Very interesting to hear your input. I don't know if there is much coverage here...I haven't really heard much, but I didn't know about this show til about a year ago - when I got really serious about roses.

There must be some amazing roses there. It does seem very over the top. The Las Vegas of rose shows possibly? :-) I wonder if it was like that originally - did it lose it's intent over the years?

Well there are roses - Peter Beales has had a display in the floral marquee for many years but, roses have been fairly unfashionable (ha!) of late and rarely feature in the show gardens.

I'm probably the wrong person to comment on this because if I had that much money to splash around it would go to help the environment and animal shelters. I believe it was last year someone from the forum attended it and posted many pictures. Hardly any of the exhibits to me merited even a fraction of that amount of money, but then I'm a proponent of the natural look and there was precious little of that. To spend that much money for something so ephemeral seems almost obscene to me. We have a TV reality show here called "Platinum Weddings" where couples spend up to a million dollars on a one-day affair and I watch it to be horrified (okay, I enjoy the bling a little too) and daydream how that money could be spent on something worthwhile. I suppose we just have to live and let live and protest by staying far away.

Ingrid

It does sound bad, especially given dire economic situation, people out of work, etc. - it also sounds tacky...

Laura

Roses unfashionable? Hard for me to believe, but then again, I'm a roseaholic. :-)

I enjoyed the show enormously the only time I went, the whole atmosphere as much as the show gardens. I preferred the cottage style gardens to the innovative gardens although they probably required more water than the rock, steel and plastic gardens. I liked to be among gardeners, relaxed and polite people who let everybody have a look, made way for wheel chairs, etc. I am sorry to say that isn't always so in Sweden. The whole thing was so well organised that I didn't tire even after 7 hours of walking and looking. Hardly any queues anywhere. I went on a members' day, don't know if it made any difference.

We get a bit of coverage here, usually post factum when local TVs buy some English TV program about it. I think it is "more money than brains" kind of thing really, with all those expensive displays, people who can't get attention to their creation by it being special, try to get enough press coverage by being expensive - might be oki'sh PR strategy, but gardening wise it is pointless.

Then again, I tend to avoid all official touristic must-see like a plague and I have a feeling, at least here in NL, that some of the flower shows became catered for the tourist audience rather than a gardener. There is too much generic big stuff done to impress the masses, so it all gets that "made in China" cheap stuff feel at times.

mariannese, glad you got to go without the scrum (members days are much less crowded than the rest of the week)and there is still much to commend it - the floral marquees are stunning. However, most of the attention is paid to the dozen or so big show gardens, at least one of which will have been contructed on a much smaller budget - usually one of the prison gardens. Occasionally, a talented newcomer from one of the horticultural colleges or with independent sponsorship will emerge, often in the smaller garden sections. At Wisley, the main RHS garden, there is a show garden on display which was prizewinning in 2004. My son and I went to Wisley in 2006 and were utterly appalled at the absolute horror of this same show garden. A nightmare of flaking blue decking, a huge white canvas sail, thick with mould and pidgeon poo and the planting was the most dismal I believe I have ever seen in a garden open to the public. A sad row of 10 half dead festucas lined out next to more flaking timber, repeated 6 times? - clearly, the whole effort was utterly unsustainable, never meant to last even a season, and was merely a cheap set piece of style (I suppose, if you had NO taste, wit or eyes, even)without the merest whiff of substance. I suppose the nearest thing would be Damian Hirst or Jeff Koons 'conceptual' art but it really seems as though the emperor's clothes have gone astray again. Ingrid, it does make you seethe really, doesn't it.

Years ago my mother, who lived to garden, asked me if I wanted to go to the Chelsea garden show that year, I said "I'd be thrilled" while wondering how she would get tickets as the show was happening within a couple of months of her asking me. It sold out as I expected and I haven't been there yet, and considering the crowds, now being older and infirm probably would not wish to go. I'd still like to see Kew again, and also Montisfont which I missed in my travels to the U.K..
Why the waste of money at the Chelsea garden show? Arn't the structures at Chelsea, which cost so much money, temporary structures?
I wish a medal might be given for the best ecological garden display, using recycled products,
In a perfect world any money that was saved past average spending, might be given to charity, for retired impoverished gardeners and to preserve plants at risk for extinction. Just a dream...

