We successfully poured the concrete for the base of the water feature in the Telegraph garden. It may not sound important but it’s really important to quickly establish a base from which to work. The weather has been good to us over the last couple of days so we have tried to make the most of it. Cleve spent most of the day on site and got stuck in helping Bamber Wallis installing the pipes for the water. Over the next couple of days we hope to start building the water feature walls.

You could be forgiven for mistaking our pipework going into the Laurent-Perrier garden for some major new installation by Thames Water but you would be wrong. It’s actually Andrew Ewing’s water feature being installed. The challenge is that Luciano wants to have a substantial flow of water down the central channel and to achieve this we need a significant amount of water as well as pumps.

We successfully met our deadline of 5.00pm last night to prepare everything ready for the concrete lorries late yesterday evening. The teams worked hard to get everything ready and, with the weather holding off, we have made a good start. The first delivery of trees for the Laurent-Perrier garden arrived from the Crocus nursery this morning and Graham will start planting these this afternoon. Luciano came to see how everything was coming along and seemed pleased with progress. Today’s deadline is to get the trench dug for the water feature in the Laurent-Perrier garden while the target on the Daily Telegraph garden is to get everything ready for the concrete coming in at 4.00pm this afternoon for the base of the water feature.

The container has been on the sea for nearly two months and it finally arrived at the Crocus nursery this morning. It was constructed in Japan by Kengo Kuma’s workmen and it was with a great sense of relief that we started to unload it this morning. Any delays on the sea (sunamis, Somali pirates etc) or at custom clearance would have seriously jeopardised the Laurent-Perrier garden. It was beautifully packed and will soon be going to the Show Ground.

We don’t start in earnest at Chelsea until tomorrow but the RHS have kindly allowed the Main Garden builders to start today by setting out the gardens. This makes a huge difference because when the teams turn up tomorrow, both our gardens will be marked out and they can get cracking with the excavation works. One of the most impressive sights is how they construct the Main Tent. It’s lifted on hydraulic motors and all happens in quite a short time.

It’s difficult to believe that we only have 19 days to go and that during that time we need to turn a flat piece of ground into two Show Gardens. But it’s the same for everyone. Our main problem at the moment is that the recent warm weather has really forced on our plants so we have been desperately trying to slow them down in our shade tunnels – with limited success.

If you havn’t watched any of the videos that Joe, Cleve and James have produced, I strongly suggest you go onto You Tube and watch them. The link below shows the three of them at the Crocus nursery messing about in the style of Morecambe and Wise.

Their webiste says ’3 Men Went 2 Mow are garden designers, Joe Swift, Cleve West and James Alexander-Sinclair. Joe is the loud one, James is the posh one in a hat and Cleve is the smouldering one with the RHS Gold Medals. None of them own a dog named ‘Spot’.

http://www.3menwent2mow.com/3MenWent2Mow/Welcome.html

It’s always quite difficult for designers to imagine what the trees might look like at Chelsea when you are ‘tagging’ them in a cold field in Germany or Belgium. The problem this gives us is that when it comes to building the garden at the Chelsea Flower Show itself, the worst possible outcome is for us to plant the trees, for the designer to then change his mind and ask us to move them. It’s quite dispiriting to do any work twice but the most important factor is that it costs us valuable time. To avoid this, last week we set out the entire garden down at the Crocus nursery and positioned each tree in the correct place. Luciano could then look at each tree and decide if he was happy with it. All 12 trees were reviewed and every one numbered and the front marked so that we know exactly which tree to plant where.

As you will have worked out by now, we don’t like surprises at Chelsea so we try and do as much work in advance before starting on site. This time it was the water spouts that we wanted to experiment with. It may sound strange but the height and volume of water going through a spout has a significant impact on splash and especially sound. It can vary between calm and placid on the one hand and noisy and aggressive on another. The video shows Cleve and Bamber Wallis experimenting with different flow rates and heights.

David and Mark have been working this week on preparing the dry stone walls for the Telegraph garden at Chelsea. Over the years we have found that any kind of dry stone walling can be very slow to build (especially if you want to do it properly). So this year we have developed the idea that we build most of the walls before the show and then transport them to the site. We have constructed frames for each wall and David has been been building them at our Nursery. There are 14 of them in all and he should have finished them by tomorrow. The great thing about doing it this way is that it should save us a lot of time at the Show itself.

Luciano recently visited Kengo Kuma’s offices to see progress on the building of the pavilion for the Laurent-Perrier garden. The building was complete by the time that Luciano got to Japan and so he was able to get a feel for how the structure will fit within the garden. It is looking fantastic and is now making its way by sea over the the Crocus offices in Windlesham.