is helping to reimagine urban living, with innovative ideas that can be replicated at home.

Rachel de Thame shares the secrets to creating a private retreat in even the smallest of spaces, whilst Carol Klein unveils the new plants that are set to become must-haves in garden borders. Nick Bailey reveals the planting choices to help deal with another scorching summer. And interior design master Michelle Ogundehin describes how to create a green haven indoors.

● Watch more Home and Garden videos: https://homeandgarden.love/

[Music] [Applause] hello and welcome to the Royal Horticultural society’s Chelsea flower show 2024 an event supported by the NES in Somerset it is a little bit wet today The Umbrellas are out but that is not dampening the spirits is it no that’s why we’re under this cover here um it makes me hat go a bit crinkly the way I’ve got to say but yesterday was wonderful huge celebration the medals there was a great energy about the showr but today is a really big day too it is because we’re launching the BBC rhs People’s Choice Award and it is a really big deal that isn’t it for the designers here huge for it’s the large show Gardens on Main Avenue and for the designers to win that is massive because it means they’ve connected with the viewers the visitors to the show it’s big well we are going to be looking at all the contenders for this year’s award and we will also be giving you all the details on how you can vote for your favorite also coming up I’m going to be sitting down for a chat with one of the funniest men on TV not you Joe it is actually the comedian Tom Allen but you’re going to have to watch out because he’s quite a dab hand in the garden I think he might be after your job really yeah must a bit scary well he’s very funny but has he got a Chelsea gold medal has he no no he has not plus day Mary Berry shares her recipe ideas from ingredients that she’s discovered in the great Pavilion that you can grow at home and over the summer months you’ll be spending plenty of time Outdoors no doubt yet noisy neighbors are one of your biggest comp plaints Toby’s got the design hacks to help dampen the dreaded noise one Garden that instantly provides you with a sense of relaxation is the bules National Gallery Garden it’s been designed by Katherine McDonald and it’s a celebration of the 200th anniversary of the National Gallery taking inspiration from many of the paintings there now arit has been having a good look around you know all about this don’t you I love that when you step onto this just these structures themselves immediately make you think think of of picture frames yeah they do but Katherine’s actually been very clever because she’s taken inspiration from a artist called canaletto and he would work very much on perspective so immediately when you look down this lovely uh these per what a perlar effectively you get this perspective going into Infinity there and the other artists reflected here this one this these panels themselves are a different artist aren’t they they are this is climed so again what Catherine’s done is use this in the design and kind of given it part of the structure the bones of the garden and the planting itself is very different you can see the sort of different textures here and over there because this is very much the plants have been done in a line haven’t they exactly so if you looked at it you might think well designers don’t normally plant like that but now you’ve got to imagine these are brush Strokes so impr prestice artists that would do these brush Strokes across the canvas I really like how she’s kind of you emulated that through the planting and these are the Impressionists aren’t they that’s the idea there and this side of the garden well you can see it changes slightly differently here this is pointilism pointilism and where you take your brush and you’d be pointing you dabbing onto the canvas so a different brush stroke style um entirely and the green color palette that underlies the whole of the garden comes from Monet’s water Lily Pond um painting So I really like again how You’ got this play on colors coming through the actual color palette here I love the U as well that’s beautiful isn’t it yeah I love that and I just sort of thought oh what great toer but now we’ve got to think van off because that was his sort of style that sort of much more blocky um style of painting on his work I love the stories in these these Gardens they really do come to life don’t they the detail that that’s put into them well huge amount of detail and I think also as well when we think about art is so inspired by nature and I love the fact that the this Garden the two come together well AR thank you very much for my gallery art tour you’re welcome now one of the nation’s favorite flowers to grow at home is of course the rose and every year nurseries here at Chelsea bring their new varieties for us to Marvel at JJ’s joined one grower in the great Pavilion to find out how the Chelsea pensioners have been helping them wow this this is gorgeous so much color in fact how many varieties do you have here so in total Harkness have got over 200 varieties right um but here today we we have about 30 varieties with us at Chelsea so the 30 that have made the cut why are they here so a lot of it is dependent on what has flowered what looks really good you know some years we might be able to bring one of our most popular roses Shand do Beauty and then another year it might not have flowered or it may have flowered too early so there’s a lot of factors involved in what makes it to Shela one of the most important things is Health we have to really focus on health because we want the rose to be really easy to grow in someone’s Garden then we have to think about about color fragrance and I mean obviously a name like a beautiful name means so much to people what is it about roses whoever’s doing the pr for them is doing a very good job well I guess they’re on National flow aren’t they so I’m biased I’ve I’ve I come from a family of Rose grubers so you know I love them I mean they’re so versatile you can have a rose for every space you’ve got the shorter ones you’ve got climbers you’ve got more open varieties you’ve got the Fuller varieties there’s a rose for everyone and for for every space so many varieties but is there any in particular that people should be looking out for this week I mean one really beautiful rose to look out for is this Rose just over here so this variety is called Sense and Sensibility oh lovely and I mean it just produces such a huge massive heads when they open they start pink and they Fade to White but when they open they open to show all the beautiful stamans which the pollinators love on our Nursery it is covered in pollinators all of the time so this is one of the new varieties we are launching this year and it’s called the spark of life right and as you can see it’s a beautiful pink color so when it first starts to open it’s really pink and it kind of Fades to a lilu color and as we’ve just said it has an amazing fragrance and one of the rosies that harness are unveiling at Chelsea this year is the Chelsea pensioner and Patrick you enjoy your gardening what do you make of the the Chelsea pension I’m thrilled with it I mean I’m very very proud of these being here and I’m sure a lot of my colleagues will be but me especially because well I’m a rose grower and I love my roses but seeing all these all together that’s great so you think you can get your Rosies looking just like this by the end of the show yes I’m confident you will as well I like my roses to be perfect if possible and and that is [Music] perfect ah the Chelsea pensioners they’re such a key part of the show and it’s great to see them growing in their own Gardens now it wouldn’t be Chelsea without Dame Mary Berry and I’m delighted to say that she’s here now welcome back to Chelsea Mary loveely to see it’s lovely to be here yeah I’ve seen you’ve been sort of zooming around the great Pavilion looking at some well mainly Edibles is that right well of course that’s for I’m interested in I’m a cook and I’ve been doing a bit of collecting too and I was intrigued by this tomato just look at it it’s black it is black on the outside very dramatic absolutely black so I I’ve cut it in half yeah and surprise surprise it’s red inside wow what fun is that that is beautiful isn’t it because there’s so many varieties of tomatoes that we hardly T everyone thinks it’s Tomato’s got to be red exactly on the plate that must look great but you can imagine that you know both ways up on the plate as a sort of Heritage collection yeah and I walked up to the stand and I thought oh chilies but this is a pepper okay and uh it’s is it hot it’s not hot and you eat the seeds and all but what fun is that in aide it’s beautiful I mean well that whole basket is like a sort of corner copia that’s got that’s got me peckish already what about the pelagonians I mean are these edible pelagonians they certainly are and then um you can have sugar you you know we always have vanilla sugar and um you can have pelium sugar and it gives a lovely flavor they’re very aromatic because yeah the foliage is really scented isn’t it I mean this one is orange that’s an got an orange tent to it I would say and of course again if you put it in Sugar it’ll have the slightly orangey flavor okay what’s