So, first thing to remember about this post, is that it was built back in 2003, and was my first ever time working at the Chelsea flower show. Back then I was still learning basic building skills at the age of 21. I was employed at this time by a local landscaping company, and my time at the show was split between 2 gardens. One more thing to remember is that I took all of these pictures on my “state of the art” 1.2mp camera, that had a very impressive internal memory, capable of holding nearly 20 photographs. The garden was designed by the very talented Julian Dowle. I have failed to find anybody as good as Julian at the old traditional garden designs. It really is an art, to build something from scratch, and make it appear as if it had been there for a century or more. But this is something we had done before, and continued to do with great effect. The design had a traditional English country cottage as the main focal point. This was build from scratch using proper stone, reclaimed doors and windows, and reclaimed roofing tiles. It even had a smoke machine plumbed up to the chimney which was wired up to a timer. The building was in its entirety, unlike other we have done that usually doesn’t have a back wall. The front of the garden had a stream running through, with a lovely stone pedestrian hump back bridge over the top. To the side of the building, was a vintage phone box and post box that was built onto the building. All pathways were built from Yorkshire cobbles, and reclaimed worn Yorkshire stone flagstones. All pointed up with moss that had been grown for the show.
It was all planted with traditional perennial flowers, a handful of structural trees and a lovely meadow turfed area. The overall design and build was one of the very best I have been involved in. Not only did Julian win his 10th gold medal at Chelsea flower show, but won BBC’s peoples choice award. This is where the public vote on there favourite garden of the show. As always, the amount of hard work that goes into these gardens is staggering. 3 weeks to build all of this from a small flat peace of grass. So 16-18 hour days were common practice, and the heartbreaking thing about these gardens, is that they are admired for 4 days, and then all dismantled. Even so, when we look back at the show gardens we have done, it’s very nice to think so many people have admired our work, and the publicity on tv, and newspapers etc, is always nice to see.
As usual, any questions, throw them at me, I will answer them as soon as possible. However, I am currently very busy at work as we are about to get hit by our 2nd Heavy storm in 2 weeks in the UK, so we’ve been busy replacing damaged fences, and making peoples property’s secure.
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Aw this was so good! What a beauty!
Thanks @michellpiala