Tag Archives: 2024

The Wildflower Moat at the Tower of London

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It was a showery May 26th morning as we crossed the Tower Bridge over the Thames while watching for the first competitors in the LondonRide bicycle race to charge across the finish line just beyond. The bridge opened on June 30, 1910 after sixteen years of construction — 800 years newer than the crenellated White Tower, seen through the bridge’s struts at left, which was built by William the Conqueror in 1078 and finished after his death around 1100. The oldest castle in England, it sits behind battlements at the centre of the Tower of London Fortress, along with the Waterloo Barracks containing the Crown Jewels and the old Mint. But we were crossing the bridge to visit the moat encircling the Tower and its spectacular show of wildflowers.

On the embankment of the Thames in front of the Tower, interpretive signage greets visitors, highlighting moments in English history. This portrait of Elizabeth I (1533-1603) is a reminder that royalty has always been a point of intrigue in Great Britain, though much more dramatic than in modern times. The daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife Anne Boleyn, she was just 2 years old when her mother was beheaded by the king, the first execution of a queen of England. She would assume the throne after the 1558 death of her half-sister, Mary Queen of Scots, daughter of Henry VIII’s first wife Catherine of Aragon, and rule England and Ireland for 44 years as “Good Queen Bess”.

The Yeoman Warders – the “Beefeaters” – who guard the Tower and have apartments within the complex are also featured on signage.

The closely-shorn lawn at the Tower’s southwest corner near Byward Tower is part of the original dry moat, but a much tamer version of the wildflower moat beyond. As the sign in the photo above said, it was once used as a bowling green by the Tower’s residents; its sunny aspect mean it was also used for growing vegetables. Note the cross-shaped “arrow slits” in the fortification walls.

The moat wasn’t always dry, of course. It was fed by the River Thames, below, and extended in 1285 by King Edward I to keep potential attackers at a distance. Fifty metres (164 feet) wide in places and very deep at high tide, it was also stocked with pike to be farmed for the fortress residents. In fact, wicker fish traps from the 15th or 16th century were found by archaeologists, complete with fish skeletons. But around 1843, a deadly, water-borne infection struck, believed to be caused by the “putrid animal and excrementitious matter” of the moat at low tide. So the Duke of Wellington ordered the moat drained and turned into a defensive dry ditch or “fosse”. Dry it would remain until January 7, 1928 when heavy rain caused the Thames to overflow its banks and flood the moat, allowing photographers to briefly capture how it looked when filled with water. During the Second World War, it was used as an allotment Victory Garden for the residents. By the way, that pointed skyscraper on the south side of the Thames is The Shard, the tallest building in the UK at 1,016 feet (309 m).

We watched as a Yeoman Guard began his guided tour of the Tower in the wildflowers of the moat. Unlike those tourists who headed inside the walls, I was content to spend my entire visit in the flowers.

The 2024 version of the “Moat in Bloom” I saw was two years after the Superbloom of 2022, part of the 4-month-long Platinum Jubilee celebrating the 70-year reign of the late Queen Elizabeth II, who acceded to the throne on February 6, 1952 upon the death of her father, King George VI. Here we see the artistry of both landscape architect Andrew Grant of Grant Associates and planting designer Nigel Dunnett, Professor of Planting Design and Urban Horticulture at the University of Sheffield and founder of the seed firm Pictorial Meadows in 2003, who collaborated under Historic Royal Palaces (HRP) to transform the moat into what Grant called “a joyous shout out for change; a marker in how we can move forward in the way we think about and manage our heritage for the benefit of future generations“. In the photo below taken from the public area near the ticket entrance above the moat, we see how Grant designed the willow-edged cutouts in the moat to mirror the arched windows in Mount Legge, the northwest tower in the outer fortification wall (all the towers have names and histories). We also see the descendants of the 20-million wildflower seeds of 48 species and 16 seed mixes sown originally for Superbloom.