Lux

Yep its sad, sad, sad. 10 million could vaccinate a lot of kids, prevent a lot of malaria, and you could still visit beautiful gardens already in existance...

Happy though to hear that not all of the complete insanity in the world is confined to the US of A.

I'll be posting some photos of that lavish garden feast, soon.

While I think that this is an interesting bit of information worth a discussion, also in terms of whether and in how far Chelsea reflects and reinforces certain habits and politics of the more powerful members in this class society, I still can't quite follow the urgent moral outcry.

I honestly think that there are much and many more important issues of waste - in every sense, and in many areas, including our gardens - to decry than Chelsea. It may or may not be a small symbol for perhaps lamentable socio-economic-political-environmental-you-name-it-developments, but no more than that. Now let's just hope that they won't use blood diamonds. I'll let you guys know.

Cheers,
Andrea

Chelsea as Campanula describes it is just one expression of one of the world's current major problems: too much wealth in the hands of too few people. I've never been to Chelsea but imagine there would be plenty to see for a curious gardener, as well as plenty of tiresomeness. Temporary display gardens as I've see them in photographs and, rarely, live, never did much for me; perhaps because, like Campanula, I'm too sensitive to their artificiality to appreciate anything good in the project. Avant-garde projects in particular leave me cold.
I think originality is overrated. To invent with the idea in the forefront of one's mind of making something different from anything ever seen before, which is the impression a lot of modernist gardens give me, is to aim at a quality that lacks intrinsic value. A good garden grows out of the gardener's sense of what's beautiful, out of his or her means--money, time, and talent--and out of the characteristics of the garden site: landscape, soil, weather. My garden is distinct and original, but not because I'm trying to make it so. On the contrary, I don't care whether it's like anyone else's garden or different from them all; that's not the impulse that spurs me. Instead, I'm trying to realize my own idea of what is beautiful, without comparing it to other models either for similarity or for difference.
Melissa

I think that this is complex topic, and certainly one worth thinking and talking about.

What Chelsea is, is an exposition of national, and also international, craft and creativity, like all other expositions in the history of the western world. And as such, it is a symbol of national, and international prowess, and also of international collaboration and competition, and the many other good and bad things that come with it. It is meant to inspire the industry and the consumers, or people, to go beyond what they have done and achieved so far. There's always a notion of progress. New roses, new gardening designs. Remember that such expositions are also important fuel to the industry and thus economy, which also includes jobs.

And in all these regards such expositions are no waste, whether you agree with the ways they produce an image of British, Danish, Italian, bourgois, proletarian, royal, communist, capitalist, jungle, desert or whatever gardening.

Ask yourself, why is one way categorically better than the other? Why is display of a wealthy garden bad and a display of a frugally created or scarce garden good? Is the use of those quite expensive roses more morally suspect than the display of flowering weeds, forgive me, annuals and perennials, or ornamental or even plain grasses? Because of the current economic situation? Or our political views?

Doesn't such an exposition also offer the opportunity to review such different approaches (and yes, they are different, I've been there) to gardening and form or change a personal opinion? Or even funnel it into a political/ecological movement? That's also inspiration, so go for it!

Sidenote: there's a lot to be said for pluralism, but not for orthodoxy of any kind.

To take this a bit further: what's the difference of this 'waste' to that of the countless (and rather fantastic) parks and gardens in this country (UK)? Shouldn't our money, tickets and taxes, go to 'better' use?

And even further: what about the waste in musuems that purchase art for, well, a lot more than what poor Chelsea costs. Why and how do we care about about art and culture?

There's a reason why the complex meanings of national and international expositions, and with it national and international art and culture, have long attracted the attention of historians. These things do have a way of interesting most interestingly with politics and economics.

