Top Ten Show Gardens: RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2013

Top Ten Show Gardens: RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2013

The show gardens at Chelsea have come under some criticism this year for lacking ‘pizazz’ or show-stopping drama. At LAN we don’t believe this is true. While it could be said that many of the gardens portray a subtly that belies their depth and meaning, this year’s show gardens all demonstrate an attention to detail that marks them out as being stunning in their own right. Here we delve a little deeper to bring you the best of the best from the world’s greatest flower show.

10. Tokonoma (An Alcove) Garden

Tokonoma (An Alcove) Garden, credit: Bonnie Alter

Designer: Kazuyuki Ishihara

Construction: Ishihara Kazuyuki Design Laboratory

Awards: Gold Medal, Best Artisan Garden

This rendering of a traditional Japanese tatami room garden is a traditional aesthetic that is not easy to interpret from a western viewpoint, but the naturalistic aesthetic order of the composition and attention to detail speak loudly of a beautifully designed and built garden. We loved the delicate sound of the water adding a constant accompaniment to the garden.

9. Stoke-on-Trent’s Story of Regeneration

Stoke-on-Trent’s Story of Regeneration, credit: Ashley Penn

Designer: The Landscape Team, Stoke-on-Trent City Council

Construction: Bartholomew Landscaping

Awards: Silver Medal

In this garden the huge green wall forms a backdrop to the water feature of interlocking circular forms. The sinuous forms of the design lend the garden an easy relaxed fluidity, which is slightly marred by the stark cor-ten steel pottery bottle kiln structure, which overly dominates the garden.

8. The Laurent-Perrier Garden

The Laurent-Perrier Garden, credit: Lorenzo Belenguer

Designer: Ulf Nordfjell

Sponsor: Champagne Laurent Perrier

Construction: Crocus.co.uk

Awards: Gold Medal

Marrying the styles of two female landscape designers Nicole de Vesian and Ulla Molin, this garden is a striking combination of irregular clipped shrubs representing the topography of the native homes of Vesian (southern France), and Molin (Sweden).

7. The SeeAbility Garden

The SeeAbility Garden, credit: Ashley Penn

Designer: Darren Hawkes

Construction: The Garden Builders with Wheelbarrow

The SeeAbility garden focuses on sight loss as inspiration for the straight lines and strongly contrasting color palette. Perhaps the contrasting purples of the angelica (Angelica ‘Atropurpurea’) and yellows of the euphobia (Euphorbia characais ‘Wulfenii’ and Euphorbia ‘Martinii’) aren’t to everyone’s personal taste, but we simply love the attention to detail in hard landscape elements like the on-edge slate path and the wall of welded sections of pipe.

6. East Village Garden

East Village Garden, credit: Ashley Penn

Designer: Balston Agius Ltd (Michael Balston and Marie-Louise Agius)

Construction: Willerby Landscapes

Awards: Gold Medal

The design draws conceptually on the London 2012 Olympic Legacy and is reflected in the strong architecture and references to local landmarks. We like the simple clean lines of the forms, many of which echo the larger scale forms of the Queen Elizabeth Park.

5. The M&G Centenary Garden ‘Windows Through Time’

The M&G Centenary Garden ‘Windows Through Time’, credit: Ashley Penn

Designer:  Roger Platts

Construction: Roger Platts, NR Jupp

Awards: Gold Medal

The M&G Centenary Garden is, perhaps surprisingly, the only show garden to have run with the centenary theme. While this manifests in some slightly ‘predictable’ architectural elements, the planting design is of such high quality that this garden is easily warranted its place in our top ten! We particularly love the mix of textures in the neatly clipped spindle (Euonymus alatus ‘Compactus’) next to the soft vertical spires of the foxgloves (Digitalis) and feathery foliage of the grasses (Calamagrostis x arcutiflora ‘Karl Foster’ and C. x ‘Avalanche’).

4. The Wasteland Garden

The Wasteland Garden, credit: Ashley Penn

Designer Kate Gould

Construction: The Team Landscapers

Awards: Gold Medal

We love this show garden for many reasons. Not least of all the depth of thought that has gone into representing the conceptual theme. The didactic theme of the garden seeks to demonstrate how brownfield inner city wastelands have horticultural potential. All materials and elements within the garden can be found on a typical wasteland, and yet have been artfully crafted into a beautiful garden.

3. The RBC Blue Water Roof Garden

The RBC Blue Water Roof Garden, credit: Ashley Penn

Designer: Professor Nigel Dunnett and The Landscape Agency

Construction: Landform Consultants

Awards: Gold Medal

The contrasting circular and rectilinear form of this garden at first glance appear to be unreconciled. It isn’t until you have had time to take it all in that you can appreciate the repetition in form across differing elements of the garden, which bring the whole together as one composition. We particularly love the aesthetic circular hibernacula proving that sustainability can also be beautiful.