Long before Superbloom, Nigel Dunnett had established his reputation with the 2012 planting at the London Olympic Park; the Buckingham Palace Diamond Garden for the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s accession to the throne; a 2013 redesign of The Barbican complex in London with drought-tolerant, perennial steppe species; a Gold-Medal-winning rooftop design for the 2013 Chelsea Flower Show; and his stunning ‘Grey to Green’ landscape work with the industrial city of Sheffield beginning in 2014 and continuing today. As for the moat, the scene below could be an Impressionist painter’s canvas! In fact, Nigel Dunnett was inspired by pointillism, especially the work of artist Georges Seurat, as he wrote on the original Superbloom design process in his Instagram account. “These brilliant and analytical explorations of colour relationships… were pivotal in the design development of the seed mixes and their spatial arrangement. The precise selection of individual colours, their proportions, densities and distributions give rise to the larger scale impression. It’s just a small leap to make the connection to meadows and naturalistic planting.” To accomplish this with technology, Dunnett used pixel diagrams as abstractions to create the colour balance and mix proportions with flower seeds.

Then it was time to take the curving path through this magical moat meadow, its exuberance held at bay by low willow wattle fencing produced by Wonderwood Willow in Cambridgeshire. Wrote Nigel Dunnett: “The 2022 Superbloom was a catalyst, a tipping point for this permanent transition of the moat, which must be Central London’s largest and most prominent ‘wilding’ project. It was great to see people down in the moat as part of the everyday visitor experience to the Tower – before 2022 these were inaccessible monotonous mown lawns.”

In certain places, perennials such as yellow-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium striatum), lambs’ ears (Stachys byzantina) and magenta Knautia macedonica flower alongside the annuals.

The white form of biennial rose campion (Lychnis coronaria ‘Alba‘) added its silvery foliage while lilac Scabiosa columbaria was attracting loads of bumble bees.

This is Bombus terrestris, the common buff-tailed bumble bee sharing a scabious bloom with a hover fly.

A number of benches are placed at intervals throughout the moat.

My three menfolk, husband Douglas, London-based son Doug and his partner Tommy were blown away by the beauty of the moat in bloom. And of course we needed a selfie!

Readers who know my interest – and the name of this blog – know I love to focus on colour. But meadows are also a great passion with me, tracing back to my childhood on Canada’s mild west coast. I talked about this at the beginning of my 2017 two-part blog on Piet Oudolf’s design for the entry garden at the Toronto Botanical Garden: “Piet Oudolf: Meadow Maker“. More than anything else, this is my favourite style of garden, its wildness as vital as its colour associations. Nigel Dunnett also felt this attraction as a child: “From as long as I can remember, I have been inspired by the wild; by the experience of nature. It’s an emotional response. Some of my earliest memories are of being in beautiful flowering meadows, or woodlands in the spring full of wildflowers, and it’s these more intimate or human-scale associations that perhaps made a stronger impression than big dramatic wide landscapes and scenery. That emotional response was, and is, strongly positive: provoking hugely uplifting and joyful feelings.” Below we see various colours of California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) along with blue cornflowers (Centaurea cyanus).

I was fortunate to be in the moat when the poppies and cornflowers, below, were at their very best.

Here we see annual yellow corn marigolds (Glebionis segetum formerly Chrysanthemum) with the California poppies and cornflowers.

We were all competing to see who could get the best photo of…..

…. bumble bees on pollen-rich corn poppies (Papaver rhoeas).

Mauve and white corncockle (Agrostemma githago) is one of my favourite annuals. In fact, I grew it from seed in a big pot this year, along with corn poppies.

In places, the path was marked by drilled bamboo posts threaded through with rope.

A profusion of scentless Mayweed or chamomile (Matricaria inodora) along with oxeye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare) created drifts of starry white throughout the moat. White bishop’s flower (Ammi majus) had not yet started to bloom here, but I saw that beautiful umbel as the star of another Pictorial Meadows seed mix garden at the Royal Botanical Garden Edinburgh in late August 2022, next photo.

I think this meadow was my favourite part of our visit to RBG Edinburgh. It is the Classic mix in the Pictorial Meadows brochure.

