Category Archives: Travel

Touring the Chelsea Physic Garden

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The day after my rain-soaked visit to the 2024 Chelsea Flower Show (see my recent Show Gardens blog and Great Pavilion blog), it was a pleasure to walk through the entrance door in the brick wall at 66 Royal Hospital Road into the quiet, quaint and decidedly eclectic Chelsea Physic Garden. Occupying 4 acres on the north shore of the River Thames, a stone’s throw from the Flower Show’s grounds in the fashionable Chelsea district, the garden celebrated its 350th anniversary last year, but only opened to the public in 1987, four years after registering as a charity. It is the second-oldest botanic garden in the UK, after Oxford Botanic Garden (1621).

Chelsea Physic Garden started further west on the Thames in 1673 at Sir John Danvers’ estate (adjacent to the 16th century home of Sir Thomas More) as a leased outdoor classroom in which to grow the plants used to train apprentices for the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, still ongoing today as an association of physicians. When the Danvers house was demolished in 1696, the Society lost its garden. In 1712 Sir Hans Sloane, the Anglo-Irish President of the College of Physicians, collector, botanist and Royal Society president (succeeding Isaac Newton) purchased the 166-acre Manor of Chelsea from William Cheyne; it had once been owned by Henry VIII and occupied by his wives Catherine Parr and later Anne of Cleves, among other famous residents. In 1722, Sloane leased the garden’s 4-acre site to the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries for the sum of £5 per year in perpetuity, plus 50 herbarium specimens to be prepared for the Royal Society, of which he was president. If you had visited in 1753, the map below was your guide, “An Accurate Survey of the Botanic Gardens at Chelsea with the Elevation and Ichnography of the Green House and Stoves, and an Explanation of the Several Parts of the Garden, shewing where the most conspicuous Trees and Plants are Disposed, the Whole Carefully Survey’d and Delineated by John Haynes.” The Thames is shown at the bottom.

Today’s map is a little more straightforward, but not quite as charming. (See the full .pdf here.) The Thames is shown at the top. Visitors can find some 5,000 taxa of plants, especially edible, useful and medicinal plants from around the world, that help tell the story of humanity’s relationship with plants.

An original statue of Hans Sloane – whose name is also commemorated in Sloane Square, part of the original Chelsea estate – was once in the garden but now stands in the British Museum. I photographed the 2014 Portland stone replacement commissioned by Sloane’s descendant Lord Cadogan on an early spring visit to the garden in 2016.  (A few days after my 2024 visit to Chelsea Physic Garden, I would visit the beautiful Cadogan Gallery at London’s Natural History Museum, which became the recipient of much of the collection of Sir Hans Sloane.) As with many public institutions in the 21st century (see my blog on Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello), the garden has acknowledged the history of its original benefactor, which ties in to slavery. “Like many figures of wealth and high social standing, Sloane benefited from the transatlantic slave trade in multiple ways. Enslavement was legal and accepted in England at this time. Sloane wrote detailed accounts of his time in Jamaica. These records show that enslaved Africans and indigenous people provided Sloane with knowledge to advance both his botanical research and understanding of the human body. As a young doctor, Sloane treated enslaved people and his own records show that he did not always treat them with compassion. His wife Elizabeth Langley Rose, inherited sugar plantations in Jamaica which profited from the labour of enslaved people. This provided great wealth for their family.”

I began my visit in the glasshouses near the entrance. The first stove-heated glasshouse was installed at the Garden in 1723 to grow plants from tropical climates, e.g. pineapples. In 1902, a new range of glasshouses fashioned from Burmese teak was installed to house a global collection of plants.  In 2022, the glass panes leaking and the wood rotting, they were rebuilt and opened in September 2023 in time for the 350th anniversary.  I started in the Pelargonium House, with its collection originally from S. Africa, Australia and Turkey. In 1724, head gardener Philip Miller recorded some 50 species of Geraniaceae plants.

This is Pelargonium caffrum ‘Diana’, a selection of a South African species introduced by Hazel Key in 1990 named for her Wisley Garden botanist friend Diana Miller.

The narrow Tropical Corridor Greenhouse is sited along the garden’s south-facing brick wall and kept above 15C (59F) year-round. It features a collection of important food, medicinal and useful plants from the equatorial regions, including coffee, cocoa, mango and banana plants and orchids.

It also has beautiful specimens of staghorn fern, including this Platycerium superbum.    

The Atlantic Islands Glasshouse features many rare plants from the Canary Islands, Madeira and the Azores. It also tells the story of habitats threatened by pests (including humans) and invasive species that compete with native plants for nutrients and space.

This is Aichryson bollei, a suculent endemic to La Palma,Canary Islands.

The Cool Fernery, dating from the 19th century, lies along the west wall and was also recently renovated. It was the passion of Thomas Moore, curator of the Garden from 1848-87.  He authored many books on ferns and their allies, including The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland (1855), helping to popularize ferns in the Victorian era.

The cool, humid Fernery includes aquatic species like floating fern, Salvinia natans.  

In the centre of the garden near the Sloane statue is an unusual sculpture-cum-plant support, presumably commissioned for the 350th anniversary engraved with the names of personalities involved with Chelsea Physic Garden from its inception. In the background is a white party tent that was being dismantled – the garden hosts weddings and other functions to bring in revenue.

But the main focus of the garden is plants, including rare plants like Viburnum congestum from China, just beginning to flower.

The Pond Rockery, the oldest manmade rockery in the world, was established in 1773 by botanist and explorer Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820). Like Sloane, he was president of the Royal Society for 41 years, advising King George III on the development of RHS Kew for which he commissioned plant collections world-wide. His own voyages included Newfoundland and Labrador on HMS Niger in 1766; Madeira, Brazil, Tierra del Fuego, Tahiti, Bora Bora, New Zealand, Australia and Java on HMS Endeavour with Daniel Solander under Captain James Cook in 1768-71 (I wrote blogs in 2018 about three gardens on New Zealand’s “Banks Peninsula” named for him); and Iceland on the brig Saint Lawrence in 1772. The plants collected by Banks and Solander on the Endeavor voyage alone led to the description of 110 new genera and 1300 new species, which increased the known flora of the world by 25 per cent. (Wiki) Artifacts from these voyages are displayed at Chelsea Physic Garden, including a pair of clamshells from Tahiti, below.