this one uh this one is Rose it’s very Rosy yeah it’s lovely isn’t it okay so you put it sugar and it and it it flavors the sugar exactly and you can decorate with the flowers as of salad what about the these are the mo one of the most beautiful plants of the whole show I’ve got to say I’ve never grown mushrooms but I know that you can buy kits now oh the with instructions you can’t well they say you can’t go wrong and they’re oyster mushrooms these are oyster mushrooms and just look at the colors they are so beautiful so yeah you literally just grow them and then you just pick them and cook with them exactly and they’re great for sort of stir fries um or in in casseras and what whatever but some people don’t they’re not very fond of the texture and you can now get it in a concentrated uh powder of all different mushrooms and uh you just need a teaspoonful uh into a casserole a stir fry or whatever and you get that wonderful rich flavor yeah a lot you it well fantastic really great selection there and you’ve opened my mind to A Whole New World of Edibles as well thank you Mary well you may very well tuck into some of the Le treats in the Summer sun but one of the biggest bug Bears we have about spending time outside in our Gardens is noisy neighbors so Toby’s been looking around the showr about how to tackle this [Music] problem yes it’s true when we’re out in our Gardens more in the summer so are the neighbors and the nor noise of bouncing balls dogs barking music blaring it can become a bit of a cacophony but there are techniques you can use to turn down the dial even in a small garden like this are things to be done creating a good soundproofing wall of greenery that is the first step the more generous the better separating you off from the people at number nine and your friends at number 13 makes a big difference you can also move your furniture back towards your house wall now this has the effect of cocooning you from the noise of next door amplifying your voice so you become louder to them talking of a tactic to use if you can’t beat them and have to join them a water feature splashier the [Music] better talk about Bring the noise that’s what I call a water feature it’s under the freedom from torture Garden isn’t just visually arresting it offers a real journey into sound and that’s thanks to the materials it’s crafted from underfoot is crushed concrete has the effect of dampening sounds you don’t want to hear the same trick can be said for the rendered walls they’re not just ordinary plaster or cement and sand they cob again lumps and bumps that grab hold of unwanted noise the main feature that affects the way you hear this Garden are these waves of Willow cuz the sound from the water feature well it surfs along them it comes and goes like in this point because this wall is CED and facing me it’s like putting a seashell up to my ear walk forward immediately becomes more quiet and this effect is repeated as you walk around the garden and that’s because of the willow work this surface is rough so it absorbs sound it’s a bit like egg boxes on a music studio wall even the plants in this Garden top the list for the best homegrown soundproofing this B handsome looking shrub Irish strawberry tree and conifers all of them Evergreen giving you a soundproof in baffle for 12 months of the [Music] year growing plants up is the most economical way of creating a a reasonable sound barrier but the shortest way is to go down and that’s because the soil is just so absorbent and sure it takes a lot of work to dig out this much Earth but once you’re down this is like being in your own homemade Echo chamber yeah free from the clamor and clatter of the outside world well Count Me [Music] In I think anyone would have a hard time dampening noise in here right now we’ve got the rain on the roof and huge crowds who’ve come in here to escape the weather but I’m also joined by the comedian Tom Allen we’re we’re staying dry in here aren’t we very dry amongst the Claus would you say Claus well I’ve actually I’m people say Claus I say Claus oh I don’t know should you say that I think Raymond everon we’re on his stand he I think he calls him clematis I’m going he say oh he says Clem he calls him the Clem apparently oh fine we sat the I’m going I’m going with him oh I like that here next to a gery flute apparently that’s appropiate you’re looking very Dapper here at Chelsea you like Chelsea don’t you you come back quite regularly I really really love it I think it’s such a celebration of well all the hard work the amazing gardeners and I think particularly here in the Marquee is where you see the Growers and the people who do all the detailed work like imagine like creating these plants must take so much work wasn’t it you know all about that because you’ve been doing a bit yourself you’ve become quite quite the the dab hand at the vegetable patch well yeah sort of I’ve been embracing failure and um I here been enjoying putting it on my uh social media and just sort of um going I for example I like to play game of dead or not I don’t know if any of the any viewers would have played that where you go it looks like it’s mainly a a stick but maybe it’ll come back to life and sometimes it does sometimes it doesn’t but um I I kind of go well I think it’s important to show that it doesn’t matter if it works out or it doesn’t if you have a go with gardening that’s the joy of it and a lot of time it’s the way it makes you feel and the vegetables you started doing that a while ago didn’t you but it was your father that really got you into doing that yeah well he was born during the second world war so I think growing up there was a sense of like you had to grow a bit of food yourself and so things like run of beans and potatoes he he would always continue to grow and I think he just liked the the process of it as much as anything and um and then he he died about two and a half years ago and I I was like if you lose somebody close to you it’s difficult to process sometimes and I thought actually spending time in the garden just gave me a space to uh to remember him in a way that was active you know and you’ve really been doing that haven’t you I mean I love some of the some of the stuff that you post on social media about you know planting your beetro and your cucumbers and um it’s all in alphabetical order you do it in alphabetical order because when they start to grow through the plants don’t grow with a label do they so you don’t they just got a load of leaves so you don’t know what it is and they have to wait at ages for to work out what it actually is and actually is edible after all so I’ve been trying to do them alphabetical this time to try and um remember what they are when it comes to harvesting them I hear you did a spot of drunk gardening there I’ve done a bit of drunk gardening what is drunk gardening well it’s I I don’t know if I’ve coined it but I’ve I’ve done various spits of gardening when drunk um but the most recent thing was I was at an awards ceremony and um ended up stealing the table centerpieces and brought those home and are they still alive well no they’re dead but you know it’s nice to celebrate folage isn’t it and you know just enjoy whatever Nature’s delivered really and sometimes a glass of wine helps me do that and do you come here look around and take ideas home because you’ve got a a fairly new Garden haven’t you well I do I it is easy to get over excited I did buy a an an N uh which I thought looking at the gardens here oh an N would be a lovely thing to have as a centerpiece in my garden well I ordered an N online didn’t really check the measurements I mean it’s enormous makes my garden look like a cemetery so so do be careful don’t get too carried away is my advice to anybody here because it might look wonderful in Chelsea might not look quite so good in Suburban gromley yeah you’ve got it there you’ve got it it’s in place and it’s looking rather Grand there’s no such thing as failure in gardening that’s my it’s a great approach well listen if you’re looking for inspiration uh Rachel has been revealing the PowerHouse plants that you could pick up this weekend that will give you a proper burst of color and flower all summer [Music] long it doesn’t get much more colorful than this it’s a bank of salvas and these are shrubby salvas so they’re sort of quite Airy some of them get very tall but these are nice and compact growing and those tubular shaped flowers it’s just so beautiful you get this palette of different shades everything from creamy whites through Blues to Reds now they can be a bit tender but this one is called B delois and it was bred in France and it’s said to be hardier so I’m going to be trying that out in my own garden and I also love the color here the sort of by color effect so you’ve got creamy yellow mixed with the peach really beautiful absolutely stunning display [Music] Hardy uranium are unbeatable for flowers all the way through the summer and this is a gorgeous one it’s called Derek cook nice and compact low growing with this lovely foliage that acts as a good ground cover and then the stems are really upright flowers are quite large and if you look in the center you’ve got this beautiful pattern those stripes leading you to the center of the flower and that’s really what it’s for it’s to get the pollinators to where the nectron