Btw, if you want to mobilize public outrage for the scrapping of cultural and national symbols to reinvest the money elsewhere, why not start with, please forgive me, one of the biggest tax wasters in this country, the British monarchy, with all their palaces, gardens, and parks. I'll be first in line.

Greetings from a class society,
Andrea

I happen to love the Chelsea flower show. It is part of British tradition and I love that. It is the Superbowl of gardening. It is also a forum to display current gardening trends. If fashion and sports can have their big events, why can't gardening?

Andrea, I for one am looking forward to your posting of this years show. Please don't forget to show us everything like you did last year. :)

Juliet

Perhaps, word waste is too harsh, I think about it more as a pointless vanity.

I can't recall in what TV show it was, but there was a situation in one of the typical cooking TV shows, when one competing cook made a salad with truffle mushrooms and the judge commented that, besides it being a truffle, an expensive ingredient, it does not really add anything to the salad and if you ignore it as an ingredient, it is just a very plain salad.

I think sometimes this sort of thing happens to the art and gardening displays - minus some ingredient X which makes it to sound fancy, it is just a very plain piece of art/garden.

Well I wonder if the RHS has scored something of an own goal. Whilst facing rather frightening financial repercussions of the last few years, I do think that many members of the public may also be outraged by the insane sums of money - the most extravagant gardens are generally sponsored by banks (Ha!), insurance and other financial services and therefore reviled by all except their mums.
On a personal level, the whole concept of show gardens is a bit weird for me - they have no longevity, no history, no seasons, so they don't really make me that excited. Some of them are surprisingly shabbily made( well, understandable, I guess, since they have to build them so quickly). The floral marquees are gorgeous if you just like to look at plants (and I do) but it is crowded, busy , expensive. Will probably watch (and rant) on TV though - when it comes down to it, we gardeners are so keen on anything horticultural that we will put up with a lot of discomfort in the hope of seeing some fabulous plant.

Thanks, Juliet.

I'll meet a couple of friends from the US at the show on Thursday, but I'll still try to get a photo 'reportage' together.

If my poor commoner self had been able to get a ticket for the VIP Monday at the show, I swear I would work hard to get that ultimate shot of, say, Britain's new Prime Ministers Cameron and Clegg bowing to the Prince of Wales who is holding a most lavish bouquet of very English (not immigrant!) bluish and yellow roses in front of David Austin's gold-medal show display which is crowned by, uhm, a blood-diamond studded HBOS (floundered and rescued British bank group, if you didn't know) sign. That would say it all, wouldn't it? No? No.

Garden and flower shows have no History and are thus not valuable cultural products? Hm. As a historian, I have to say that something 'having history' is not necessarily an ethically commendable quality at all, while it certainly can be ennobling. After all, it's hard to argue against the fact that even this lovely country with all its riches, its splendid gardens, country houses and palaces - and Crown Jewels - has made its fortunes, and thus a good chunk of its history, on the backs and lives of a deprived working class and colonized peoples (including those in America, ha), in other words: by exploitation. So that doesn't get too much reverence from me. History does not have an innate quality.

However, as it turns out, for better or worse (!!), flower and garden shows have actually plenty of history. Unless you belong to that special group (Britons, perhaps) for whom nothing is history unless it's at least 795 years old, or say, in order to include Shakespeare, a famous queen and a couple of royal gardens, let's be generous and make that 400 years or so. But wait! That would nearly include these unruly American colonies, and by extension their wretched republic, so that can't be a measure since every European, and Briton, knows that America does not have history, not at all. Hm. Wait - maybe that's why they (still) rule the world! Thus, it's actually good not to have history! Just like the garden-shows don't have any! Innovative spirit rules! Off with those shackles of history that are just meant to keep feeding the parasitic aristocracy and, oh wait, uhm, .. bankers. Never mind. How did we get here? Back to topic.

The RHS started their flower/garden exhibits in the 1830s, Chelsea started in the first few years of the 1900s. Longevity in gardens, shows and politics has as much innate quality as history, none. Can be good, can be bad. How about change and renewal? That's what exhibits and shows are about, in part. Hey, and why are shabby garden displays now bad? I thought that posh garden displays are bad? No? Ok (although I haven't seen anything shabby last year).