A bust of Banks nestles in a planting of bigroot geranium (G. macrorrhizum).

The Pond Rockery is intensively planted and surrounds a pond planted with Nymphaea and marginal aquatics. The bronze sculpture by Guy Du Toit is titled Hare and Now II.  

Banks included some interesting artifacts in the rockery, including dark volcanic basalt rock brought back as ship ballast from his Iceland voyage and carved masonry pieces from the Tower of London, front left.  

Rather than the typical kinds of alpine plants seen in most public rock gardens, the Pond Rockery features plants that thrive in a Mediterranean climate, such as corn poppies and various silver-leaved plants.

Path circling the Pond Rockery.

I  had first seen lacy, white Athamanta turbith in Dan Pearson and Huw Morgan’s garden Hillside, which I blogged about in 2023.  It is native to northeast Italy, the Balkans and Romania.

Spiny spurge (Euphorbia spinosa) was a new one for me; it’s native to rocky places throughout the Mediterranean.

And I had never come across green lavender (Lavandula viridis) before. It hails from southern Portugal and southwest Spain.

Lovely Tulipa sprengeri from the Pontic coast of Turkey and the last tulip to flower in spring, was keeping company with Digitalis thapsi from the Iberian Peninsula. 

Nearby, the Garden of World Medicine with its various themed beds brings visitors to the essence of the Chelsea Physic Garden – many of the plants would be familiar to the Worshipful Apothecaries of the 17th century.  In the European bed, we see hops (Humulus lupulus) growing on the obelisk trellis; we know it as a beer ingredient, but it might have been used by the apothecaries as a tea plant for its sedative properties. Other plants in this bed with a history in folk medicine include yellow loosestrife (Lysimachia vulgaris), heal-all (Prunella vulgaris) and chicory (Cichorium intybus).

Asian wild yam (Dioscorea batatas) contains steroidal saponins which a sign in the garden indicates are artificially converted to human steroids for the long-term management of pulmonary fibrosis. That genus name honours the first-century Greek pharmacologist, physician and botanist Dioscorides (c 40-90AD) who authored the first book of medicinal plants, some of which grow in this bed.

Some plants used for medicine are also toxic in the wrong hands, like Digitalis purpurea, common foxglove, below, whose leaves yield the cardiac glycoside digitoxin once used to treat heart failure.

And some are best avoided completely, like hemlock water dropwort (Oenanthe crocata), considered the most poisonous plant in the UK. It likes marshy ground and riverbanks and flowers happily at Chelsea Physic Garden. In fact, Agatha Christie took courses with the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, and lived quite near the garden in the 1920s and 30s, perhaps doing research for the 14 poisons her characters used in various mystery novels

The Garden of Edible Plants, created in 2012, features a diverse collection of fruits, vegetables and herbs. At one time, a market garden existed on the site so this garden has its genesis in local history, even with its modern connections. Plants in the centre are organized according to their vitamin content while surrounding beds feature a variety of unusual and tender herbs and spices as well as plants used to make edible oils and alcohol. As the garden says, “Did you know that of the more than 20,000 different edible plants on earth, only around 20 are in common production? Find out more about some of the more unusual species in the Garden!”

Nearest the Thames and its treed bank is the Edible Forest Garden containing food plants that can thrive “as part of a multi-canopy shaded garden”.  Here we see terracotta rhubarb cloches, recalling the year 1817 when a Chelsea Physic Garden horticulturist accidentally dropped a bucket over a rhubarb plant. Weeks later, he lifted the bucket and discovered the plant had responded to the darkness by growing quickly while sending up straight, bright-pink stalks.  In time, growers learned that the dark-grown rhubarb was also sweeter and the stalks more tender.  The accidental discovery led to an entire Yorkshire UK ‘rhubarb-forcing industry’ using darkened barns and sheds that exists to this day, though not the popular craze it was in the 19th century. (As an aside, I have a gardening friend who travels faithfully each spring to the one Ontario farm that continues this tradition so he can buy tender rhubarb to freeze.)

Each time I’ve visited the Chelsea Physic Garden, I’ve been carefully observed by an English robin. I love these little birds, so much more delicate than our big, raucous American robins.

Nearby, the Garden of Useful Plants features over 200 species used both historically and today, including dye plants, housing materials and bee forage, popular with honey bees from the garden’s hives. In bloom when I visited was the California native lacy phacelia (P. californica), below, which was attracting its share of bumble bees as well. Interestingly, the garden’s longest-serving Head Gardener, Philip Miller, would be the first person to write about bee pollination leading to fertilization and seeds in 1721, the year before he began his 48-year career at Chelsea Physic Garden. Watching bees lighting on tulips in his garden, he wrote: “I saw them come out with their Legs and Belly loaded with Dust and one of them flew into a Tulip I had castrated: Upon which I took my Microscope, and examining the Tulip he flew into, found he had left Dust enough to impregnate the Tulip…. (for they bore good ripe seeds which afterwards grew).” (Flora Unveiled: The Discovery and Denial of Sex in Plants)

I saw bees throughout the garden, including on pink rock-rose (Cistus creticus) in the history beds.

Near the Cool Fernery is the Community Kitchen Garden which hosts a program that brings together people recovering from physical and mental health issues.  Here they learn about nature, basic gardening techniques, the healing power of plants and herbal remedies and art.