pollen is so such a gorgeous plant and I like the pale color it just lifts a slightly dark [Music] corner after that burst of color something a little bit more subtle but no less beautiful these are estras one of my personal favorite penals and they’re just such great garden plants they’re really Hardy they go right down to sort of M – 15 the only thing to watch is that if it gets very hot weather they might need a bit of extra water they can Wilt a little bit in really hot Sunshine so I like to grow them in slightly dappled shade or areas that have Sun for half the day this one is called Buckland and it’s quite an old cultivar but it’s a real Stallworth and you get a mound of foliage at the base and in this case they’re quite large and then those skinny stems and a spray of flowers at the top and they’re s of starshaped really beautiful here they’re kind of milky white but they’ve just got that dusting of pink on the top almost like sparkling icing sugar really beautiful they come in these range of colors all lovely and soft and rather muted so easy to look after they’re perennial they come by strongly every year you could just tidy up the foliage at the very beginning of Spring just so you get a nice fresh flush coming through but they’re really easy to look after and with flowers like these the salvas the geraniums the aranas your garden is going to be a wash with beautiful color all the way through the [Music] season it’s nearly time to open the vote for the BBC rhs People’s Choice Award and you at home are the judges and that is what is so wonderful about this award anyone can win it before we tell you how to vote the team have been looking at all the Main Avenue show gardens in contention here are the first four [Music] the National Garden scheme Garden is designed to celebrate nearly 100 Years of opening private Gardens this Serpentine path weaves its way to the back of the garden but on that Journey there is somewhere just to pause and take in the planting large Hazels cover the garden and they really lead the eye the grounds carpeted with perennials mostly green that path leads you to a small Terrace and a Timber building somewhere to cook relax and [Music] entertain this is the Octavia Hill Garden it’s designed as an accessible community garden Octavia Hill was one of the founders of the National Trust a Victorian thinker and social reform for who believed in green access for all at its heart outdoor living rooms with handcarved Timber walls and a seating enclosure wide permeable Pathways lead to a semi buried building at the end of the garden there’s a pond and a stream to encourage Wildlife the garden is strewn with poppies with a focus on plants for pollin [Music] this is the water Ray Garden it imagines what a UK Garden may look like in 50 years from now and it focuses on themes like climate change water management and plants that can grow with varying degrees of rainfall at the center of the design is a steel clad Pavilion that harvests filters and stores rain water the roof hosts drought tolerant planting whilst the submerged P areas below allow for a completely different pallet opal metal decking allows water to pass through to the planting beneath and Oak Boulders provide seating throughout the garden the stroke Association Garden has been designed as a space for Recovery following a stroke the fully accessible garden with colors scents and the sound of water help those with visual or Mobility impairments find their way through the garden its interconnected Pathways acknowledge the road to recovery and it’s ups and downs a stone bridge across the stream is a metaphor for the physical mental and emotional connections that must be rebuilt a naturalistic planting scheme has been chosen for its Wildlife friendly attributes to help encourage a reconnection with nature following the disconnecting experience of a stroke [Music] that’s the first four Gardens on Main Avenue that you can vote for and Sophie all I can say is it’s going to be a close one it always is isn’t it well that is not all of them it is time now to look at the remaining four Gardens hoping to win your vote for the coveted BBC rhs People’s Choice [Music] Award the national autistic Society Garden seeks to capture the everyday experience of a person with autism and that has a lot to do with masking and that’s represented by these monolithic cork walls here we’ve got a wet Meadow and it’s filled with these very colorful candelabra primulas here we enter a river birch Woodland Glade it’s underplanted with kassas along one side so you get a sea of blue and white and it’s a place of contemplation and quietness at the very end a kinetic sculpture representing all the complexities of the human mind this is the St james’ Picadilly Garden a space in the Heart of the City for people and wildli now after the church was bombed in World War II this imagines it as a partially restored Garden where plants have taken over the entrance is through a stone Archway leading to a water feature inside the garden a wall contains a molded Stone window with seating beneath and at the back of the garden there’s an 8 m tall circular Timber counseling H the planting has been chosen to be low maintenance and suitable for semi- shade and many of the trees have been selected for longer term climate resilience the muscular distrophy UK Garden is inspired by the Japanese practice of shimmerin Yoku Forest bathing it’s all about connecting us with nature by being in Woodlands at the heart of this Garden a central Hub with a wall built using reclaimed and recycled materials stone blocks slate tiles reclaimed bricks the water re with its naturalized edges runs through the central part of this garden and creates new habitats the planting has been inspired by A Birch Grove and there are more than 50 birch trees here but benath those trees woodland plants selected for their foliage the Terrence Higgins trust Garden is a metaphorical landscape to demonstrate the resilience of those affected by HIV as you walk up the slope to the back of the garden is a Terrace that’s just hidden away and then there is water just moving all the way through the garden although the planting at the front of the garden is very ornamental it’s inspired by the Redundant slate mines in North Wales but as you move through that transition goes from Sun to semi-shade which has a real Woodland feel that’s it you have seen all the contenders for this year’s BBC RH has People’s Choice Award it is time to hand the power over to you because the vote is officially open whoa and Tom Allen is lending a helping hand to explain how you can vote for your favorite now to cast your vote go to bbc.co.uk Chelsea where you’ll find details of all eight show Gardens and the terms and conditions and the Privacy notice the vote is now open and closes at 7:00 p.m. tomorrow Thursday the 23rd of may remember please don’t try to vote if you’re watching on demand after the vote has closed don’t do that please watch out J’s rather good at this he’s very good at this all he needs a hat isn’t it really only so you do not have long to vote and we will be revealing who has won on BBC 1 on Friday night when we will pray that the sun will be shining again certainly will well that’s it from us but I’ll be back in 30 minutes with Monty with more from here at Chelsea so don’t forget to join us but from us it’s bye for now goodbye byebye [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Applause] hello and welcome back to the rhs Chelsea FL show now we hopeway through the week now and hopefully we’ve given you plenty of ideas for your own garden already and with more than 80% of the population living in city or Suburban spaces this evening we’re putting Urban living in the spotlight it I’ve designed lots of tiny little Urban spaces balconies roof Gardens front Gardens back Gardens and they can just be as as exciting as a large garden no doubt about it yeah I mean I’ve lived in the country and and loved doing so for the last 30 years but before that I spent 10 years in London gardening with the same passion the same pleasure in a very small garden and I do think that’s more than possible and I certainly know that at Chelsea this year you will find loads of ideas to to maximize that experience huge amount of inspiration there’s container gardens balcony Gardens there are different challenges there’s shade there’s privacy there’s dry areas but it doesn’t mean you can’t create an incredible space no there are challenges but the entire team not just Joe and I are here to help you guide you through all the challenges and delights of Urban Garden this is what we have in store for you tonight The Royal Horticultural society’s Chelsea flower show 2024 an event supported by the NES in Somerset I will be catching up with the interior design Master’s judge on King Gardner Michelle orander about that design interface between Gardens and the built environment and with our lives as busy as ever everyone needs a place to escape Rachel is sharing design advice to create a calming Sanctuary plus with it being reported another scorching summer is on the cards Nick’s got the planting solutions to help you cool your [Music] space it’s interesting that our ideas about a God the way we look at them and talk about them are based upon a rural idea but most people live in cities and that number is