Remember, these are not gardens and are meant to be judged by different standards. They are images of ideas, shows, they are exhibits, expositions (see my post above), all shortlived, exciting, and high on fertilizer and adrenalin! A communal celebration, a big feast. For some, anyway. For others it's just crowded. Which it is. Expensive? Well, you can get a ticket for about 20 pounds. That's not so bad at all. However, unless you walk and bring your own, you're likely to spend a lot more on public transport, food and drink. Now that's good for the economy! Maybe.

No worries, believe it or not, I sympathize with some of your underlying political sentiment, even if I disagree on condemning a gardening and flower show on such grounds. I guess you've read Adorno on mass culture and capitalism? Anyway, we shouldn't target those jewels at Chelsea, but go for the ones in the Tower! Wait, maybe that's exactly what a well-behaved British person won't do, after all. Hence, the mess. ;-)

Andrea

Out of curiosity, how does the Chelsea flower show compare with the Hampton Court flower show, and how do these compare with the Floriade show in the Netherlands? Has anyone been to that one? I just think it would be interesting to see them all.

Floriade is held every 10 years, the next will be in 2012 in Venlo (city in which it is held is different each time). There are a few annual events, for example Keukenhof, which takes place from end of March till mid May, in the bulb flowering season, flower parade, etc. It is usually nice, although very crowded and more aimed at lifestyle rather than the innovation/history of gardening/plants per se.

ah no, andrea - I am not talking about History as some grand cultural, social and political pageant but about the passing of time as a garden evolves and plants fill their alloted spaces, overflowing, changing but definately evolving. Change and renewal are also a part of longevity - that is, a garden which has potential to thrive over time. As I have learnt more about horticulture, I have found myself less willing to push zones, grow strange and difficult exotics or sacrifice all space for a single short period of perfection. I am impressed by gardens which engage with the local vernacular, work within a possibly restricted framework of climate considerations, soil types, community use and, of course, financial budgets. A garden where the momentary aesthetic appearance trumps issues of sustainability or best horticultural practice, rarely moves my spirit. Moroever, by shabby, I mean badly constructed , using unsuitable or environmentally suspect materials. As a builder and designer, form and function are intimately connected - no matter how pleasingly proportioned your thatch roof is, if it leaks, it is not good. However, you are correct in emphasising the fact that the gardens at Chelsea need to be judged by entirely different criteria as they really are not gardens but artistic spectacles, fantasy, aspiration and so on. They exist in a strange contextual vacuum so time and space are essentially irrelevant and to some extent, making a moral judgement represents a sort of category error but, as you point out, controversy is brilliant for stimulating fertile debate. However naive or misplaced it might seem, criticising a blameless spectacle which gives joy to many, these uncomfortable questions regarding waste, allocation of resources, environmental desecration,exploitation and injustice, need to be honestly examined.

I can only agree that the Royal Family (how I hate using capitals as though they are deities) are a monumental waste of time....but, they also bring in huge revenue, create some dubious status, employ vast armies and are a valid, if odious, representation of British (or at least English) culture.

On a more facile level, it does strike me as totally astounding that £10million can be spent on a few dozen square metres of ground. I am imagining platinum pergolas, jewel encrusted sculptures. I will await the unveiling with some scepticism, I'm afraid. And will, no doubt, have completely unobjective views on what I consider good or bad.

The annual Philadelphia Flower Show is probably the closest we Yanks come to staging an event comparable to Chelsea. The Philadelphia show has certainly changed over the years, with many preposterous exhibits & outre horticultural extravaganzas that couldn't possibly be replicated in the home garden -- even if the gardener had pockets deep enough to attempt them.

Altho much of it is over-the-top, I always leave the show with loads of information on exciting new cultivars, gardening products to consider, etc. And there is the inevitable chance encounter with a total stranger who is obsessed with a given species. I've learned MUCH from those encounters, and have remained in touch with some of those obsessed folk for quite a number of years.

got it wrong - top spend this year - 20mill. quote from 'designer' - this is a garden for a flashy young lady who like things to be expensive and shiny. Right - a great cultural exposition of art and craft - or a disgusting festival of tackiness and consumerism - you decide.