The Historical Walk in this part of the garden includes a tribute to the Scots-born Quaker Philip Miller (1691-1771), a Pimlico market gardener and nurseryman whom Sir Hans Sloane appointed as Praefectorius (Curator) or Head Gardener, a position he held from 1722 to 1770. In that half-century, he spread the garden’s renown worldwide through his communications and seed exchanges with plant collectors (especially the Philadelphia plant collector John Bartram, who sent the southern Magnolia grandiflora seen in so many English gardens today) and fellow gardeners, including botanists at the Netherland’s University of Leiden and the distinguished 20-member Society of Gardeners, set up in 1725 with Miller as clerk to attempt to eliminate the confusion in plant names. He also authored The Gardener’s and Florists Dictionary or a Complete System of Horticulture (1724), which would have eight editions, and The Gardener’s Dictionary containing the Methods of Cultivating and Improving the Kitchen Fruit and Flower Garden (1731). So perhaps it was no surprise that despite the fact that the 29-year-old Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus made a visit to the garden in 1736, Miller initially refused to accept the young Swede’s binomial system for naming plants, Systema Naturae, first published as a short tract in 1735, published in full in 1753 and ultimately becoming the gold standard for nomenclature. In 1733, Miller sent seeds of the first long-strand cotton developed in the Garden to the new British Colony of Georgia, launching that state’s cotton industry. This big abutilon or flowering maple, below, is Abutilon x milleri – but how and why it was named in his honour is something I’ve not been able to find in my research, or in signage in the garden.  

A closeup of the lovely flowers of “Miller’s abutilon”.

The World Woodland Garden – or, as the Garden states “Humanity’s Survival in a Nutshell” – displays 150 taxa of “useful, edible and medicinal forest plants” from three world regions:  North America, Europe and East Asia. This is the tall, deciduous shrub common filbert (Corylus maxima), with its edible nuts.

The California native bay laurel or ‘headache tree’, Umbellularia californica grows here too – its widespread use by native North American tribes as a medicinal plant making it an important addition to the woodland garden.

Growing in the shadows here was Chinese mayapple Podophyllum versipelle ‘Spotty Dotty’.

Fortune’s Tank with its aquatic plants and tadpoles was created by the Scots-born plant explorer Robert Fortune (1812-80), who was Curator of the Garden for two years in 1846-48, making many improvements during his short time there.  Until, that is, he became “the Great Victorian Tea Thief”, leaving the garden to travel in China, often in Mandarin disguise, to secretly acquire seedlings of Camellia sinensis so Britain could establish its own tea industry in northern India, rather than be dependent on Chinese imports.  His 1858 book Journey to the Tea Countries of China made him a household name amongst tea-drinkers.

But it’s the neat, rectangular Dicotyledon Systematic Order Beds that occupy a large swath of the garden where the formal story of botany is told, plant family by plant family, in 800 plants. Laid out in 1902, the beds are organized according to the George Bentham-Joseph Dalton Hooker classification system of 1862-83. This system and more modern systems based on plant characteristics have, of course, been eclipsed by classification based on the DNA and evolutionary trees of plants as formulated by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG).

In the Lamiaceae or Mint Family bed below, we see lavender, stachys and various sages.

In the Rosaceae bed, appropriately, there are roses, including a David Austin climber and significantly, the native American Virginia rose whose Latin name is Rosa virginiana Mill. That last bit, the author, indicates that this plant was named originally by Philip Miller in 1768; it also appears in the 8th and final folio edition of his Gardener’s Dictionary (1768) as “the Virginia rose”. As a former nurseryman, Miller was very familiar with and seemingly fond of all the species and hybrid roses available in London in the mid-18th century.

In the Caryophyllaceae bed were clove-scented pinks or Dianthus species of several kinds, (though I think a few of the labels were incorrect.)

Circling around to the northeast corner of the garden and the South American section, I walked past the cinnamon-hued trunk of the Chilean myrtle tree (Luma apiculata).

And I came upon a pretty, little Chilean sub-shrub called violet teacup flower (Jovellana violacea).

Given all the historic and rare plants at Chelsea Physic Garden, the plant sighting I treasured most, as a long-time garden writer and photographer, was an unassuming little thing that most visitors would miss completely. I would have missed it too, had I not come upon a tour being given by the Chelsea’s former head gardener Nell Jones in which she was pointing to a small weedy plant in a sunken terracotta pot. In many ways tiny thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana), a cosmopolitan member of the Brassicaceae family, is the most famous plant on earth given that on December 13, 2000 – a four year effort by the Arabidopsis Genome Initiative (AGI) consisting of scientists from the U.S., Europe and Japan culminated in the full sequencing of its genome – the first time any plant’s full DNA had been sequenced.  As the press release said on that day:  “For the once-humble Arabidopsis, simplicity is truly a virtue. Its entire genome consists of a relatively small set of genes that dictate when the weed will bud, bloom, sleep or seed. Those functional genes have their counterparts in plants with much larger genomes, such as wheat, corn, rice, cotton and soybean. Unlike the human genome, Arabidopsis has few ‘junk’ DNA sequences that contain no genes. The plant is practical for scientists because it matures quickly, is small and reproduces abundantly. All these physical and genetic traits add up to an especially useful organism whose genome is now catalogued for the public’s benefit. ‘The Arabidopsis genome is entirely in the public domain, so the research results being announced today are immediately available to scientists across the world,’ said Daphne Preuss, an advisor to the AGI and a faculty member in the University of Chicago’s Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology. ‘Because its implications for farming, nutrition and medicine are potentially vast, this plant has gradually become quite indispensable to us’.”

I looked longingly at the Plant Sale stand but as a Canadian, it was just window-shopping for me.

However, the Chelsea Physic Garden gave me a serendipitous gift in that I was able to have a brief, lovely meeting there with the English Facebook friend I met online long ago. Along with a group of nurserymen and plant geeks, Alan Elsbury started the Plant Idents Facebook page 14 years ago and, for my sins, I became one of the administrators of the page with its 7,700 members more than a decade ago. He was on his way to the Chelsea Flower Show and we had a fun chat.

I finished my visit with a lovely lunch of smoked salmon & salad in the Physic Garden Café and, honouring that long ago gardener who accidentally discovered rhubarb-forcing at the Chelsea Physic Garden, a glass of Cawston Press Sparkling Rhubarb & Apple Juice. The perfect end to a perfect visit.

*****

The Chelsea Physic Garden is open from 11 am to 4 pm every day except Saturday, when it is closed.

