An important element of the Global Stone Bee Friendly Plants Garden is the tightly clipped hexagonal hedges which enclose the perennial plants. Almost architectural in form, the correct choice of species for the hedge was vital.

In my initial brief submitted to the RHS back in September, I had specified box, knowing that its tight growing form would give me just the effect I was looking for. But the RHS committee were hanving none of it, questioning the sustainabilty of buxus. Back to the drawing board, or actually back onto the phone to Simon Williamson at ReadyHedge in Worcestershire. Simon and I have worked closely on a number of projects involving the creation of instant box parterres, and his suggestion in this case was to use Lonicera nitida, a shrubby honeysuckle. My only real  knowledge of the plant was where it had either been used in a supermarket car park as a filler plant, or as an scruffy overgrown hedge.

I wasn’t convinced.

But Box really was a no-go in this time of sustainability, so Lonicera it was. Mick and I got back on the road, complete with Holly’s trailer, and sped across to Eckington, home of ReadyHedge, to see the plants for ourselves.

Oh, that nursery, it was like being in a sweetie shop for me as a designer. The most amazing , beautifully trained trees, and literally acres of hedging in  1 metre long troughs, laid out and ready to plant for instant impact. Straight away, I began planning a garden to include the table top Hornbeam or Plane trees, you wouldn’t need a pergola, you could just sit under the canopy of foliage enjoying a chilled bottle of Chablis, I was in Heaven!

But back to the serious job, the Chelsea hedges, polytunnels full of them. Despite my early reservations, they looked perfect, deep green in contrast to the copper edging, tightly clipped and structural in form. Mick and I chose the best, 33 troughs in total, lets hope the calculations are correct? The trailer and indeed the rear cab of my truck were filled to bursting, one more tick on the list of things to sort. Lonicera nitida is a really fast growing plant, needing up to 4 trims a year, hence its often unruly appearance. Simon advised that I prune it neatly about 2 weeks before the show, to encourage tight new growth, another item for the ‘to do list’.

Ready hedges!

The hedges made it back safely to Suffolk, and are now sitting safely in my dog’s run in Lavenham, away from marauding rabbits or squirrels, and yes, the dog is living elsewhere. As for the tree, my beautiful Cercis Canadensis ‘Forest Pansy’, well that’s another story.

After spending what seemed like forever narrowing down our wish list of  suitable plants, myself and Holly Cheese of Bee Friendly Plants Ltd met with Howard Plants on a bitterly cold January afternoon. In the capable hands of the two Christines  – Howard and Lancaster -   our precious ‘babies’  would be carefully grown on to reach the peak of perfection for Chelsea week.

When developing a palette of plants for a client, I take into account  a number of existing factors, including the soil type, aspect, and the mood and style that my client wants to evoke,   With a Chelsea garden, to a degree, all of these parameters go out of the window, as what you are creating is in effect a stage set. When writing the brief, which the garden is assessed and judged against, you can chose your soil type, aspect, even the continent that your garden sits on!

What you have to remember is , that whatever the theme of your garden, in our case the plight of the honeybee, the planting has to be specific to that theme, whilst still being aesthetically pleasing, and of course, it must have the wow factor.

The growing popularity of planting areas of wildflowers in gardens does reveal a movement towards protecting wildlife in our own back yards. Away from drama of Chelsea, most gardens have limited space, and some gardeners may be reluctant to sacrifice their pinks or peonies in favour of an unruly patch of swaying grasses. The  design of the  Global Stone Bee Friendly Plants Garden challenges the supposition that ‘wildlife garden’ means ‘wild garden’. Formally laid out, with significant areas of paving, tidy hedging and raised planters the design offers no obvious clue to the garden’s true significance. The attractive plants, with their welcoming simple structures, are full of the highest nutritional value to bees with no compromise to visual impact.  We are hoping that the public will take on board our message that, with carefully selected plant choices, in their own small way they can boost the bee’s chances of survival, particularly in urban situations.

So the choices have been made, and our plants sit hopefully basking in a warm, but not too warm polytunnel in deepest Norfolk. Holly and I plan a visit to check on their progress next week. Howards have a dedicated ‘Chelsea tunnel’,  so I hope to be able to get a bit of insider information as to what my fellow designers see as their key players . Watch this space for a sneak preview of the ‘it’ plants for this year….

Designing and building a garden at Chelsea is all about the planning.I currently have a Plan A, B, C and maybe even a Plan D. As Alan Titchmarsh wrote in this weeks gardening section in The Daily Telegraph, you have to plan for the worst case scenario,

‘ The risk factor is a big part of Chelsea’s allure – success is not a fait accompli for anyone’

Thanks for that Mr T!

OUR plan A is that the various elements of the garden will all be brought together on site , much like a massive jigsaw puzzle, after a dry run in Micks barn! The sandstone paving is currently on a  slow boat from India, with the slate en-route from China.

First glimpse of the paving in the Indian workshop

Once the slate arrives from England, it will be engraved with the chosen quotation by Diss based company, Perfitts. The honeycomb planters are being constructed by Lavenham Joinery. Tubes of Douglas fir will be formed into hexagons, some over 2 metres in height; these are then sandblasted to expose the grain of the wood. Then its off to Mick’s barn, where , in a cost cutting exercise, myself, Paul Hammond , my co-designer and anyone else we can rope in will apply a pale woodstain to further enhance the surface texture of the planters. Oz at the joinery company is also making our zigzagging bench, which appears to hover above the paving with no visible form of support.

Sandblasted douglas fir - the prototype of the honeycomb planters

The copper edging, an addition to our initial plan after we found the garden would have to raised above ground level, is being created by Tom Hitchcock at local Blacksmiths, Gedding Mill Forge. Rather than retain the basic hues of the copper, we have chosen to patinate the metal creating an altogether different finish,  a process which will be undertaken by yet another specialist company.

Tom is also creating the copper bowl which will form part of the hexagonal pool, once set into the hexagonal stone structure also on its way from India.

So, the various pieces are all either under construction, or in transit somewhere in the world. That’s the hard landscaping taken care of, now all I’ve got to worry about is the plants……

Oh, and how to get everything in one piece up to London.

Wednesday 10th March and Mick Gentry, our contractor, and myself traveled up to London to assess the site of the Global Stone Bee Friendly Plants Garden. We were most concerned as to whether the ground would be level, so we went armed with a staff and laser . An uneven site would cause untold problems, particularly as we have been informed by the RHS that there is no excavation permitted in Ranelagh Gardens.  As a consequence, the structure of the garden is going to be built almost like a raised stage set to accommodate the root ball of our tree.

The site - and Mick!

We were led to plot RM 15 by a gardener from the Royal Hospital, and joy of joys, the area allocated to us was, to all intents and purposes,  level! At this point, reality really did set in,  in just over two months, our garden would be sitting in this very spot.