Campanula, your mention of the Royal Family bringing in loads of revenue reminds of an article I read which stated this to be a complete misconception and actually placed them at the bottom of the list of attractions that bring tourists to England. And, really, when was that last time you heard anyone say they'd gone to England to see the Queen? (I rather like her though; with all the shoddy happenings around her, she's managed to retain an immense amount of dignity and composure.)

Ingrid

campanula, but maybe we can see it just as a fashion in garden/show garden design? You now, now they use word lifestyle in so many contexts that I don't know anymore what that term means - and that "flashy young lady who like things to be expensive and shiny" sounds just like yet another "lifestyle" phrase. I suppose we will see if the gems are awe inspiring, or it is just another 20 mil. worth of fail. ;)

Now that would be symbolic, wouldn't it, in the context of all the financial crisis, if the most expensive garden would be a failure, due to the talentless and overpaid CEO... ups... designer? :D

Ok, then let's go for the Crown Jewels and bring on the republic (or at least a reformed parliamentary and voting system where every vote counts)!

Back to topic, for everyone's interest, the Gold awards for rose exhibits went to:

David Austin Roses
Harkness Roses
Peter Beales Roses

Congratulations to them all!

Here are a couple of links to Peter Beales's newsflash about their awards and new roses and to their blog on their build-up for Chelsea, nice photos, nice people (and roses).

http://www.classicroses.co.uk//mailouts/mailout20100525_chelseagold/

http://www.classicroses.co.uk/view/newss/rhs-chelsea-flower-show-2010/

And here's a link to the Chelsea Show. I quite like what it shows from the Best Show Garden, the Daily Telegraph Garden (no roses, alas). I'll be at Chelsea on Thursday, and it'll take me a few days to process the pictures before I can post them here.

Andrea

I prefer a depraved and corrupt monarchy, a Parliament full of crooks and cheats, a middle class of obese louts and their boring little wives in anoraks and wellies pretending to grow vegetables, and a working class unemployed, sodden with drink and animal fats and with no thoughts higher than the football World Cup.

That's the way the country is, should be, and always has been. Republic? Do you *really* want to end up like America?

A corrupt and unequal society makes for great gardens :)

*Burp*

Best wishes
Jon

Uhm, I think there are more choices than your former colony across the Atlantic!

How about that German republic of mine, where indeed every vote counts! Look at it, you'd get the package complete with the world famous German beer with Reinheitsgebot, fantastic football games (rejoice, Britons, Germans are now now left without their injured national team captain Ballack), colorful Kordes roses along the no-speed limit Autobahnen which are densely populated by the best cars in the world, all of it in a significantly drier continental climate, in most parts at least. It still doesn't tempt you, not even for a vacation? Admittedly, Germany can neither match Britain's colorful parliamentary rhetoric and lack of a written constitution, nor its count of terribly old and fabulously rotten buildings, and, goodness, there's no Chelsea Flower Show either. But Germans can actually afford to live in their plain and slightly boring democracy, and for that they don't have to be related to some blue-blooded Eton-educated pompous lord in the House of Lords. Or such a PM. Oops.

Greetings from the lovely British isles with the most beautiful gardens and roses,
Andrea

Thanks for making my point, Andrea :) The whole object of any political system is to create fabulously rotten buildings, great gardens and roses - and who can doubt we excel at this? Efficiency and logic are the Great Enemies!

Jon

aaaah, jon, a romantic! And hey, Andrea, Germany also leads europe in radical green politics, houses are still made to high standards, architecture and technology - brilliant. So yep, I would go for boring, dull, logic any day but then, as one of the bottom 20 percent in terms of earning, living in a state owned house, with my allotments, also council owned, I guess I am feeling considerable anxiety at the heartless politics which seem to be the only game in town. But then, we do always have plants which are, for the pleasure they give, astonishingly cheap, sometimes only a packet of seed - blimey, even free, especially when you live down the road from a brilliant botanical gardens.
Am truly hoping the £20mill garden does not get a medal - it looks tacky and nasty beyond belief. Some gorgeous umbellifers though - must have!