going to increase so Urban gards are much closer to the reality and at Chelsea we’re increasingly seeing examples of how we can create beautiful gardens that are environmentally sensitive and yet be in the heart of any City this is the flood resilient garden now as the name describes it refers to the increasing wet that we’re getting in winter but is also Allied to the increasing dry we’re getting in summer so too much water when we don’t want it and not enough when we do so a certain amount of this Garden relates to water storage but also the planting that adapts to having this increased we so by digging out we have a pond at the base permanently wet with plants around it that need wet conditions and as you rise up the banks the planting changes so an example is that higher up on the bank we have a quint tree that needs better drainage and then lower down a willow an oia sprouting shoes so storing water adapting your garden careful planting we can make the most of what might seem to be fairly hostile conditions this is Pulp friction it’s created around a a group in noty that provides green spaces for people with learning or physical disabilities and this allows them to develop social and practical skills that will lead to employment obviously practical things like a wheelchair ramp low raised beds so you can reach but reusing materials Ingenuity wonderful color glorious medler I’m standing underneath all of which are going to stimulate the mind and one of the things I find fascinating about Chelsea is every year there are one or two plants that pop up all over the place and this year it’s this wonderful Rich bergundy poppet and ALT together this Garden as it is SS we’ve seen GS that either have an environmental message a social and sometimes even a political message there a lot of that here at chel and although this Garden may seem to have the most obvious message of all inscribed on the wall in big letters actually it’s very simple but the garden can be the perfect place to find peace it’s a very small space but it’s very sophisticated it’s beautifully done and it just shows is that lesson that in gardens as in life that you don’t necessarily need very much to have [Music] it now there’s one Garden in the all about plants category that has completely reimagined what you would consider your local park to look like Planet Good Earth is designed by beton Park and Urban organic and has been built around this Granite skate ramp now don’t worry I won’t be jumping on my skateboard those days are well over the focus is very much on the plants that surround it and joining me is Louise Paige from the social Enterprise Planet good hey Louise lovely to meet you I’ve been really excited about seeing this because this is the first time I’ve been on it but you basically you’re trying to engage skaters and kids and with nature and Edibles and combine that all together in a really interesting way it’s for young people it’s we’re aiming it at the 15 to 25 year olds um uh but it’s for everybody it’s for families it’s for young people people it’s intergenerational um and the idea is it is all around supporting young people’s mental health and wellbeing so the physical wellbeing being board Sports um any kind of World Sports and mental health and well-being because you’re immersed in nature uh kids can come and fill the Earth get involved in Horticulture workshops it’s for skill sharing and for Community engagement Youth Empowerment it’s sort of it’s applicable sort of everywhere though isn’t it I mean anywhere you’ve got a pocket park or a space you could easily put a ramp and you could you could make a lot of the planting edible you know just some apple trees some herbs and get kids into where their food comes from a little bit of gardening a little bit of skating it’s super educational uh it’s all about Environmental Education and yeah just kind of having fun with it the brief behind it all was all about the joy of playing cultivating and growing together so they’ve totally nailed it and uh we’re really happy with it yeah it’s amazing and the Edibles I mean they look beautiful and this this is a very sort of small example on press day did you had you had some skateboarders here oh yeah dude we had like literally the the the Ben Rond Foundation came and skated the garden all the palace crew and all the palace crew they were like honestly they they’re Pros they’re like the best and seen that we’re all friends and um yeah they just they they they did an amazing thing and we even had de skating the ramp which is awesome hang on De what was she like she’s so nice man like she was no I mean at skating skating she was actually needed a little bit of help but she was game for it and uh yeah it was really funny aw I think it’s great what you’re doing honestly and bringing it to Chelsea in this environment you know you’re breaking a few boundaries yeah oh thank you congratulations well done yeah thanks amazing now time for tonight’s Pick Of The Pavilion where every day one of the teams celebrates an exhibitor here at Chelsea it’s francis’s pick this evening and she’s shining a spotlight on micro nurseries who are often solo Growers that grow from their own homes and are an essential part of any local community when you run a very small Nursery or even a solo operation the logistics of getting to Chelsea building a stand preparing the plants and then Manning your stand for a week make the whole thing almost impossible so this is a collaboration of lots of different small nurseries who have all clubbed together to help each other so that they can all be here and exhibit and the great thing about having so many different nurseries in one space is that there are lots of plants to [Music] Lookout one plant that’s really caught my eye is this this is fuchsia procumbent it’s a species fuchsia and I have never seen it before but here on the swallowfield stand which is mainly wooden plants just really unusual plants like that that are so exciting to [Music] find the great thing about micro nurseries is they often have real specialisms and this is the noname nursery which specializes in tropical garden plants and the overall effect is really different from the other smaller stands that make up this whole exhibition now if you have a dark corner of the garden it’s tempting to put lovely deep green foliage in but actually here under the bench the golden hack and the Clover really lift that darker space and they’ll tolerate deep shade but what I really love is things like the epimedium with their copper edged leaves pick up on the wood Warder and the stems of the rerer which all Echo the color of that copper bench and it ties the whole thing together really beautifully now this stand is pel and plant and it’s been created by Paul Seaborn who has coord ated this whole exhibit so what is the idea behind all of this cuz it’s a collaboration isn’t it well this is the plant fa Road Show stand we got seven independent nurseries here so we work as a team of volunteers almost trying to create these events across the southeast and every Nursery has a different specialism doesn’t it so I guess you’re all learning from each other as well absolutely there are times when if we’re in a rush at a plant fair and I help someone else unload I’m taking plants off of a van that I barely recognize because that’s their area of expertise so we all bring something to the pot so if there was one piece of advice that you would want to share with people back in their own Gardens what would that be well I I always like to plant for texture so try well you could even try viewing your garden or your new planting with sunglasses on take the colors out look at the textures and the shapes of foliage well thank you very much Paul and really good luck as this grows in the future thank you well here it is and here it is in all its Glory because it is absolutely fabulous you won a gold medal so congratulations to that and I gather that you impressed the Royal visitors too yeah that was as the entire show has been it total well wind it was such an honor and a privilege to me and what what did they say when they saw the garden um they they love the garden as a whole and they were the king um asked us where we got our tree ferns because they’re some of the largest in the UK I believe well certainly I mean that idea of putting really big tree firms and plants on a relatively small space I mean not even relatively a small balcony I mean is this is this a deliberate attempt to encourage people to show it can happen or is just what you wanted to do person well well the reason we’ve done it is because people assume that if you have a 2 square meter or 10 square meter balcony that that’s where your planting stops but that’s not what nature does when a tree gets to a river or in a mro Forest it hovers Over the Sea so we’ve always seen it that there’s this whole extra airspace around your balcony and we’ve pushed so many large dramatic plants to the side to make your balcony feel you know almost like twice as size I believe this is your first Garden at Chelsea is it it is yes so technically was that difficult well we had a huge amount of help from the rhs team we’ve had mentorship from Paul hery Brooks and CLA green at rhs and Andrew do at Big Fish Landscapes and they’ve been absolutely wonderful helping us through cuz it is such an operation