The Chelsea Flower Show on a Rainy Wednesday – Part 2 – The Exhibits & Great Pavilion

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My last blog took a tour around some of the big gardens at Chelsea 2024, but of course there is much more to the show. Lining the avenues throughout the grounds are booths of varying sizes showcasing art, clothing, garden furnishings, tools, pots and planters, house plants, etc. while inside the Great Pavilion are nurseries and plant societies, floral designers and ecological/scientific displays. Let’s start with the spectacular floral acronym for the Royal Horticultural Society, as interpreted in UK-grown peonies by the upscale floral designer Pinstripes & Peonies.

Here is a small bit of the letter “S”. Imagine how much work it took to condition all those peonies and then insert them into the matrix using “eco-friendly principles”….. which I assume must mean floral-oasis-free, though I wasn’t able to confirm that.

Artists have long been a part of Chelsea, which is now in its 111th year. The best show off their works in small gardens, like Scots sculptor James Parker below. who chose rodgersia, Siberian iris and foxglove to complement his stacked slate and bronze pinecone sculptures.

David Harber Sculpture was nestled in a leafy setting as well.

The Clancy Workshop took a more lighthearted approach at Chelsea. Architect/artist Mike Clancy positions his sculptures, like these animals, between art and architecture using traditional and digital techniques.

I’ve taken the odd stroll through Harrod’s in London but I wasn’t aware there is also Harrod Horticultural – unrelated to the department store, but obviously benefiting at the show from the similarity in names.  Its horticultural line is an offshoot of its business as a long-time supplier of sport goalposts – including to the Olympics!

Garden buildings come in all shapes and sizes in England, and those displayed by Scotts of Shrapston, celebrating its 60th anniversary, seemed quite modest.

But it was the lovely landscaping around their shed that I loved featuring Siberian iris and an unusual umbellifer, Baltic parsley (Cenolothium denudatum).

At Garden Art Plus Limited, this 18th century French limestone trough with lion’s paws feet and mossy patina could be had for the trifling sum of £12,500.

Solus Decor started in “a humble single car garage in 1998” in Vancouver, B.C. where they now have an 18,000 sq ft location, and expanded to four locations worldwide from which they export to 35 countries. They make fire pits, fire tables and fire bowls, and if those get too… fiery…

…. they also have compact water fountains.   

As the rain increased, it was a pleasure to wander into the Great Pavilion where Pheasant Acre Plants were showing off their gladioli.

Barbados Horticultural Society displayed fabulous floral designs featuring warm-coloured tropical plants.

Moore & Moore Plants are woodland specialists and their exhibit was a lush celebration of ferns and flowering shade-lovers.  

I was enchanted with the stunning display of plant treasures by Kevock Garden Plants of Scotland, including many beautiful meconopsis species….

….. such as the rare, red M. staintonii.

Look at all those primulas!

The display was designed by Monica Wylie and I asked her to pose for me for this blog.

And what a serendipitous delight to find my Seattle ‘horty’ friend Sue Nevler and her husband Steve Gatti admiring the Kevock exhibit.  After hugs and introductions all round, Sue & I posed with Kevock’s owner David Rankin – with Himalayan poppies posing above us!  We were heading on to Tuscany to see our youngest son and Sue and Steve were heading to Malta, then France.

Grow just two things, but grow them very well. That could be the motto of Blackmore & Langdon’s, with their luscious begonias and delphiniums. And I swear I made the identical photo 32 years ago, when I was last at the Chelsea!

The Botanic Nursery in Wiltshire holds the National Collection of foxgloves, and it shows.

This delicate foxglove is Digitalis ‘Apple Blossom’.  

W.S. Warmenhoven displayed a trove of Amaryllis and Alliums in the pavilion. A family company established in the Netherlands in 1885, they grow  55 varieties of allium, something like a million bulbs in their fields and greenhouses. There, they sell the blooms as cut flowers at the Dutch Flower Auction and harvest the bulbs for their bulb business.

I’ve never grown Allium schubertii with its big, low-growing, starry globes, but I liked ‘Arctic Snow’.

Allium macleanii is a parent of  ‘Globemaster’ and I was delighted to photograph it. I wish I could source this one in Canada, because I find the other parent, A. cristophii or star-of-Persia attracts bees but ‘Globemaster’ doesn’t, presumably sterile and also not a big nectar producer. One of my reasons for growing alliums is their great attraction to bees.

Peter Beales Roses featured a tribute to the 200th anniversary of the Royal Navy Liveboat Institution (RNLI) in their exhibit, incorporating a small inshore lifeboat.and a splash of their commemorative apricot floribunda rose 200th With Courage at right.  

Not to be outdone, Harkness Roses introduced their ‘Chelsea Pensioner’ rose, which I asked this Pensioner to pose beside. For every bush sold, Harkness donates £2.50 to the care of the Chelsea Pensioners and their home.

Jacques Amand had two side-by-side exhibits displaying a large range of perennials, bulbs and small trees – and they won two Chelsea Gold Medals for their efforts.

Caley Brothers sells edible and medicinal mushrooms and wanted their Chelsea display “to inspire visitors to get growing their own delicious mushrooms through a series of easy to grow projects. Regardless of space, budget or season,” they say they have a mushroom project to suit every gardener – and have written their own book called “Project Mushroom”.   

Hampshire Carnivorous Plants is the UK’s largest grower of carnivorous plants. They had a colourful display featuring loads of pitcher plants (Sarracenia spp.) and maidenhair ferns and a Jurassic dinosaur. They also sell nepenthes, Venus flytraps (Dionaea muscipula) and sundews (Drosera); the latter at least, have been traced to the Jurassic Age.

What insect could resist the alluring pitchers of Sarracenia ‘Juthatip Soper’? 

We played along, not very convincingly, since we all know dinosaurs are herbivores, right? 

Driftwood Bonsai had a handsome display along the wall of the pavilion.

On the far wall, Kelnan Plants featured a lush display of South African natives, included many Resionaceae species.

As we were leaving to head to a pub lunch, I spied a visitor preparing to try on a garment at Original Fibres. It produces 100% European wool and linen clothing for men – I loved their springy planter design.