I checked Chelsea site and the gardens they put up for voting for the public. I don't know, maybe I am missing some component (like fragrance) looking at it online, but I found most of the gardens to be rather dull. I liked a few, but majority look rather generic and seen before.

I am curious though, which exactly is that expensive one?

it is one of the urban gardens called diamond life - david domoney, gah!

Ah the one with the shining blob chair thingie, rather meh indeed.

I guess I should find a way to sell mine overgrown chives for, lets say, a million. It looks as good as those alliums over there. ;)

Thanks for the link, Andrea! I especially liked the video on David Austin roses.

Looking forward to your analysis of the show and the photos you will be taking.

About the controversy on this thread, despite some displays that may be questionable, there is much beauty and inspiration to be had at Chelsea. It's all a matter of what one chooses to focus on.

Juliet

Good, Jon. Now I still have to figure out whether I prefer beautiful roses or fast cars, someone else's parks and palaces or a modern house for myself ... tough choice.

Campanula, I hear you. Our childminder lives in a council house, and we often chat especially about local politics and such. I have learned quite a bit from her. And I agree on what you say. Btw, why don't you swing by and relieve my roses from their rampant growth by taking some cuttings, perhaps later this summer after their first flush?

See, elemire takes already inspiration from Chelsea, turning her overgrown chives into big bucks/quid.

Juliet, I haven't even seen the DA video, haven't had any time for checking back on the Chelsea links today. I guess I'm now under pressure to produce a socio-political photo commentary. Oh my.

Andrea

oh andrea - no no, go and have a fabulously hedonistic time, any more political moaning herewith dismissed. Cambridge is a weird and fabulous anomaly though? Do you like it?. Meanwhile, I will use copious mouthwash to get rid of any sour grapes. The BBC coverage has rare glimpses of loveliness and interest - foxgloves! Roy Lancaster, pinks and proteas...and at least one of the large gardens has some beautiful roses. Unreasonable amounts of footage given over to buffoonery - Die Joe Swift And cuttings - you bet. (no-one is nosier than a northern woman though). I have not seen the DA vid either but I did see a brief flash of a new rose....but I think it was named after a bloody royal!

Oh no Andrea, that's not inspiration from Chelsea, that's what I call a proper integration to the Dutch society. ;)

Although I am still far away from the masters. Some time ago I met a woman in her 70ties, who runs a web shop all by herself, selling all sorts of buttons for clothing worldwide - that's the spirit! Hehe, seriously, word crisis should translate into Dutch "there is cheap stuff over there". :D

Spent an interesting few hours there on Monday...

Chelsea on Monday morning

Yep, I'm on my way!!!

Our college sometimes gets the one or other royal to come to the feasts, Princess Alexandra for instance. She was nice and pleasant, what can I say. DA also named a rose, a very nice one at that, after her. This time it's Princess Anne, I think. O well.

Here are some videos of the show gardens, this time from the Guardian, see below.

I'll check out Kevin's link (are you press or VIP?) when I come back!

Andrea

Thank you, Andrea and Kevin from Ireland! One of my favorite places on Earth. I would love to see photos from your Irish garden, Kevin. Life is too short to miss out on the beauty of flowers. Long live The Chelsea Flower Show!

Juliet

A look at the Peter Beales exhibit once more confirmed my belief that roses by themselves, no matter how stunning, are boring and indigestible at the same time. I've seen some exceptions, especially in gardens that have a green backdrop and where there are many different rose classes, with ramblers and climbers, and where the individual bushes are huge and dramatic, but overall......

Jon's analysis of England is breathtaking. I've only spent ten hours in London, but have read many hundreds of English mystery novels, most of which seem very realistic in their background detail, and there is a 100% correlation with his remarks. The saving graces are the love of animals and gardening which is I think no small matter as it shows that essential connection to nature without which I think we are lost.

Ingrid