and to find your way in and weave in it’s a challenge uh I mean you say that but you you’ve managed to pull it together um do you think this is going to be something that’s applicable to people all over the country because what you’re looking at are some plants certainly my gun that would need a lot of protection in Winter I I think it is applicable to people all over the country because there’s a number of the plants the majority of the plants can be used outside London and some of the plants like the sea Cooper will not be able to survive outside London you can scale this and adapt it for that well well done enjoy your trium enjoy it all and and congratulations well thank you so much thank you now there’s no question that this is going to have people just standing back and order it it’s Beauty but there are real lessons to be learned from this particularly with the way that climate is changing we’ve all had to cope with a very wet winter and it’s said that we may well be having to cope with a very hot dry summer ahead of us and Nick has been going around the show Grand looking at different ways that we can keep our Gardens and all our outdoor spaces nice and cool due to our changing climate Urban centers are hotter than ever typically temperatures are up by 1 to 3° during the day and up to 5 de at night and this is as a result of buildings absorbing heat lack of trees of lack of wind movement and lots of traffic but there are certain things that you can do to make a real [Music] difference one of the simplest ways to reduce the temperature in your garden is to introduce a tree it doesn’t have to be anything huge it can be five or 6 M and it will make a dramatic effect on the air temperature so as the Rays of the sun hit the leaves they prevent of that radiation and heat getting down to the ground and then the evapo transpiration of the leaves will also cool the air something like this colaria or Golden Rain tree is the perfect solution once mature is literally the equivalent of having two air conditioning units in your garden now there’s another idea over here and as I move towards it I can immediately feel the cool air coming away from the water there’s no surprise there but it’s doing it in two interesting ways as the water drops it’s literally physically cooling the air around it but there’s also evaporation happening so it’s cooling in two directions the ideal solution if you’ve got the space is to sight a water feature underneath the shade of small trees and then you’ve got the double whammy of two forms of air conditioning that will keep your garden really cool [Music] in a small space of this nature one of your best options is to go up with your planting and it can have a real effect on the climate on the balcony and in the house as well now an ideal candidate would be star jasmine or trackless spum jasminoides it’s Evergreen climate has these beautiful white flowers through summer and it’s incredibly scented the added bonus of growing a climate or any substantial plant on a balcony is that all evapor transpira in other words they’re going to broadly cool the ambient temperature in an elevated environment like this so if you can get the right combination of running water substantial trees climbers and heavy planting you can seriously drop the temperature of your Urban Garden some really interesting tips there from Nick that we’ll be delving into further throughout the show now across the week we’re sharing the main Trends we’re seeing at the show this year in our Chelsea lookbook on Monday we revealed that purple is the must have color in your borders yesterday was all about how designers are enhancing their spaces using Woodcraft today AR is sharing how to add a splash of Glamour using water every Garden always benefits from having water within it and this year at Chelsea designers have really elevated their space by going to town on their water features this is the rhs re purpose Garden a feature garden and what I really love about it is this star water fountain and why do I recognize it because it’s from Tom Mass’s 2018 Garden how great to see it here again it’s an Islamic Inspire design like you’d find cooling a courtyard in Morocco or andela and it’s not just us who benefit from water feature in the home bees and other pollinators need to drink when they’re busy and we can provide water for pollinators by having a shallow margin of a pond or a shallow dish as a safe source of water for them but don’t forget to leave them a way out by adding stones to the [Music] water here on the E therapy garden water is Central to the design this elevates this whole Space because water has been used as a soundscape to relax and make me feel calm so whether it’s coming out of the fountain running down here through the real the whole sense of water around me brings a sense of well-being this whole garden was imagined is a small City Center Courtyard designed to really help create a connection with nature and these biophilic properties getting close to other forms of nature should improve circulation boost down immune system and improve mental health I can close my eyes and really chill out and if it was a little bit warmer I might even find myself in that plunge pool Mr ishihara has been coming to Chelsea for the past 20 years and he’s always had water featured in his Gardens but this year he has surpassed himself with this magnificent water feature I love this waterfall it brings so much drama into this space and this is designed as a front garden the water here adds such a strong sense of movement to this place where the water tumbles down in several places you get these subtly different sounds and with a layer plants these vibrant Aces and green Walls It All Leads the eye back to the waterfall it feels so naturalistic in style so you might be thinking how could I do that in my garden well you need to take inspiration from what makes you feel joyful where you can have sound and relax ation make water a real feature in your space the creativity on show at Chelsea is second to none and joining us now is the president of the rhs Keith weed Keith hello hello I’m sure you asked this many times but so far how is this year’s show going for you I think it’s going very well I think it’s a marvelous show we have lots of people enjoying it and we’re bringing gardening to many many people well that’s good I mean I one thing that people do say is this is the best show ever this show is it changing in any way is the show developing or are you just hitting marks that you hope you’re going to hit um and you’re right it is the best show ever so thanks for saying that because each year that each year we try and work out how do we improve how do we improve and we get feedback from all our visitors we get feedback from the horticulturist from the G designers uh and what we try and do is you know we have a charity take gardening to everyone and and to do that you have to appeal to everyone so different people enjoy different things so we try and put a palet out there which you know wets everyone’s appetiz and do you deliberately say well we’re going to have a bit of that and a bit of that and that will appeal to some people or do you just hope it comes in the great thing about Chelsea it is a magnet I mean this is this is the best of the best so we attract uh Garden designers and sponsors and Charities from around the world and in that I do think we have the a real Joy of choosing great there really is good variety here no Gardens look the same for us there’s great content I got to say um but outside of Chelsea um the rhs are also moving into more urban areas smaller shows doing some quite interesting things in that space tell us about that well yes CU as a charity promoting gardening uh we want to get to everyone um and of course we get lots of people here but we have our own Gardens we have shows around the country but what we thinking how do we get to literally everyone in the UK and one way way of doing it is to go into the towns um and so we’ve recently had a show in Manchester inside in inside s semi- derel Warehouse where it’s more sort of uh Raves and festivals more groovy yes but it felt very very different we had a younger crowd a more urban crowd a more diverse crowd and it felt really really fun and that’s inspired we’re going to do more of this well we’re looking forward to see that now here at Chelsea you have able you have the the privilege and the honor of choosing one exhibit to win the president award and let’s take a look at who had the honor of winning it this year congratulations congratulations well done you well done you so what was it about that that that made you single that out in particular well I think first and foremost it is wonderful to look at it is a piece of creative Excellence Creative Design uh again Horticultural Excellence we have orchids we have lies beautifully done and it really captures uh Grenada and they’ve been here for many many years this year is a very special year for them but it wasn’t for that reason it was chosen purely for the brilliant thank you and thank you very much for talking to us now still to come this evening at the rhs Chelsea flower show 2024 an event supported by the new in Somerset the interior design Masters Judge Michelle aund him casts her expert eye on the showr and shares how plants can transform form your