2. The Trailfinders Australian Garden 

The Trailfinders Australian Garden, credit: Ashley Penn

Designer: Phil Johnson

Construction: Phil Johnson Landscapes

Awards: Gold Medal, Best in Show

The Australian garden is, without a doubt, an amazing feat of design, engineering, and construction. The garden features a microcosm of Australian habitats centered around a naturalistic billabong, complete with waterfall. The sheer scale of the garden is impressive.

1. The Arthritis Research UK Garden

The Arthritis Research UK Garden, credit: Ashley Penn

Designer: Chris Beardshaw

Construction: Keith Chapman Landscapes

Sponsor: Arthritis Research UK

Awards: Gold Medal

Although this garden did not win ‘Best In Show’ we love it as it works so well on so many levels. Gardens as pieces of artwork can be allegorical and steeped in layers of conceptual meaning. We love this garden as the concept of exploring someone’s personal journey being diagnosed with arthritis. It translates beautifully into a garden that works spatially, conceptually, aesthetically and functionally.

Other articles of interest:

• 100 Years of the Chelsea Flower Show
• The RHS Flower Show 2013
• Chris Beardshaw Interview

While this year the show gardens at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show do not display ostentatious gimmicks or make outlandish design statements, there is a subtle and understated intelligence to many of them. The Trailfinder’s Australian Garden demonstrates exuberant drama in its ecologically sustainable microcosm, while other gardens, like the Arthritis Research UK Garden and the Wasteland Garden, use British native plants to create more subtle effects. One thing you can always count on at Chelsea is that there is something for everyone!

Article written by Ashley Penn

Home garden easy maintenance

Well decorated gardens are a blessing. They not only facilitate but also enhance the beauty of the house.

As this time we have been blessed with the most amazing summers since a long time. Every home that is accompanied by a beautiful garden, the home owners should make the use of this garden to it’s fullest during the pleasant evenings of the summer. While we stay indoors most of the time we should think of garden decor, so that we sit in the garden and enjoy the freshness of nature.

If your garden is still undone get some ideas, plant some flowers and the season related plants in your garden. Or just get a garden decor. If you don’t have enough time then you should spend some money and go to a garden designer who would recommend the perfect garden furniture and garden plants. The well decorated garden is a blessing for winters as well as for summers. You can spend you summer evenings to enjoy the nature in the garden and the winter afternoons under the sun in the garden. Those who don’t have gardens should think of an indoor home garden. They can even get their rooftops converted into a garden. Enjoying the nature is one of the essential essences of life and the best way to cherish this essence of life is by keep a well maintained garden.

All of the people who are free from all the responsibilities of life can now keep a garden. Choose and pick some beautiful garden chairs and place then at the garden center, so that you can then enjoy the fresh air in summers and the mild sunshine in winters. All the grandparents can let the grandchildren lose in the garden and enjoy quality time with them. Besides that, if your home is not cleaned up you can make your guests sit in the garden and enjoy the summer evenings with them. Although a garden enhances the esthetics of you home but it facilitates you as well by making use of the garden during the celebrations on occasions.

Cherish the nature while you celebrate your home gardens. Bring a change in your life with a change in the garden. All the gardeners know what it means to have a garden to celebrate and to play with while experimenting on planting new plants every season.

A produção na construção caiu 0,4% na zona euro, no mês de Agosto. Ao nível da união Europeia a descida foi de 0,4%, face ao mês de Julho.

A produção na construção caiu 0,4% na zona euro, no mês de Agosto. Ao nível da união Europeia a descida foi de 0,4%, face ao mês de Julho. A queda mensal foi de 1,4% e 0,5%, respectivamente, segundos os dados revelados hoje pelo Eurostat. Apesar das quedas verificadas, estes valores são mais animadores que há um ano atrás, quando em Agosto de 2008 a descida era de 1,3 na zona euro e de 11,1% na União Europeia. Em Portugal a situação foi diferente, com os valores da produção no sector da construção a subirem 2% em Agosto face a Julho. A variação mensal tem sido oscilante no país desde Março, tendo a variação homóloga de Agosto sido de apenas -3,0 por cento. Os países europeus a registarem as maiores quedas homólogas em Agosto foram a Roménia (-29%) e a Espanha (-21,1%). A Espanha e a França tiveram a terceira maior queda mensal, com -1,6 por cento em ambos os casos. O sector da construção na zona euro e na UE está em quedas trimestrais consecutivas pelo menos desde o terceiro trimestre do ano passado. As variações homólogas são sempre negativas nesse período.