And I confess, I sneaked a photo of what might be the most beautiful garment I saw at the Chelsea on this rainy May Wednesday. But a little online detective work let me know that, sadly, I need to upgrade my shopping experience to Dolce & Gabbana. Because who wouldn’t want to stay dry under raindrops on spectacular wisteria blossoms?

And that’s a Chelsea wrap. I missed about one-third of the show, thanks to Mother Nature, jet lag and basic energy level, but I had a truly wonderful morning and sparked a little horticultural fire in my younger menfolk!  Stay tuned for future blogs on the Chelsea Physic Garden, the Garden Museum and the fabulous Moat in Bloom at London Bridge.

The Chelsea Flower Show on a Rainy Wednesday – Part 1 – The Gardens

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As gardeners, if we’re not complaining about drought we’re moaning about rain. But at the Chelsea on a rainy May day, the moaning only lasts a short while, so beautiful are the gardens. And who doesn’t want to pose with an umbrella beside a tower of flowers?

It was even more special because our London-based eldest son Doug, rear, and his partner Tommy were our guests – Chelsea novices who really enjoyed wandering the show.  In fact, the last time we attended the Chelsea was in 1992 when Doug was at Cambridge; thirty-two years later it was even more spectacular.

The rain was on-and-off but the crowds were thick around the show gardens, so I missed a few, including, alas, the Gold Winner – but there was lots to see on the 66-acre site including smaller garden installations and some 500 booths and exhibits, many under cover in the Great Pavilion.

Exhibitors like The Plant School from Northamptonshire, below, take special care, naturally, to design their booth around beautiful plants.

I loved this display from The Delphinium Society offering good ideas for plants to pair with delphiniums.

Tom Stuart-Smith’s garden for the National Garden Scheme was a cool, romantic, woodland-edge vision in white. According to the designer, the garden exemplified the “joy and associated health and wellbeing benefits of garden visiting that have been at the heart of the National Garden Scheme since 1927.” It was part of the project ‘Giving Back’ and following the show was slated to be relocated to a hospital in Cambridge where it will be sited at a Maggie’s Centre for people having treatment for cancer. The shed in the background was designed by architect Ben Stuart-Smith, Tom’s son, and created by woodworker Fenton Scott-Fielder.  Many of the plants were donated by National Garden Scheme owners. The white azalea is Rhododendron ‘Daviesii’.

The Octavia Hill Garden celebrated the social reformer and co-founder of the National Trust in 1894, Octavia Hill (1838-1912) who worked throughout her life to improve urban housing (she was the landlord of 3,000 tenancies) and protect green space. Interestingly it was Hill who coined the term “the green belt”, intending it to mean green space for the use of people, rather than a purely environmental concept. The Chelsea garden was designed by Ann-Marie Powell Gardens for garden centre retail group Blue Diamond and the National Trust and won a Silver-Gilt medal.  It was conceptualized as “a community urban wildlife garden” occupying “a series of open-air sitting rooms” in an urban brownfield and featured a warm-colour plant palette that was enhanced by the ochre-hued sandstone hardscape.  The sound of splashing water could be heard…. above the Chelsea rain.

Someone beside me asked what the spherical yellow flowers were and I said Craspedia or “billy buttons”, an excellent flower for arrangements and for drying.

The National Autistic Society Garden by Sophie Parmenter and Dido Milne tells the story of “autistic masking”. It was designed as an environment in which ‘masking’ – a conscious and subconscious coping strategy for dealing with a loud, overwhelming world – becomes possible, a way for autistic people to experience the beauty and sound of nature comfortably but fully. These candelabra primulas were in the garden’s ‘mossy dell’.

This video explains more about the Silver-Gilt-winning garden.

Designer Robert Myers called the garden below ‘St. James’s Piccadilly: Imagine the World to be Different’.  Reminiscent of the churchyard in the title, it is a contemplative haven set as sanctuary for city-dwellers and wildlife.  It “celebrates the significance of urban ‘pocket parks’ in London and other cities, often connected with historic churchyards, some bearing the scars of wartime bombing yet refusing to yield to destruction.”  The building is a “counselling cabin” like those used by the clergy.  The garden also contains seven species of plants that appeared in the ruins of St. James’s after wartime bombings, reminding visitors of nature’s resilience. Once the Chelsea ends, the plants will find a new home at St. Pancras Euston Road and the counselling cabin and other hardscaping will be installed in the restored garden in Piccadilly.   

The colourful RHS ‘No Adults Allowed Garden’ was designed by kids, for kids – specifically the students of the Sulivan Primary School in Fulham who will help in its transfer to their own school grounds after the show. And naturally, children love carnivorous plants!

The Chelsea Flower Show sponsor The Newt in Somerset (which I blogged about this January after visiting in 2023) commissioned ‘A Roman Garden’ with a formal courtyard filled with flowers and statuary.  Imagined in Pompeii in the 1st century CE, it is a colonnaded courtyard with a peristyle garden featuring 1,600 plants of 13 different varieties with a mulberry in the centre and medicinal plants such as chamomile, lavender, opium poppy and thyme.

Royal Hospital Way flanks the Royal Chelsea Hospital grounds, below. The word “hospital” refers to the ancient definition as an almshouse, rather than a medical facility. Founded in 1682 by King Charles II, it is an Old Soldiers’ retirement and nursing home for 300 veterans of the British Army and is run as an independent charity. Chelsea Pensioners in their ceremonial scarlet uniforms are a fixture at the show, as you’ll see in my next blog.

Gardens along Royal Hospital Way were themed as Sanctuary Gardens. The romantic space below inspired by the television series of the same name was The Bridgerton Garden, designed by Holly Johnson. On opening day, some of the show’s stars were in attendance – or so I read in gossip from Lady Whistledown herself!  And, spoiler alert, the garden is meant to reflect Penelope Featherington, “the central character of Bridgerton season 3 and her journey from being a wallflower to embracing her true self and stepping into the light.”

