The not so good, the bad & the downright ugly

 

Now I do know that Chelsea is old hat, but I had started to write this, just didn’t finish in reasonable time. Despite that I now reveal the bits of Chelsea that were not my cup of tea, or indeed my glass of wine come to that! Dear reader, ignore this if you have had enough.

So, my first question is would you want to sit in your beautifully designed garden enjoying an early evening aperitif with the setting sun throwing its dyeing rays on ….. half a naked torso! I mean what for? And not only one but lots of body parts poking their way into your petunias, buttocks in your begonias & as for your tithonias…….

      

I guess it may be for some, but not me.

So, to other things which definitely did not rock my boat. I guess the first are the crowds but you get used to them, practise the Chelsea Shuffle & employ PATIENCE!

This lumpy path is supposed to represent difficulties at the beginning of ‘the journey’ in the Cancer Research UK Garden. I am not sure why everything has to be a journey these days but I for one would not be tempted to start it with the thought that i might twist my ankle on the way!

 

I first saw this wall & pots in Andy Sturgeon’s Daily Telegraph garden from the side & at the time thought they just looked so solid & lumpy amongst all the planting & soaring steel. It looked completely different from the front view.

And this paving was just too fussy; I rather liked the curves that had been cut into it but not into such intricate inter-locking slabs.

 

 

The very frothy planting in the M&G Garden was loved by many, it did become the People’s Favourite after all, but my initial reaction was too fussy & frothy so the structure was a bit lost amongst a mass of roses & I was not keen on the stone roses either!

Another garden which I thought was overly busy too was Kazahana where the planting seemed to detract from the beautiful, almost sculptural moss.

  The Light & Colours of the Alps garden did nothing for me.

  I was enjoying the Pine & Conifer Enthusiast Garden & thinking that perhaps they could make attractive gardens until I saw these silly miniature trees at the back. Yuk!

Ace of Diamonds – more yuk!

Actually, I am really only being very picky about small things as I did love most of the gardens very much. It is just I have this very practical nature so whilst I adored the pillows of box beside the pool in the Laurent-Perrier Garden, I couldn’t help thinking that it would make a mess in the pool when they were being clipped. And sometimes the concept of the garden detracts from my enjoyment of it as a ‘proper’ garden.

Whatever my views are I really do admire the designers & everyone else involved in producing the gardens in the time they have.

That’s more than can be said for some of the things on sale at Chelsea which I assume  the sellers feel would enhance our outside spaces!!