home into an indoor Retreat and Rachel’s over in the sanctuary Gardens with advice on creating a calming Hideway so you can escape the city hustle and bustle this summer one of the most popular introductions at rhs Chelsea has been the plant of the Year competition and last night we revealed that prunus Starlight is this year’s winner but away from the competition there are dozens of new exciting and diverse plants being launched this year and over the next two nights we’ll be sharing some varieties that could become firm favorites in your borders and containers earlier Monty and I went to explore what’s on offer get your pen and your notebooks ready if you want to attract pollinators into your garden you have to have some agachi and they tend to come in blues and purples but there’s this new one delicious pink now it’s just coming into flower and it is going to flower all summer long they just keep coming and coming right until the first frosts and then don’t cut it back just leave it standing it’ll add a lot of form to the winter border and it will also Clump up nicely too beish as pink remember that name that does look great joke but have a look at this this is a new tracka sperman it’s called star of Milano now we’re used to tracka sperman being this glorious great sort of pillar of white intensely fragrant flowers this has flowers that are a subtle peachy pink and they’re carried on variegated foliage and the variegation just chimes in with the color of the petals its real distinction other than the color is that it’s not too big because tra spum can really rump away this will only grow to a maximum 3 m and probably less it does like some sunshine but can take a little bit of shade will grow in most soils as long as it’s reasonably drained so this makes it suitable for almost any Garden I do love a banana particularly if they’ve got a sort of chocolaty red color but they can be rather tender this is a new one Musa simensis ever red which claims to be more robust than most it’s as Hardy as musu which means me that it will take temperatures down to frost it also claims to be fairly wind resistant so the leaves don’t shred if you’re growing it in the garden you’ll have to wrap it in fleece in winter but if it’s in a pot just bring it into a frost free place and like all bananas it’s hungry and it’s thirsty so give it plenty of water plenty of food and as long as the drainage is good this will grow to about 4 M tall in 10 [Music] years well that’s a lovely leafy number Monty but if you want flowers delicate flowers look at this to bagia Fancy Pants this is absolutely beautiful it was selected from about 200 seedlings let flour and this one just sang out it’s a South African plant so it likes really good drainage I would grow it in a pot and that will ensure drainage but you can grow it in a border and mulch it over through the winter it can coat with about minus 10 and the grassy foliage will just expand quite quickly into a nice clump loads of flowers all summer long and what is lovely about it is because it’s pollinated by Moss it pumps out a lovely fragrance in the evening a really musky SC it’s a beautiful plant now we’ll be looking at some other new plants later on this week whether youve got a small garden a patio or even a balcony adding a tree to a tiny space might feel near on Impossible but I’m telling you it’s not trees come in all shapes and sizes and adding one to even the tiniest space is a great [Music] investment this is the Burma SK care garden and there is some cracking trees on here but before we get all over excited and we rush down to the Garden Center we just got to give it a little bit of thoughts so the first thing you need to do is understand your soil you want to know whether it’s slightly too acid or the pH is more to Lime that’s really easy Garden Center a simple soil test then get your hands in it is it Clay is it heavy is it well drained even after that stand in the garden even put a cane in work out the height that you want but what we’re going to do here is talk about a couple of Handy [Music] species first ones I want to show you it’s corners controversa and Corners CAPA they’re a bit of a go-to for me partly because they’ll grow in different soil conditions but what I love about them is not just the size they’ll provide good flour even a little fruit on some of them good bark can be pruned and controlled fantastic Autumn color should I go on I’m selling it to you hey look at that it’s plaus cross Hispanic mailbug known as the flame tree but here they’re calling them swing tree that is about 15 years old all right and it’s been trained to curve and work its way up and create a lovely umbrella doesn’t sit in the Terrace it sits outside and comes over and yes that would cost you you know a lot of money but that shows you trees can be manipulated they can be shaped they can be pruned it’s just doing a little bit of research you could do that yourself I’m in a no adults allow Garden so I apologize for being in here but I needed to show you this tree all right it’s called chinan which is known as a Chinese fringe tree and it’s absolutely stunning look at that flower it’ll grow probably till about 3 4 M deal with minus 10 so not too far north the bark is incredible that flower will stay for about a month I think that could well be a tree for the future now do think that the growing small trees in any Garden automatically makes it more interesting and beautiful but choosing the right tree can be a bit tricky and I I love Aces I’ve tried growing them often but not with great success so it’s just as well I’m with an ACA expert miles Haywood here has got a display it’s an educational display I think Miles so as past as a Lindley display right um and it’s focused on on a pal M only is it yes I’ve I’ve I’ve been very niche and just ASAP palatum because there’s every almost everyone seems to have one in their Garden everyone knows there’s a tree and there’s so many different varieties as well I I’ve just said I I have problems growing them uh what’s the best way to raise them I mean I see you’ve got seedlings here you’ve got small plants you’ve got big plants tell me exactly how they should be raised in any way so the most fun way to raise them I would say would be from seed okay because you never know what you’re going to get theide idea is that um the seedlings don’t come true so you’ve got a batch of seedlings here how many different trees is there from that’s just from One Tree and they’re all different all different and they’re from a purple tree and there’s actually hardly any purple foliage in there at all so so they they hybridized between the cultiv hybridized and this is how we’ve ended up with so many different cultiv okay so if you want a true Offspring I presume you take a cutting do you cuttings don’t tend to work too well oh they it’s possible but they tend to have weaker root systems and they don’t tend to establish very well so how do you do it if you want to get a True Result so the traditional method yes uh as done in Japan for a very long time would be by grafting so that’s effectively taking a piece of the mother plant and grafting onto a and how quickly I mean okay you’ve grafted that how old is that that’s one year old it’s last summer and and if you wanted a plant was we’ seen in a small guard and how quickly would that establish that’s probably within four or 5 years I would expect that to be sort of up so about chest height on I mean you’ve got a variety of plants here the these are grown they’ve all been grafted they’re all grafted all the cult of briefly I’ve got heavy clay soil it’s very wet yeah is that going to be a problem if other people who got that too it’s not ideal I would suggest uh planting higher than you would do normally to ensure that at least at the very base of the trunk doesn’t get too wet any excess moisture can drain away so good drainage but plenty of moisture but plenty of moisture particularly with our hotter dyri Summers thank you so much thank you problem rhs Chelsea shows haic culture at its best and the power it can have on our well-being too now one house plant Studio this year that exemplifies that ethos is the Glass House they give women who are or recently have been in prison a second chance by training them in horiculture the women who take part in the project have had their lives transformed we joined them on their Road to making their debut at [Music] Chelsea Welcome to The Glass House this is the shop and we have house plants for absolutely any home and we’ve been here just over 3 years Al will show you a few of my favorites this is the trailing Jade it’s a lovely trailing plant very popular you can propagate it and give it to friends this is a rip Solus it’s a really beautiful plant that looks like seaweed I love the Deep green of that one this is a Monera obla it has really interesting holes and it sleaves a bit different from the standard monstera my name is Cali hamton stove I’m one of the founders of The Glass House along with Melissa moch there’s something really unique about the house plants we have here they’re grown by women who are in prison or recently [Music] released my name is NTI and and I’ve been uh with the glass house project now three and a half years thank God that there are people who believe in us if I would not have had this love care trust I would