The plants are the stars – hopefully

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….