I have never added up the total number of hours of planning that go into a Chelsea Garden but it’s a lot. We all got together yesterday to go through some of the details of the Laurent-Perrier garden with Jono, Luciano and Andrew Ewing. Andrew has been involved in many Chelsea gardens and specialises in producing really wonderful water features. He has worked on both Tom Stuart-Smith’s and Luciano’s gardens at Chelsea in the past. One of the issues we are facing this year is the fact that the building in the centre of the garden is being designed and built by Kengo Kuma, an internationally famous Japanese architect. The building is being sent over from Japan in segments and we need to make sure that everything is prepared in advance to aoid any problems on site.

Not content with their utter humiliation at the cricket, the Aussies have declared that they are on course for winning Best in Show at Chelsea this year. Not bad from a country that lost to England in both the cricket and rugger over the last 12 months! Wes Fleming has been a long standing exhibitor at the Chelsea Flower Show and his team have been a great addition to the Show over the years. A few years ago he came up to me when I was working on our garden at Chelsea and started telling me that I was planting the tree incorrectly and that he wouldn’t do it that way and started to tell me how to do it. Quite  interesting given that I had never met the man before. Like all good Poms, I ignored his advice (we went on the win Best in Show that year!).

Here is their press release and 3D image of the garden.

ON COURSE TO WIN BEST IN SHOW AT CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW 2011

IMAGE TO FOLLOW

Wes Fleming from Fleming’s Nurseries is embarking on his 7th Chelsea Flower Show entry and this year has teamed up with respected Melbourne landscape designer, Ian Barker, whose garden is based on the 1768-71 voyage of ‘The Endeavour’. This year’s entry pays homage to the long standing English- Australian relationship with the theme centered on the botanical discoveries of Joseph Banks,who was also a founder of the Royal Horticulture Society – the organisation that runs the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show.

The 2011 garden will be constructed by an all-Australian crew of volunteer landscapers captained by Apex Landscapes’Matt Seymour, and will take over three weeks to complete with the team hoping for a Best In Show outcome. The garden design incorporates a main canopy structure symbolic of the canvas sails of tall sailing ships, as well as the canvas tents that played a vital role in early days of Australian settlement which Joseph Banks was heavily involved in. “It is intended to engage the visitor in their own journey of discovery,with nautical references and vast plant pallet and a pond, it will also incorporate a limestone backdrop representing the cliffs of the imposing and sometimes treacherous Australian coastline,” explains Ian Barker.

Jim Fogerty, who is designing the Melbourne Botanical’s Garden at Chelsea, sent me through the 3D axiometric image of the garden. The great thing about these imags is that they give you a really good feel for how the garden will look. I will post the other 3d images over the next week or so.

If you want to learn more about the Royal Botanical Gardens in Melbourne, click here

http://www.rbg.vic.gov.au/

RHS Chelsea garden designer Cleve West visits Lichen Garden Antiques in sub-zero conditions to find reclaimed flagstones for the Telegraph garden.

Click here to watch the video

Image to follow

The last few weeks have been really difficult for Australian plants in Somerset. No sooner had we commissioned our newlyinstalled heating system, then the weather turned cold. Out initial intentions of maintaining 5 degrees in the growing area, quickly became impossbibly difficult and expensive to do, and so we are just keeping the 1000m2 tunnel at 1 degree to just keep the frost out. A circulating fan keeps the air moving because our biggest emeny will be Botrytis. Most of the plants are also covered in fleece, for added protection.
Some of the taller plants like the Banksia integrifolia are laid down. The heaviest plant is a 200 year old Macrozamia communis. This immense plant was supposed to have stayed in the warmth of the sicilian nursery where it was sourced, but turned up in a lorry by accident. It is too heavy and too tall to fit into the tunnel so it is sitting in our potting shed, the trunk wrapped in loft insulation. It should be hardy to -10. We live in hope!

These last few weeks have been immensely worrying, but will be a really good test of the future suitability of many of these native australian plants for cultivation in english gardens

Dave Root

Laurent-Perrier have announced that Peter Randall-Page will be working with Luciano Giubbilei on the Laurent-Perrier 2011 Chelsea Garden. To have an artist of Peter Randall-Page’s calibre working on the garden is a real reflection of the commitment by Luciano and Laurent-Perrier to combining art with the landscape. Below are some photographs of his recent work.

Peter was born in the UK in 1954 and studied sculpture at Bath Academy of Art from 1973-77. During the past 25 years he has gained an international reputation through his sculpture drawings and prints. He has undertaken numerous large scale commissions and exhibited widely. His work is held in public and private collections throughout the world including Japan, South Korea, Australia, USA, Eire, Germany and the Netherlands. A selection of his public sculptures can be found in many urban and rural locations throughout the UK including London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Bristol, Oxford and Cambridge and he is represented in the permanent collections of the Tate Gallery and the British Museum amongst others. Recent projects include ‘Green Fuse’ for the Jerwood Sculpture Park, Ragley Hall and a major one person exhibition in and around the Underground Gallery at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, June 2009 – April 2010.

Walking the Dog, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

Photo credit: River Studio Photography

Being a nurseryman, you get used to dealing with bad weather but this is now getting boring. You can expect to get a bit of snow occassionally so when we had all the snow back in January and February, I wasn’t expecting to get any more for a while. But luck has not been on our side. We registered minus 9 on the nursery the other night. The team on the nursery have been soldiering on but it’s really difficult to achieve much. All the Chelsea plants are under cover in tunnels which keep the temperature above zero but space is very limited so a lot of normal stock is outside. The only consolation is that the snow itself is not that bad for the plants. It tends to protect them against the severe frost. Being an optimist, today is the Winter Solstace so days get longer from now on. Let’s hope the longer days bring some heat with them as well.

Cleve West describes his design for Telegraph’s garden with the help of his iPad and pictures of Libya.

Click below to be taken to the Daily Telegraph website to watch the video.

Cleve West will be designing The Telegraph’s garden at the 2011 RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Here he introduces himself.

Click here to go through to the Daily Telegraph website to watch the video – Cleve West Introduces himself

Kengo Kuma, the architect who is working with Luciano Giubbilei on the building for the Laurent-Perrier garden at Chelsea next year, has won the prestigious competition to design the new V&A building in Dundee.

The following was announced on bdonline.co.uk.

Japanese practice Kengo Kuma & Associates has won the competition to design the V&A’s £47 million new outpost in Dundee. The announcement was made this morning by Lesley Knox, chair of Design Dundee Ltd and of the jury, at a press conference at the University of Abertay Dundee.

 The firm, working with Edinburgh-based Cre8 Architecture, was chosen from a shortlist of six, which was itself whittled down from more than 120 entries for the international competition.

 Knox said it had the potential to be “one of Europe’s most exciting buildings”.

 Kengo Kuma said it was a great honour and a significant opportunity.

 He said: “I am thrilled to be able to work with those at V&A at Dundee in order to give shape to their vision, to contribute meaningfully to the cultural richness of the city.

 “It will be an exciting endeavour that will combine the tradition and heritage of the Victoria & Albert Museum and our new ideas.

 “Furthermore, we are enthusiastic about the amazing site, the city and environment – it is our intention to find a balanced approach to nature and the city life of Dundee. We wish to bring our best efforts forward, with vigour and passion.”