It’s a nervous moment when you walk into the Show Ground to find out what medal you have won. The day before (Monday) is an exhausting day with judging starting at 8.00 so we have to be in very early to make sure that everything is spotless. Then there are endless TV crews and journalists trying to get onto the gardens – there are times when we are more like bouncers than gardeners.  At 3.30 the Show Ground is cleared and the Royal walkaround starts. This year I was taking round Prince Andrew and Princess Beatrice who were charming. It was a real rugger scrum when we got to Prince Harry’s garden. There must have been over 100 journalists and camera crews wanting to film Prince Harry and the rest of the Royal Family. After that there was the Gala night followed by dinner -exhausting. So you can imagine that I struggled a bit to get out of bed this morning. I was doing fine though until I found out that I had a puncture. Not a good day to have a flat tyre.  I finally got to the Show and found that both gardens got Gold which is excellent. The RHS have given out 10 Golds this year which, in my opinion, is far too many and I’m sure that there will be some debate about it. But for now, we can relax with our pot of Gold. The Australian garden got Best in Show. One day someone can explain that decision to me but for now, I will just enjoy our gold rush.

There was quite a scrabble at Chelsea yesterday as we unveiled the Mark Quinn sculpture that he has generously donated to the RHS’s campaign for School gardening. It is incredibly kind of him and the money will go to a really fantastic cause. We were asked to create the garden in which the sculpture would sit.  We were only asked a few weeks ago so it’s been quite a struggle to get it all designed and built. We also installed lighting – it looks spectacular at night.

The gardens are nearly over so here are photos of some of the people involved with the construction. The papers tend to focus on the designers but in reality none of it could happen without the entire team.

In the spirit of friendly competitiveness, I went along to Jinny Blom’s garden this morning. Jinny has been on the front page of most glossy magazines because of Prince Harry’s support for her Sentebale garden. When I told her that she should spend more time planting and less time talking to her media friends, she decided to show her warm regard for my opinion. Luckily Charlotte Harris thought it was funny!

Many many years ago, when I first started at Chelsea, there was a very intimidating President of the RHS called Lord Aberconway. He presided over an institution that was ran in exactly the way he wanted it – which is fine, I suppose. However, he would not be amused by the RHS’s decision to allow in gnomes this year. Mark Whyman’s wife, Michelle, who is a skilled cook, decided to get in the spirit of the event and baked us all gnome cakes. Very impressive and very tasty.

They say that the sun can start playing tricks on your brain but clearly Chelsea can have the same effect. Not content with spending the last year growing the plants for Ulf’s and Christopher’s gardens, Peter Clay came to Chelsea today and decided he wanted to be a tree. Not a bad impersonation of a 4 metre Corylus.

The photograph was taken by Charlotte Harris who is going to be working on Jinny Blom’s garden.