There were fewer show gardens at Chelsea this year. Some take it as an indication of the country’s financial health; it certainly means fewer sponsors. I believe this will be the final shout of the gloriously oofy South Africans who have created The Newt in Somerset and its stylish relatives. That would be very sad. (Their super Newt cider was welcome refreshment on the way round the show). South Africa was represented only too graphically in the Karoo Succulent garden, a grim reminder of how lucky we are to have our rainfall (measly as it has been so far this year). To call this desert a garden was stretching the term.
Trad’s annual prize, keenly contested as ever, goes to a complete contrast, the Japanese tea garden, cool, leafy, not over-flowery. Exceptional maples provided much of the colour (in shades I have never seen in Acer palmatum before); a modest stream falling over rocks the animation. I could imagine myself sitting with a book all day in its tranquillity. I had to be reminded that this is not precisely the point of Chelsea.
I was baffled, though, to be told that Monty Don’s very pretty, if not exceptional, garden was designed by his dog. It’s an intriguing idea, recently carried to an extreme by someone we know who, having bought a conventional London terrace house, stripped out all the floors and internal walls and hired a ballet dancer to make his way, via ropes and ladders, down to the basement, carrying with him a ball of red wool to record his exact route. The point of it escapes me, but it led to a steel circular stair being installed. A noisy thing.
In my experience dogs are unpredictable, taking the shortest route to whatever attracts their nose. Repton would scarcely have accepted this as a basis for garden design.