Back to the moat. Circling the northwest Mount Legge fortification tower built in the 13th century, it’s interesting to contrast it with The Shard, built eight centuries later. The blue flowers at right are blue thimble-flower (Gilia capitata). In the original Superbloom seed mix, Nigel Dunnett used washes of blue flowers to recall the water of the original moat fed by the River Thames.

Here is another view of this combination.

Is it possible I love Gilia capitata?

A little further down this path, some grasses have made their presence felt, creating a softening of the wildflower scene. Although most of the original Superbloom annuals have reseeded in the subsequent two years, additional reseeding and top-ups are now managed by the Tower of London garden team.

Gilia capitata from California is very attractive to the European buff-tailed bumble bee, Bombus terrestris. For me, this is yet more evidence of a scenario I’ve found in my photographic journey over the past three decades: bees need protein and carbohydrates, they don’t check the native provenance of plants when they’re foraging for food. Protein is protein; sugar is sugar. Obviously, a large population of native plants will appeal to the pollinators that co-evolved in the ecosystem. But if the ecosystem is degraded, i.e. if urban development has scattered native plant communities, bees will secure food from whatever plants are available.

Historic Royal Palaces is keen on messaging about pollinators in the moat. This year’s flowering is still the “ghost of Superbloom”, but as Nigel Dunnett notes the plan is “for the final transformation into a biodiverse habitat landscape based on native plant communities to happen in 2025.”

Oxeye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare) attracts short-tongued pollinators, including various types of hoverflies.

I was delighted to see plantain (Plantago major) in the moat, because even as an invasive weed at the edge of my meadows in Canada, it attracts lots of bees seeking pollen.

Corn poppies (Papaver rhoeas) are a mainstay in the moat – as they are in fields of Europe, and as they were in the battlefields in John McCrae’s famous World War One poem. “In Flanders fields, the poppies blow/Between the crosses, row on row,/That mark our place.“

Though the initial soil for Superbloom was engineered for the site and free of weed seeds, two years on the odd adventitious weed species has found a home here, like the yellow sow-thistle (Sonchus arvensis), which was also attracting its share of pollinators.

Corncockle (Agrostemma githago) and corn poppies (Papaver rhoeas) make fine companions.

Biennial blackeyed susan (Rudbeckia hirta ‘My Joy’) was just coming into bloom.

Here and there, violet larkspur (Consolida ajacis) towered over the wildflower tapestry.

Though they have no nectar, poppies offer abundant pollen, like this California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) feeding a marmalade hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus).

Shirley poppies are a special seed strain of corn poppy, Papaver rhoeas featuring different colours, like white, pink (below), lilac and bicolour, some with semi-double petals and no black blotch near the stamens. They were selected originally by Reverent William Wilks, vicar of the parish of Shirley, England, who spent several years beginning in 1880 hybridizing the wild poppies in the fields near his garden to obtain the strain of poppies bearing his name.

Interpretative signage keeps visitors informed of Historic Royal Palaces’ plan for the moat.

Small scabious (Scabiosa columbaria) is a big draw for pollinators.

The buff-tailed bumble bee (Bombus terrestris) is Europe’s most common bumble bee.

Meadow sage (Salvia pratensis) is a clump-forming perennial that prefers well-drained soil in full sun.

Nigel Dunnett specified the biennial viper’s bugloss, Echium vulgare – another bee favourite. Here it grows with corncockle (Agrostemma githago).

The Tower of London is famous for its six raven guardians, an institution believed to have started with Charles II who insisted the birds be protected and thought the crown and Tower would fall if they flew away. But this magpie does not have any official duties and has staked out its own priority seating in the north moat.

Look at the lovely flower of corncockle (Agrostemma githago), so pretty despite being very poisonous. In the 19th century it was a common annual weed of roadsides, railway lines and wheat fields and it likely made its way throughout the world as part of exported European wheat.

Although cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) was mostly finished in England when we were there in late May, a few plants popped up in the moat, right.