Who doesn’t love lupines in late May?  They were all over the Chelsea grounds but this variety, Lupinus ‘Masterpiece’ in the Bridgerton Garden, combined with campanulas, foxgloves and irises, captured visitors’ hearts. 

Next up was The Burma Skincare Initiative (BSI) Spirit of Partnership Garden, designed by Helen Olney, which won the Gold Medal in the Sanctuary Gardens.  BSI is a registered charity co-founded by London-based dermatologists, Su Lwin and Chris Griffiths in 2019 with the vision of creating equal access to quality skincare for the people of Myanmar. When Lwin and Griffiths visited the 2021 RHS Chelsea Flower Show, they were impressed by the global publicity that could be achieved for the charity by showcasing its work through the narrative of a Chelsea Garden.  The building at the top is an interpretation of a 14th century Burmese stupa, representing the challenging environment in which the BSI operates in strife-torn Myanmar.  

My favourite garden came next, ‘MOROTO no IE’ by Kazuyuki Ishihara, a Chelsea Flower Show veteran since 2006 and frequent Gold award-winner.  Born in Nagasaki-city, after he graduated from university, “he started to study the ‘Ikenobo’ style of Ikebana (Japanese flower arrangement with a long tradition), and his eyes were opened to the world of flowers. When he was 29, he started selling flowers on the street, inspired by the flower shops of Paris. Through floristry, he built up his artistic talent. In 1995 he created his own company, Kazahana Co. Ltd.”  Japanese maples and moss hummocks created a serene, green setting where the sound of water splashing from the central waterfall seemed to calm the hectic scene that is Chelsea. The Japanese concept of the ‘stroll garden’ was very much in display here – if only I could have jumped the barricade and…. strolled.

As with many Japanese gardens, colour was limited to mainly green, but the Siberian iris ‘Tropic Night’ added a sensuous note to the rocky water garden.

A stunning moss living wall on the garden’s exterior contained just one decorative touch, a small, wild-bee haven.

As I stood admiring it, a visitor asked if I wanted my photo at the moss wall. I said yes, and later thought about what I brought from Canada specifically to wear at the Chelsea, an old April Cornell flowered smock that I’d worn in the March 27, 1994 photo announcing my first garden column in a weekly series I would write for six years for the Toronto Sun. Thirty years? Not bad for a favourite garment.

‘Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees’, but trees do offer sanctuary, as was clear in this garden designed by Baz Grainger of Landform Consultants for wealth management firm Killik & Co. And in a fiduciary play on words, the garden’s ethos was described as “Saving: four oak planters represent our four main drivers to start saving and the oak indicating the importance of choosing a reliable and enduring savings partner, Planning: six structural stone pillars and six steel pergola crossbeams represent six key reasons to plan for the future. Investing: five trees represent five core investment goals.”  

I felt the need to do research on The Freedom from Torture Garden: a Sanctuary for Survivors, a garden designed by John Warland and Emma O’Connell. A charity, Freedom from Torture was established in 1985 as an offshoot of Amnesty International. In 2016, its five centres received 1,066 referrals for individuals from 76 countries including Sri Lanka, Iran, Afghanistan, Nigeria, DR Congo, Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Sudan. Virtually all clients are asylum seekers or refugees who have fled torture and persecution in their home countries. The centres involve horticultural therapy so the garden is a meaningful expression and, as part of the project Giving Back, the garden will be rebuilt at Freedom From Torture Headquarters at Finsbury Park, London.  I was very taken with these organic-shaped willow structures in a dry part of the garden.

A sunken communal seating space will allow survivors to sit together and share stories. In fact, those in FFT’s gardening group told their stories as research for the garden, which will grow edible and medicinal produce for harvest by those in the therapy programs. 

I didn’t get past the crowds to look at the Flood Re Garden, but while gazing through its side panel , I suddenly became aware of a man sitting in the foliage in front of me. He was talking about the power of certain plants to adapt to flooding – and I realized he was on camera. When I asked an attendant nearby, they told me he was James Wong of Gardener’s World, filming a segment for the show.

So it was fun to find the segment at 11:08 on this episode of Gardener’s World at the Chelsea and see what he looked like from the front!  I made a little screen grab below.

The World Child Cancer Nurturing Garden  designed by Giulio Giorgi was the RHS Environmental Innovation Award winner. It featured curvilinear raised beds made from perforated terracotta blocks planted with soft-touch plants, fragrant herbs, vibrant mosses and edible plants.  “Supporting emotional wellbeing, a child and a parent can stroll through the reclaimed brick path, which leads to scenic meadow surrounded by tall trees, perennials, annuals, and shrubs. At its heart lies a seating area, which is a restful place for children and their loved ones”.

The final garden in my collection is the Boodles Garden celebrating the 200th anniversary of the National Gallery. Taking inspiration from paintings at the gallery, it evokes the spirit of many significant artworks. The creative vision for the design takes from artistic elements, including colours, textures and ‘hidden details’ in paintings viewed during visits to the gallery. The sculptural arches are inspired by Canaletto and Claude’s element of repetition and perspective; water features define the space while reflecting the work of Renoir, Monet and Seurat; and the primarily-green garden plantings themselves “represent the artist’s brushstrokes and texture within pointillist and impressionist paintings”.

My great regret was missing the Gold Award-winning Water-Aid Garden by Tom Massey and Je Ahn celebrating rainwater harvesting. This video gives a sense of the designers’ intent.

My next blog will focus on the Chelsea Flower Show booths and the Grand Pavilion.

Pooled Assets in Wiltshire

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While I was eating delicious, home-baked cake in Juliette Mead’s enchanting garden in the village of West Amesbury last June, I had no idea we were sitting just two miles from prehistoric Stonehenge.  It was only later, as we drove out on Stonehenge Avenue past this circular assemblage of 5,000-year-old stones arranged to mark the year’s winter and summer solstice, that I realized that the garden I’d just visited had once shared its chalky soil on the banks of the River Avon with people of the Stone Age. But I was not aware of that bit of geographic trivia when the family dog Ada led our Carex Tours group under a rose-wreathed timber arch into the garden behind the house.