not be sitting here today this project is based on the premise that people deserve a second chance plants are the perfect thing to represent that because often we have plants that aren’t treated exactly right or just need a bit of extra care and watching them flourish you can really see how a little bit of um attention can really make a difference in someone’s life so this is a prayer plant in the evening the leaves are wrapping each other around and when they wake up in the morning they open up again and there you have your prayer plant The Glass House started in 2020 when one of our Founders had been to visit a prison and learned about some of the issues that women were addressing when they released those included lack of employment and lack of Housing and those are really key factors in people reoffending what we wanted to do was really look at those issues and as she was looking around the prison she noticed that there were some disused greenh houses we built a business plan around the idea of bringing plants into those disused green houses and really allowing the women to learn and grow and work whilst they were in prison they get a qualification and they have experience working and maintaining plants in the corporate environment as well as in the retail environment very nice we usually have anywhere between 6 and 10 going through the program at any one time and we’ve had nearly 30 go through since the beginning of the project so this is a blue star FM one slightly particular thing about this plant is that they don’t like their leaves being touched my name is Jess and I’ve been with the glass house project for just over a year even after my first day I could feel a difference in myself it was very positive on my my mental well-being I was with the glass house for a year whilst I’ve been in prison I was released 10 weeks ago now and they’ve been kind enough to take me on fulltime and if I wasn’t working with the glass house projects I don’t really know what I’d have in my life having the glass house as men I can actually see a future now we really believe we’re on to something with preparing women for release and ensuring they have everything they need to be successful in their new life uh we have a 0% reoffending rate which is incredible so women really are benefiting from having this preparation time and this training right before they’re released this is where we grow and nurture our plants we moved out of the prison glass houses because we grew out of them but the plants are really thriving here the women are thriving here it’s a really beautiful and special place you want to make sure that they’re as clean as possible and so that it really helps with the photosynthesis cuz that’s what’s going to help the plant Thrive indoors I’m Emily I’m the horticulturalist at the glass house and it’s my job to kind of train up the women that come through our doors without this project I wouldn’t have anything to look forward to I can’t wait to get up out of bed and just get out and get stuck into work again my favorite is this asparagus fern these like quite muggy conditions you know in a bathroom they hold a lot of moisture we see huge transformations in the women that work with us so the first week or the first few days they come in they’re quite withdrawn quite shy um minimal eye contact is quite a common thing and then after you know a few weeks a few months you just see this person Blossom and it’s Absol absolutely beautiful I think that the project is important because by the nature of the fact that we are in prison either something or our whole lives are broken and I think that the project allows that to heal and just because we’re broken it doesn’t mean that we can’t have a future and it doesn’t mean that that future can’t be beautiful we are so excited because the plants that are grown here by by women in prison are recently released are going to be part of Chelsea flower show the design is based on the glass houses that we first worked at in prison it will have some of the plants the women started with but as you walk through the glass house it will become more and more full and more Lush and it will get really illustrate the growth that we bring for women and that the plants enjoy as well obviously when we get to Chelsea and I see all our plants there in that environment and see all the women there that are going to be telling our story and sharing their experience I will just feel like we have achieved something really remarkable Cali what an incredible initiative I mean it’s fantastic it’s and it’s so successful as well with zero reoffending so it really works yeah absolutely I I think the power of horiculture and the power of really building up skills and up confidence in these women has really showed results and the social side of of working around plants oh my goodness I think you know a lot of women that come to work for us have never ever grown anything or nurtured anything and they don’t really maybe apply because they’re interested in the plants they apply for other reasons but once they get their hands on plants and in soil you can see them change you can see how much they get from nurturing and seeing these plants grow and bringing them on it’s fantastic and here we are in your your your green and you’ve got the greenhouse because on a day like this is the perfect place to hide out of the rain and it looks gorgeous plantwise where does it start what’s the easiest one that they grow um well right behind you is our Chinese money plant want me to grab one yeah go for it so this is our palea pepperz and this is the first plant we ever started with that we started with in the glass houses at hmp Sutton park and the women learn about this plant quite quickly you can see it’s really easy to propagate you can kind of just dig a little little new plant out of there and start a new one and they love it but so they it’s the first one they grow it’s the first one they learn to propagate and they send it out to all their families well it’s all it’s lucky isn’t it you you’re not meant to buy them you’re meant to pass them on the money plant and that’s where they luck is it’s a lovely one to start and together you got a gold medal we got a gold medal your first time here how does that feel and how do they feel um oh my gosh I I think they’re in shock I as I am I we never would have expected to have that at all it’s just the icing on the cake for them there have been so many tears and jumping up and down and and I think we’re still taking it in to be honest it’s still it’s I can’t believe we can say that now I can’t believe it it’s a great exhibit but it’s a brilliant recognition of what you’re doing as well so congratulations fantastic enjoy the rain we will thank you so much the house plant tuers at Chelsea this year are really showing how to make the most of the thoughts that we use inside our homes through design and that must be music to the ears of interior design Master’s Judge Michelle aand well Michelle welcome to Chelsea in fact we had a chat a couple of years ago about your garden in Brighton how’s it doing it’s doing really well it lit the fuse it showed me what was possible but I’ve moved on now I’ve got a new dream project tell me about that I want to develop a homestead so a real mix very loose planting vegetables and flowers but I’m practicing at the moment I’ve adopted a garden in Kent and I’m learning I’m trying an on forci because we all know that taking on a garden is basically like having another child isn’t it it certainly is and a child that doesn’t do as it’s told is that I mean I’m really interested talking to you in this relationship between your background as an architect as a magazine editor as someone who is really immersed in the world of design which is fundamentally about fixing things about about working out the perfect moment whereas Gardens change all the time how do you relate those two things well I think it’s always about telling stories though we’re using the same palette of materials and colors and textures and form and sculpture so I think there’s a lot of similarity but the thing where I think Gardens do really well is that you really play with the sensorial so what things sound like and what they feel like and the smell as well which sometimes gets lost in Interiors cuz we focus on what it looks like I sometimes feel that with interior designers and Architects Gardens are too unruly for them but it’s that marriage that’s the bit that’s I mean that’s actually the space that I’m the most interested in because you’re right I as an architect I love the hardscaping changing and levels materials Reclamation all that stuff but then when I add in all the soft that’s what actually brings the magic together that’s what’s creates the mood and even in fixed architecture that’s the thing I’m always trying to tell people it’s where the heart meets the soft that’s where you make the magic I mean I guess in people’s homes that relationship between the fixed and the hard and the Loose as you say where the magic comes it’s very hard to Define but in what way do you steer people towards it I mean how can you actively instruct people about that oh gosh that is a hard question well I would be one of the first people to say there are no rules which maybe you have to and you it’s about feeling so it’s just going with your gut so if