Chelsea Flower Show 2021

After a two year wait, I was finally able to attend the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London. I was able to do this with the support of a grant from the National Education Association (NEA) received in 2020. The 2020 show was cancelled entirely and the 2021 show was postponed until the fall which meant the gardens my students and I had studied over the years would look a little different than the ones finally constructed at this fall's show. Before leaving, we discussed how the designers might manage keeping the same look of their proposed gardens, initially planned for the spring show, for a fall show. As of this point, we had only the submitted garden drawings from spring to help indicate what we could expect. A spring design and fall design will look completely different with very different plantings, but still, the landscapes needed to be constructed as submitted. Too, how would the focus of the gardens incorporate what we'd all been through during quarantine?

Certainly the show would acknowledge how gardening and self-sufficiency integrated itself into so many of our lives in this unique time.

This 2021 show would be the first time in the history of the Chelsea Flower Show that it would be held in the fall. Instead of spring flowers, we anticipated seeing gardens filled with salvias, asters, dahlias, grasses, fruits, and vegetables. We expected the gardens to provide us with direction on sustainable landscape design, as promised by the initial 2020 focus on sustainable landscapes. But how, we wondered, would the focus on human physical,mental,and communal health be encouraged through creating interactions with the indoor and outdoor natural environments humans connect in?

We looked forward to the new category of gardens, balcony gardens, a nod to how city dwellers have dealt with the confinements of COVID, using any outdoor space as a retreat and source of nourishment. Something many of my students have enjoyed doing over the last few years in confine. Too, my students and I have spent the last few years creating habitats for pollinators and we looked forward to seeing a big focus on creating gardens that support wildlife via native plantings. Landscapes that focus on edibles and conservation gardening has also been a focus of ours, so we looked forward to the gardens showcasing a preference for edibles and medicinals over plants that are simply aesthetic.

Accessible gardening was also something I went looking for.A big focus of our 2020 school year was trying to understand how to make our school gardens accessible to ALL of our visitors. The Guide Dogs 90th Anniversary Garden taught me so much! I had a great interview with this designer. Another focus of our school gardens has been on how to create sustainable land design, designing landscapes that solve local problems such as stormwater, waste, and pollution. I was excited to see that most all of the feature and show gardens focused on solving the complicated relationship between urban growth and our need for healthy green space, places that provide a place for humans to reconnect with nature while allowing nature to help correct the problems we have created.

Once being accepted, show Gardens are built from scratch in 19 days and dismantled in 5 days. Over 2,000 tons of earth is moved in preparation for the show. This year the garden categories included Feature Gardens (3), Show Gardens (6), Sanctuary Gardens(6), Artisan Gardens (2), Balcony Gardens (5), and Container Gardens (5). I'll cover a few of my favorites in each category in this blog. I was also able to catch a few of the designers while looking at their gardens. There won't be much writing in this post as most of what you'd want to know about the gardens will be provided using images of the show book, garden pamphlets, show signage ,and our video clips (me sweet friend Shelley Gay joined me).

Disclaimer - video and images are very raw and unedited. If we had photos or pamphlets - we included those images. We don't claim to be a production company. Some videos take a minute to load and refreshing the page often helps. For the best overview of these gardens and professional production efforts the only place to go is the BBC coverage of the show done over several episodes before and throughout the show. I include the first below. They also did a great 2021 Virtual Show which provides a great preview of what we saw come to life this fall on the grounds of the Royal Hospital Society. Enjoy!

Chelsea Feature Gardens

Queen's Green Canopy Garden

The BBC One Show and RHS Garden of Hope

Chelsea Show Gardens

Bodmin Jail: 60 Degrees East - A Garden Between Continents

Bodmin wins a Silver!

The Florence Nightingale Garden

Guangzhou China: Guangzhou Garden

This garden wins the Gold!

See how this garden was inspired by the city it is named after by looking at images of Guangzhou China. This garden hopes to inspire city dwellers and park designers to live with nature as opposed to pushing nature aside as cities expand and industry grows.

Chelsea Sanctuary Gardens

Bible Society: The Psalm 23 Garden

Finnish Soul Garden

Each rock, every plant, was imported into the show and put in place over the course of the short install period.

A real working sauna!

You can see the designer in black and white. We had a wonderful interview with her which was lost - so sad!

Finding Our Way

The Calm of Bangkok

The Boodles Secret Garden

A perfect way for me to experience one of my favorite movies!

Chelsea Balcony Gardens

The Landform Balcony Garden

This garden was inspired by early modernistic architecture and, alongwith making a nice place for owner to relax, bright colored flowers bring in honey, bumble and solitary bees. Look for the statue which serves as the focal point of the garden. Again, this garden welcomes pollinators.

Green Sky Pocket Garden

Designer James Smith uses every bit of space (even the roof) to grow herbs,and other edible plants.

Arcadia

Reclaimed doors and timber mix with exotic plants and red earth to provide a sense of wonder and escape. Notice the idealized English landscape painted on the back wall and layers of lush green plants culminating in the tall yucca and pomegranate tree. Framed by vines, what a wonderful swing to sit in and enjoy visits from bees and butterflies as they come in to check out the flowering grasses.

Balcony of Blooms

Sky Sanctuary

Michael Coley builds a practical space people can recreate on their own balconies.

Artisan Gardens

Blue Diamond Forge

Guide Dogs 90th Anniversary Garden

Chelsea Show Gardens

The Stolen Soul

The Hot Tin Roof

Pop Street Garden

A special shout out included here for Daphne High School!

A Tranquil Space in the City

The IBC Pocket Forest

There are also over 100 exhibits in the Great Pavilion and show grounds predominantly from nurseries and florists, and over 250 shopping stands. These are covered in another post.