Annual corn flower (Centaurea cyanus) also comes in mixes that contain blue, white, pink and purple flowers – all are foraged by bees.

When I was at the Chelsea Physic Garden the day before visiting the Tower of London (here’s my blog), they had used annual lacy phacelia or purple tansy (Phacelia tanacetifolia), below, in a mass planting as bee forage for their hives. Despite being a native of California, it is a strong polllinator lure.

Here a buff-tailed bumble-bee enjoys foraging on the unusual caterpillar-like inflorescences of Phacelia tanacetifolia.

Signage helps visitors understand the possibilities of the moat, beyond its origin as fortification.

A lovely combination of pink California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) and meadow sage (Salvia pratensis).

Marmalade hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus) on pink California poppy.

The north side of the moat offers a good view of the 20 Fenchurch Building, nicknamed the “Walkie-Talkie” for its shape. This is the building which, as it was under construction in 2013, reflected the sun in such a way as to melt the metal of a Jaguar car parked beneath it, forcing the developers to erect a permanent sunshade of horizontal aluminum fins. The north part of the Tower complex behind the battlements is the site of the Waterloo Block and the Jewel House containing the well-protected Crown Jewels. For Superbloom, the north moat was fitted with speakers to create a sensory experience beyond the floral show. Musician Erland Cooper was commissioned to create a soundtrack, which he called “Music for Growing Flowers”.

Along with the corn poppies and California poppies, the moat seed mix contained seeds of Viscaria oculata, the small, lilac-purple flowers at bottom right.

Some plants I photographed don’t appear on the original seed lists but were happily luring insects, like what I believe is a yellow sow-thistle (Sonchus spp.) below. The purple cranesbill in the background is Geranium pyrenaicus.

Circling around to the eastern moat, at the corner we pass through The Nest, an organic willow sculpture by Spencer Jenkins that frames the view of the Tower Bridge.

Yellow buttercups (Ranunculus acris) and purple knapweed (Centaurea nigra) can be seen in the wildflower mix here.

The hardworking willow wattle fencing – nearly one kilometre in length by Wonderwood Willow – keeps the meadow from subsuming the grit path here. According to Andrew Grant in an article in Landscape: The Journal of the Landscape Institute: “We were after a palette that would complement the stonework: colours, textures and form found around the Tower, yet were low in energy in terms of construction, were low carbon and (where possible) were from a renewable resource. As a principle, the use of concrete was banned across the project.” 

Wrote Nigel Dunnett of the east moat: “Here the Grant Associates masterplan introduced areas that were more intimate and playful, with smaller paths bringing people into more intimate contact with the flowers. The use of natural materials and the rustic forms of the woven willow structures created a wonderful foil for the flowers.”

On the plantings in the east moat, Nigel Dunnett wrote: “The plants here were placed at low density around the path edges, and then the seed mixes were sown around them – it’s a technique I’ve used a lot to give some definite structure of deliberately-placed plants amongst the more spontaneous nature of the seed mixes. I used plants with a sensual character here – plants with tactile textures or aromatic plants. One of the most effective was Purple Fennel – the dark-leaved clumps were really effective early in the summer as the seeded plants grew up around them.” The swirling composite-wood pathway takes visitors towards the dragonfly sculpture by Quist.

Signage in the east moat recalls the allotment gardens of the past.

Even in my own meadows on Lake Muskoka north of Toronto, Canada (see my blog here on “Gardening Wild”), plantain (Plantago major), below, in the east moat, is a superb bumble bee plant in spring.

Brass and copper dragonflies fly over the moat, but the future plan is to bring real dragonflies into the moat with water features, as you see in the next photo.

This sign appears at the exit, presumably to greet visitors who might enter from the castle. But it promises a future for the moat: “We aspire to recycle rainwater to support flowering marshes, ponds, areas of food-related flowers and much more.” Fortunately a London-based son means we can and will revisit the Tower to see the development of this magical place. But I’m so delighted I experienced this late spring wildflower chapter in 2024.

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.