you want the purple polka dots and the fox glov and the greenery and the glitter do it because if that’s what makes you feel happy joyful and calm that’s what we have to go for so it’s it’s throw out what you think you should do and go with what makes you just feel the joy and and in terms I mean obviously horiculture is is wrapped around in instruction and rules are you finding as you are doing more gardening that that you’re having to to learn a lot or is it just working intuitively on that front oh gosh no this is where I have huge growth for learning I have gone from something that looks like oh this is so beautiful to Earth because I haven’t quite got that seasonal planting and when something sort of droops and goes and I’m admiring its beauty but then there’s nothing after it so I have a huge amount to learn because I do tend to choose by the shapes of the leaves and the colors and the textures so I I’ve got that the next bit of growth is to understand the seasonality and what will carry on and what will stay well certainly walking around here will instruct you that and and thank you so much for talking to us yeah and good luck with your Homestead thank you thank you very much the beauty of designing your own garden or balcony is that you can stamp your personality all over it and for me my garden is a place to Garden experiment live and generally connect with nature but across the rest of the week we’ll be in the sanctuary Gardens to share the planting choices designers have used to evoke different atmospheres and moods which you can replicate at home and today Rachel’s showing you how to create a place that’s [Music] calm sometimes when you arrive at a garden you immediately become calm and this the Bridgeton Garden designed by Holly Johnston is a perfect example she’s just paved the way into the garden Beyond with this beautiful planting very Lush very green but with highlights of cream through the fox gloves and the roses and also echoed in the stems of the silver Birches and then as you turn to go through into the garden you see the Wisteria a little bit more color little bit of pale mve still very gentle and you go through the moon gate and leave your troubles behind once you come through into the main part of the garden you are immediate aware of the Symmetry everything is balanced feels right very comfortable to be in and then the Symmetry is taken through into the trees as well these dwarf Elms and there are also four on each corner of these lovely Evergreen U that have been tozed and actually topy is just wonderful to look at it’s somewhere for the eye to settle and as a gardener I love doing topy I find that very contemplative very soothing [Music] walking around the back of the garden you immediately feel sort of cocooned by Greenery this wonderful lush green of the Hedge and all this planting the hosters and so on below and green has been shown to lower the heart rate and blood pressure so it’s very good for you it is a calming [Music] color and following on from from all the Lush Greenery we’ve now got the beautiful flower color but lovely soft blues and mes and [Music] purples and there’s lots of vertical accents so things like the fox gloves the Delphinium Masterpiece we’ve got Iris siira all just standing proud and then lots of lovely Little Treasures here the geranium summer bore the campanulas it’s all very soft very pretty and the planting is sort of just dotted through informally so it gives you a lovely atmosphere the whole thing is just wonderfully calming I don’t really want to [Music] leave I certainly wouldn’t call myself a florist of any kind but I love picking flowers to bring IND doors and I plunk them in a vs and they can look magnificent either dramatically on the dining room table or a little posy by the bedside but the problem for most gardeners is that you rub the garden to feed the house and getting both can be a little bit of a balance but if you want inspiration for how you can really get your flowers to look as good as possible then come to Chelsea because there’s no better place than here because of course it attracts the best florist from around the world as the best of every other country kind of horticulture now with me nck you have made this beautiful arrangement you’ve won a gold medal so congratulations on that what would you say are the three most important elements when you when you grow and prepare your plants to make an around okay so number one is to choose the right kinds of flowers so make sure you’re choosing flowers that are suitable for cutting so how do you know that uh you’d have to maybe do some research there quite a few good books out on the market but you can have a look at this display and that will get you started so Fox gloves theum poppies R unul all good second second is to condition them properly it’s really important so once you pick the flowers make sure you’re stripping the leaves off of the stems and you put them in deep in cold water for at least overnight okay so people don’t tend to do that do that’s really important I’ll give you a couple of extra days of our life okay and what’s the final thing third one is to look after them properly so make sure they’re well fed well watered top quality plants will give you a longer bras life so good quality plants treat them well and hey prester you end up with something looking like this with a touch of your brilliant magic L congratulations on the go now as well as gold medals being given this year there is also the prize of florist of the year for the best floristry display and Lara you have won that with this incredible display these sort of burning ronculus and and these rich oranges and yellows which of course represents fire I believe correct that’s correct so I’ve used the yellows the oranges and the Reds to represent fire as the theme this year for Chelsea Flores was color and did you expect to win did you think it was going to happen I’m was a bit overwhelmed and shocked that I won cuz there’s a lot of other people that in the competition have got a lot more experience than I have but it’s take a while to sink in I think well it looks wonderful um and clear you know there’s real Artistry in there real school and I can tell looking around you’re attracting thousands of people who not only will enjoy it but they’ll be inspired so well done many many congratulations thank you thanks for thank you congratulations to Lara well there are some incredible floristry exhibits this year Monty you like a bit of iy I’ve heard moving on uh actually the thing I really liked and and they’re all amazing but the ones that appeal to me most were where the these were homegrown fls Often by the florist themselves and the Ingenuity needed to keep them looking as good all week yeah as they have ready for judging yeah I think they sometimes refresh during the week if they’re really looking a bit faded they’re very complicated so you can’t just bung another flowering no no that’s true that’s true well before we answer some of your questions earlier this evening we gave you a guide to all the show gardens in the running for this year’s BBC rhs People’s Choice Award if if you miss them you can catch up on I player or go to the website bbc.co.uk Chelsea for the full list where you’ll also find the terms and conditions and the Privacy notice and you have until 7:00 tomorrow evening Thursday the 23rd of May to vote with the winner being announced on Friday night on BBC 1 so you haven’t got long and just remember that please don’t try and vote if you’re watching on demand after the vote is closed right it’s time for few questions from you at home let’s have the proper fan are you going to you I’ll allow you this once no I I don’t you got the M yeah press it again just once more it wasn’t great going to do it next time yeah you’re not great at that is quite tricky uh Fiona Chan asks hi guys I’m a novice but would like to grow some shady plants in a small patch tips please well what’s interesting about that is is the assumption is that it’s a problem it’s not a problem at all lots of plants like shade and some of them are plants you might not think like clematis roses honeysuckle some many viburnums um obviously there’s Ferns and hosters hydranges what I would say is if it’s dry shade it’s much more limited than if it’s damper shade it’s a bit trickier and mediums will grow in quite dry sh wood plants as you said lovely Michelle Woodhouse asks after after having a really wet winter my lawn has suffered it’s quite a common problem this and is very patchy in some places due to water logging is it best to retf or reive well we’ve got to be quick well it’s the underlying issue get the drainage right get it drained if it’s a small area I would scatter seed if it’s a larger area I’d use tur yeah I think that’s very good advice um yeah but you’ve got to deal with the drainage first otherwise the same thing is going to happen every time it gets really wet well We R of time on there but we do love to hear from you and if you have a question use the hash ask Monty and Joe and that’s it from us for tonight don’t forget to join Nikki and Angelica tomorrow afternoon on BBC 1 at 345 and we’ll be back tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. here on BBC 2 when we’ll be helping you get ready for an action-packed summer so good night good night [Music] 3 [Music]