Here, in a courtyard configured in the shelter of the U-shape of the house – originally a row of workers’ houses joined together which, from the road, still wear their original facades – were deep mixed borders and planting beds featuring multi-stemmed ‘Evereste’ crabapples forming the season’s fruit above early summer sages, alliums, irises and peonies.

Crimson roses clambered up the window frames and gold euphorbia gleamed in the afternoon sun.

I had spent the previous afternoon photographing gorgeous roses at Kew Gardens so I loved seeing Juliette’s collection.

In early June, the herbaceous colour palette in England seems to lean to lavenders, purples and blues, such as the Allium cristophii and Salvia nemorosa  paired below. 

But as an insect photographer, it was still tempting to want to photograph every bumble bee I saw, including this one on the starry allium flowers.

We were here on a Carex tour of “New Gardens of England”, including Dan Pearson & Huw Morgan’s Hillside and Oudolf Field at Hauser & Wirth nearby because, almost 20 years ago, shortly after buying the house, Juliette and her husband Guy Leech hired a friend, the Hertfordshire designer Tom Stuart-Smith, to re-imagine the landscape of their 3.5 acre property. In his career, he has become internationally renowned, working everywhere from India to Marrakech, won eight gold medals and three Best in Show awards at London’s annual Chelsea Flower Show, designed a garden for Queen Elizabeth’s 2002 Jubilee at Windsor Castle and been awarded the Order of the British Empire. But back then, Juliette and Guy had specific objectives: they wanted a lawn for their four children to play sports and host friends; Juliette wanted to cut flowers for bouquets; and Guy wanted a swimming pool, but not a small pool – he wanted to swim serious lengths, thus a minimum of 20 metres was his stipulation.  So, from the courtyard with its traditional deep borders and planting beds lush with grasses surrounding an alfresco dining area, we were led once again by Ada the Alsatian to the stunning walled garden surrounding the 21-metre (68.9 feet) swimming pool.  In the distance you can see the thatched, lime-washed cob wall that is a traditional feature in this part of England.

Though it’s difficult to discern without an overhead photo, the parterre arrangement of dozens of planting beds surrounding the pool has been described by Juliette as a Persian tapestry, and something she enjoys looking down on from the second floor, especially in winter. Phlomis russeliana is among the roster of hard-working plants that flower in June.  By stepping the garden down on this side of the pool and raising it on the far side, Tom Stuart-Smith enhanced the garden view from the house and underplayed the view of the swimming pool behind layers of plants. The new walls in the garden, including above the pool, are zinc-coated steel. At right are beech hedges with a large gap to display the view through meadows and trees to the River Avon.

As I walked around the pool, I was struck by the magical movement of the golden oats grass (Stipa gigantea – Celtica) used extensively in the garden, along with other grasses such as Panicum virgatum ‘Cloud Nine’, Miscanthus sinensis ‘Malepartus’and Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Hameln’.  Along with Molinia cultivars like ‘Transparent’ and ‘Skyracer’, Stipa gigantea is one of the best “scrim” or “screen” plants, adding a kinetic quality to a garden while offering a porous veil in front of the scene behind. Interestingly, Juliette was not keen on grasses and had to be talked into including them by Tom; they now make up 40% of the roster and their tawny forms provide much of the winter interest.

The timber decking around the pool has aged to a soft silvery-grey that enhances the turquoise Marbleite pool and looks lovely with the billowing ‘Walker’s Low’ catmint (Nepeta racemosa) that was in peak June bloom.  Looking out over the pool through the break in the beech hedge and a barely-visible iron fence, we see a meadow and trees that line the banks of the River Avon ninety metres away.

The windows at the back of the house look out onto the garden surrounding the sleek pool, which Juliette and Guy specified they did not want hidden behind a fence. Has an exercise setting ever looked so gorgeous? Behind the sun umbrella you can see the soft-grey, low zinc wall.

I seemed to be drawn to the golden oats (Stipa gigantea). What a fabulous grass – sadly not hardy for us in Toronto.

Purple catmint, turquoise pool, mauve sun lounger: this couldn’t be prettier or better coordinated.

 The planting beds around the pool, separated from each other by narrow grass paths, are at their best in mid-summer, but early June’s palette of meadow sage and catmint is dependable and romantic. Here you get a closer look at the thatched cob wall.

I had never come across horned spurge (Euphorbia cornigera) before, but it seems similar to moisture-loving E. palustris.

As I left the pool side of the house, I was struck by the beauty of the Chilean potato vine (Solanum crispum ‘Glasnevin’) climbing the house wall.

What a stunning vine.

Walking behind the house towards the river, I stood for a moment under the tulip-tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) in the lawn. It was the only tree that Tom Stuart-Smith kept from the previous landscape.

Then I walked around  small wetland niches with lush plantings at the bottom of the garden.

Tall stems of pink flowers would soon rise from masses of umbrella plant (Darmera peltata) flanking the water.

There were moisture-loving Siberian irises (Iris sibirica) down there….

…… and luscious Japanese irises (I. ensata) too.  

I walked to the edge of the River Avon, which reflected the idyllic green glades on its shores.  Later, I learned that there are actually nine Avon Rivers in Great Britain, including the one running through Shakespeare’s Stratford-Upon-Avon. The root of the word Avon is “abona” in Celtic or in Welsh, “afon”, which means “river”. So, strictly speaking there are nine “River Rivers”.

Juliette graciously invited us into the house for tea and cakes – a lovely English garden-visit custom……

….. and I can say without exaggeration that she is a talented, inventive cook with a keen eye for presentation.

Then, with a last look at the garden, I turned the corner around the unique flint & limestone wall of the house towards the bus and the journey past Stonehenge towards Bath.

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Want to read more blogs about my English trip in June 2023?

