Jamie Dunstan's 'Winds of Change' gold-medal winning garden
Photography by Nicola Stocken-Tompkins

Chelsea – thoughts to the future

As if the current economic situation isn’t terrifying enough for many of us, Joe Swift’s comments on the BBCs coverage of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, that if food imports were stopped tomorrow our food supplies would run out in just 4 days, could have been the nail in the proverbial coffin.  And this was a pertinent comment indeed as, and I was pleasantly surprised to see it I must say, the overriding theme to the show this year was sustainability.  Hurrah!  After so many years of sustainability sitting just below the surface, it is finally hitting the big-time  where it will really be brought home to us how important it is now and in the future to use the space we have efficiently and effectively to makes our lives more sustainable.  And what better time for this to happen than now, when we are all looking to save a few pennies and for our own places and plots to start working for us.

The large (size as well as budget!) show gardens aside, the show was awash with vertical gardening, home-grown edibles (fruit and veg to you and I), renewable resources and energy production, maximising use of space by connecting the home with the garden through usable garden buildings – the list could go on.  All done with a hint of style too.  It was the first time in years I felt truly inspired and excited by a Chelsea Flower Show.  Yes, the Chelsea Flower Show is a just that, a show, a performance, an abundance of daring, delighting and delving into unexplored areas of gardens and all their fabulous accoutrements and possibilities; designers are show-casing their talents  to 1) get noticed and 2) get the opportunity to put together gardens which push the boundaries of garden design as we know it and I whole heartedly embrace both these points.  It was just so refreshing to see this done with some appreciation of both the economic and environmental predicament we find ourselves in. 

My all out favourite garden was by designer Jamie Dunstan.  Entitled ‘Winds of Change’ this garden embraced the potential of a garden on a host of different levels.  Sponsored by Stockton Drilling, a pipeline company who are involved with geothermal heating and cooling systems, the link back to the company was a strong one – concentrating on building systems (this one being a garden) that will have minimal environmental impact;  for which the sponsors will be hugely thankful.  The whole garden had a character to it that shouted industrial environment but also a delicate beauty and serenity that is a garden thoughtfully and carefully put together.  The main features were an open fronted steel framed building, with integral log store, fireplace and green roof.  The flooring of this building and the garden boundaries were made up of a multitude of recycled timber, jazzed up with intermittent coloured panels –providing a common link between this inside and the outside.  The dominant feature of the garden were 6 wind turbines, cleverly engineered cooling fans that somehow, despite their dominance, seemed at home in the space.  The planting was soft and pretty, very natural and a wonderful contrast to the industrial look.  The two quite opposing styles merged beautifully to create a garden with guts and integrity and a unique style that has been missing a Chelsea for quite a while.  I just wanted to get in there and use it. 

This garden could quite easily have been created from scratch using entirely new materials, and to be honest because of the skill of its construction and the thoughtfulness of the designer, this is how it looked.  But in reality, it wasn’t.  Where possible he used existing materials to develop a new garden from old.  Even the plants were grown in his own nursery and he engineered the wind turbines himself from industrial cooling fans.

In my view, in our own gardens, we should be concentrating our efforts – looking to regenerate new from existing, old and unwanted.  Composting, chickens, growing from seed, plant sharing, installing renewable energy and so on.  This doesn’t have to mean woolly-jumper-wearing disorder and lack of style.  It can still be cool, contemporary and overwhelmingly up to date.  Chelsea showed this off with alarming accuracy this year and I can’t wait for it all to filter through to our everyday!