News

by Hayley Monkton of the RHS

Drawing and digging, sculpture and secateurs, paintings and plants; designers at the 2009 RHS Chelsea Flower Show, sponsored by Marshalls, are merging art and gardening to create a masterpiece of a show. Designs at the world’s most famous gardening event will illustrate how the garden itself can be a form of art and ways to merge nature and art in outside spaces.

One of the most provocative and mould-breaking gardens at Chelsea this year, Tony Smith's creation for Quilted Velvet is likely to prove one of the main talking-points of the show.
Tony describes himself as “somewhere between garden design and art”, and this might also describe the “Quilted Velvet Garden”. This is a garden of contrasts: softness is juxtaposed with hardness, sharp with smooth, and even the two halves of the garden are inversions of each other: one half, densely planted and raised, while the other is sunken and minimalist, negotiated via raised stepping-stones of slate and grass.

Luciano Giubbilei's creation for Laurent-Perrier, an Italianate garden for the 21st century , is conceived as a geometric art form in itself, using strong lines to blur the boundaries between nature, art and architecture. At the rear of the garden, a monolithic stone wall is textured to resemble a hedge. On the wall, a 2 metre sculpture in pre-rusted Corten steel by celebrated artist Nigel Hall explores the relationship between geometry and landscape.  Nigel’s piece is called “Big Bite” and is two counter-posed cones, which look like they have taken a ‘bite’ out of each other.

Sculpture is also a key feature in The Cancer Research UK Garden, designed by multiple gold medal winner, Robert Myers.  At the epicentre of the garden is a piece by Simon Thomas, an artist known for his meditations on science and beauty, which appears to have crashed into a reflecting pool. The shockwaves ripple out into the garden, radiating across and from the water and spilling onto the paving and lawn.

In “The Foreign & Colonial Investment’s Garden”, designed by Thomas Hoblyn, a stylised wave sculpture undulates through the garden.  This wetland garden highlights the bogs of North Carolina, one of the world’s most threatened habitats, and the artwork reflects the instability of the environment.

Swedish designer Ulf Nordfjell brings a blend of natural simplicity and Scandinavian chic to Chelsea.  Internationally acclaimed, Ulf’s “Daily Telegraph Garden” includes a minimalist garden building of glass and timber to showcase the work of Swedish artists.  Ulf says that seeing ‘nature and art as one’ was one of the most important things in his career.

RHS Chelsea Show Manager, Alex Baulkwill, says:  “This is just one of the themes emerging at Chelsea that will challenge and inspire visitors to think about the different ways they can be creative in their own gardens.   

“Chelsea is a world-class platform for the Royal Horticultural Society to engage people with the diverse possibilities and opportunities that gardening offers.  As well as providing new ideas for gardeners, hopefully we’ll also encourage artists, who have never gardened, to be creative in their outside spaces as well.”  

PLUS

2009 RHS CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW SHOW GARDEN EXHIBITORS

by Jules Howard of Froglife     Photos: Jules Howard / Froglife

Amphibian charity says “Just Add Water”

An estimated three to four million blobs of frogspawn will be laid in the UK’s ponds by the end of spring. Now, a national wildlife charity is trying to raise this number by encouraging garden owners to ‘dig for Britain’, and provide new homes for the UK’s breeding amphibians.

Pond numbers in the UK’s countryside have dropped sharply, but Just Add Water, a new campaign launched by the charity Froglife, is hoping to help lessen the impact to Britain’s biodiversity by encouraging people to dig Frog spawnponds closer to homes, in the UK’s towns and cities.

These new ponds, it is hoped, will provide new breeding places for some of the UK’s widespread amphibians, many of which are thought to be disappearing in some regions.

Some species, like the Common Frog and Smooth Newt, are known to colonise new ponds quickly if present locally. Common Toad is also known to frequent garden ponds, particularly larger ones. Yet many of these species are disappearing from sites across the UK, often driven by loss of crucial breeding ponds.

The Common Toad is now listed on the Government’s Biodiversity Action Plan (UKBAP) ‘watchlist’ due to recent declines.

Just Add Water will provide information to the public on how to build ponds, through a new advice booklet and website (www.froglife.org/justaddwater).

“85% of the UK population have gardens, and many of these can be made frog-friendly by adding a pond.” said Daniel Piec, Froglife’s Head of Conservation. “Within months, ponds often become an oasis for local wildlife – providing feeding and breeding grounds for a host of amphibians, and many important invertebrates, mammals and birds.”

“What we’re calling for is for gardeners to put down the trowel, reach for the spade and get digging.” said Mr Piec.

Children could easily be exposed to a harmful E.coli bacteria by putting their hands into contaminated fountains in garden centres and then in their mouths. A report by Andrew Dagnell in the South Wales Echo on Monday 23rd claimed that tests 13 out of 52 samples that were taken from fountains in garden centres around Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan contained E.coli at levels “exceeding safe standards recommended water’.

 Images by Belinda May

Wheddon Cross is famous for two things. Firstly it is the highest village in Exmoor and secondly it is the closest habitation to the biggest number of snowdrops you have ever set your eyes on one fell swoop. Wheddon Cross is just a little village between Minehead and Bampton on Exmoor that probably grew up around a trunpike that was built there in the 1820s, but it is here that must start your journey down to a site of snowdrops that is little less than overwhelming.  It was a secret known only to locals, but gradually the word got round, visitors increased and so did the congestion of the little single track road. Now you have to park up in one of the carparks near the Moorland Hall Snowdrop cafe and either wend your way down an old historic footpath or take a ride on a bus to SNOWDROP VALLEY....

 The next big event will be a special Easter Bunny Hunt

A special Easter Bunny Hunt held at the magical gardens of Dewstow not only promises to be a great day out for families but will also be a curtain raiser for the attraction’s most ambitious programme to date.

It marks the start of a season during which the once hidden gem between Caldicot and Caerwent in Monmouthshire will for the first time be open seven days a week.

The spectacular setting has become a firm favourite with gardening enthusiasts, tourists and local visitors since it was uncovered almost ten years ago after being hidden under rubble and vegetation for 60 years.
A routine tidy up of the grounds when Dewstow House was bought by John Harris provided the first clues and started an adventure that has so far uncovered a warren wonderland of tunnels and caverns, pools and fountains created by renowned garden designer James Pulham, which have been restored to their former glory.
The gardens were buried after the house was sold in 1940 and the grounds were neglected and sections filled in. Twenty years later they were hidden completely when the site was used to dump soil excavated to build the M4.