Sissinghurst in Vita’s Sweet June

Boldly Go: June Glory at Great Dixter

Hillside: Dean Pearson and Huw Morgan in Somerset

Malverleys: A Garden of Rooms

Yews Farm – A Brilliant Marriage…. of Boxwood and Beans

Oudolf Field at Hauser & Wirth

The Newt

Autumn at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens – Part 2

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Finally, I’m getting to finish up my visit to Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay Harbor, the continuation of Part 1 that I published in January. (Who knew winter would get so busy?) So let’s keep wandering and head for a little while down Haney Hill, below, which connects the formal parts of the garden above with the magnificent forests below.

There’s a small pond at the top with a Japanese feel……

…. enhanced by the ‘Ice Dance’ Japanese sedge (Carex morrowii). I left the sign in this photo to illustrate how careful CMBG is at providing descriptions almost everywhere, something many botanical gardens forget to do since it requires attention to detail and resources.

A lookout allows visitors to contemplate the rich, mixed forest below here.

And, unlike many public gardens, CBMG also pays attention to ecology and educating visitors.

The path is flanked with naturalistic plantings, mostly native, including many choice conifers.

Since it was October 14th the leaves of many native trees and shrubs had started to change colour, including the sourgum (Oxydendrum arboreum) below.

… and the hobblebush viburnum (V. lantanoides) was a pretty burgundy.

I am familiar with a lot of goldenrods, but hadn’t seen Short’s goldenrod before. This is Solidago shortii ‘Solar Cascade’.

I went as far down as the Henry Richard sculpture ‘Glass Orb’, but since we had a long drive ahead of us later, I retraced my steps back up.

I had left Doug in the Vayo Meditation Garden, a quietly beautiful space on the hillside.

It wasn’t until a few weeks later that I learned the name of the tall perennial with the yellow pom-pom flowers blooming so late in the season. It’s Boltonia asteroides ‘Nally’s Lime Dot”, which was named for the late John Nally, the man who designed the famous flower garden at Wave Hill in the Bronx. Here’s my 2016 blog on Wave Hill.

Then we headed back to the main garden campus above, stopping at the Rose Arbor which features a number of vines and elaborate plantings.

Though it was late in the season and the plants had declined a little, I could appreciate the various containers used liberally throughout CMBG.

I liked the way pink-flowered Asarina scandens had been used as a trailer in the pot below.

Walking through the garden, there were reminders of summer in the seedheads amidst flowering grasses.

‘Sedum ‘T-Rex’ was putting on a spectacular show!

And native little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) had taken on its reddish autumn cast.

Possumhaw (Viburnum nudum ‘Longwood’) had also turned a deep rose-red for fall.

I thought I had photographed most of the trees with prominent exfoliating bark in my career, but no! Here is Chinese hazelnut (Corylus fargesii).

I peeked quickly into the Burpee Vegetable Garden but I really wanted to visit…..

… the spectacular Bibby & Harold Alfond Children’s Garden. The entrance, below, featured fun boulders called “Spraying Whales” by sculptor Carole Hanson shooting surprise jets of water at visitors…..

….and I thought of how much fun this would be for little kids in summer.

Opened in July 2010, the garden was made possible by a gift from the Harold Alfond Foundation. Mr. Alfond made his fortune mainly in shoes, first the Dexter brand, then brand names for other firms. I liked this speech given at the opening by the foundation chairman:

“In the summer of 2007- the last summer of his remarkable life, Harold Alfond visited the original gardens at the suggestion of his good friend Larry Pugh. Harold was 93. Together with son Ted and his wife Barbara, Harold saw the beauty of this place then and imagined what more it could be for the state he loved and its children. Harold’s life passion was athletics and children. Bibby Alfond’s passion was children and gardens. And so at the age of 93, with Bibby no longer at his side, Harold was drawn to the vision of what we see here today as he reflected on how his life had been enriched by Bibby and her gardens – gardens which had graced their summer home for decades. Moved by the memory of Bibby and her passion, and with Harold’s sentiments in our hearts, we knew the Children’s Garden was deserving of foundation support. And we felt pride and perfect balance when it was agreed the garden would be named the Bibby and Harold Alfond Children’s Garden. And not vice versa.”

The Chairman went on to quote from a famous children’s book by a Maine author illustrated on the sign: “As Miss Rumphius’ father admonished her to do, you have done ‘something to make the world more beautiful’.”

I especially loved seeing Miss Rumphius on the sign because it’s a favourite children’s book of mine, a 1982 award-winner by Maine author Barbara Cooney. Here I am reading it to my granddaughter Emma. As an aside, CMBG is careful to note that visitors should endeavor to grow Maine’s native sundial lupines (Lupinus perennis), rather than the non-native and invasive west coast lupines (L. polyphyllus) in the book.

Designed by landscape architect Herb Schaal of AECOM, Inc. who has designed over 20 unique children’s gardens in the U.S., the garden is full of surprises and abundant references to other Maine children’s books, including ‘Blueberries for Sal‘. My grandkids would adore the maze, below.

The Keeper’s Cottage features a green roof and a pretty windowbox. And it’s clearly on the radar of this little one.

I spotted the Liatris seedheads and thought how wonderful this garden would be in mid-summer, since it was still looking spectacular in October.

Who doesn’t know about Beatrix Potter’s “Mr. McGregor’s Garden” and that wascally wabbit? The greenhouse behind is actively used during the season.

Perhaps the beans and beets had already been harvested? In any case, this garden was full of colour.

Millstone seats with built-in planters! What a great idea for little kids.

There were attractive containers in the Children’s Garden too.

Colourful coleus was in flower beneath a rain-chain. The unusual silver trailing plant is Arctotis auriculata.

One container featured a dark-leaved mimosa, Albizia julibrissin ‘Summer Chocolate’.

A flower bed was full of colourful plants, including many choice succulents……

… such as Mangave ‘Lavender Lady’.

A chicken coop is part of the fun.

And the Story Barn is filled with enticing books for kids and sweet little stools for reading.

As I headed out towards the exit, a young visitor was engaged in a fun activity at the Boat Pond.

I’ve seen and photographed many children’s gardens, including New York Botanical Garden, the Huntington Garden in Pasadena and Denver Botanic Gardens (also a Herb Schaal design), among others, and this one was the best and most creative by far. It was a fitting way to end our visit to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.