Chelsea Flower Show 2010

Blog Chelsea 2010

The aim of this blog is to chart the development and planning stage leading upto the Chelsea flower Show 2010. This is my second garden at the show so I am feel a lot more confident about what to expect. But, Chelsea being Chelsea there is always going to be drama along the way.

Background:
Last year was my first garden. It was a 7X5M urban garden that involved a lot of structural engineering. My aim was to create a very natural and fast flowing torrent of water in a small modern space. I decided that to maximise the surface area I would suspend a piece of glass above the stream, or inorder to create a seating area that connected the user to the flow of water. It was great fun and we pulled it off – even though we only had 10 days to get it built. 5 days later my partner, Ally, gave birth to our new baby, Milo.

Moving forward 9 months and we’re building another garden. I had almost given up on the idea of building another show garden in 2010 as I had not had the time to contact any companies to ask if they would be interested in sponsoring another project.

However, 2 weeks before deadline date the RHS called saying that BrandAlley, an online fashion company were interested in discussing staging another Urban Garden and that they had liked my work last year. I was of course delighted with the news and arranged a meeting to meet with the marketing team.

After we had set a brief I set about designing the garden. This was a challenge as I had spent months in 2009 refining my design. This time I had 2 weeks!!!!

My approach to garden making is to combine modern and simple design with very earthy, natural landform. My show gardens are often quite raw and challenging. On a domestic level this freedom is watered down. I started to think about the market position of BrandAlley who describe themselves as “fashions’ best kept secret”. I liked the idea of creating a garden with mystery. Perhaps a lush and colouful enclosure surrounded by wilderness. I soon decided that the 7×5M garden was too small to create such a space.

I also looked at fashion designers – trends in pattern and colour. Marc Jacobs had created a cubic garden dress. Ally was very excited as she loves his clothes and hoped to get a few freebies.

My interest started to focus on pattern. Pattern in the landscape can be related to pattern in fabric. Dutch tulip fields and fields viewed from afar all make a patchwork of different tones and colour. I also looked at fabric viewed under an electron microscope to get to the base level of fashion. Wool fibres jostling for position which reminded my of Anthony Gormely’s terracotta army.