Shot! The 2022 RHS Chelsea Flower Show
There was a noticeable spring in the step of the world’s premier horticultural show as it returned to its regular date. This year’s show gardens brought back the wow factor and five made a great impression.
I’ve been coming to the Chelsea Flower Show every year since 2011. In 2020, for the first time since the Second World War, it didn’t take place because of the pandemic.
Last year, the RHS took the unprecedented decision to further delay its most prestigious event and moved it from its traditional late May slot to late September. To be honest, it wasn’t a great show. There were noticeably fewer show gardens to see and none matched the wow factor of previous years.
Show gardens are what Chelsea is famed for and what it should be judged on. They need to be beyond impressive, but I didn’t think any of last year’s crop came close to achieving that. I want to witness the jaw-droppingly fabulous, I want to see the crème de la crème. That’s why I go to Chelsea. I’m sure it’s what draws many others as well.
In the few hours available on press day, it’s impossible to get to see everything that’s on display. It means relying on pre-show research to seek out what’s likely to impress and making snap judgements at the show as how to make best use of your time. If something doesn’t catch your eye, you move on to something that does.
The show gardens are all sited on Main Avenue, Chelsea’s prime real estate, and this year there were at least three I was looking forward to see. One that I walked past — dismissing it as yet another attempt to recreate a naturalistic landscape at Chelsea — was the Rewilding Garden by garden designers Urquhart and Hunt. I use the term ‘garden designer’ loosely here because it’s arguable whether what they created was more installation than garden.
Personally, I don’t see the point in making a garden look like it’s been uprooted from another part of England. Not least, because it’s now been done numerous times, although never better than Dan Pearson’s pioneering Chatsworth Garden from 2015. Occupying Chelsea’s biggest site, and as impressive as it was, you could hardly describe it as being a garden.
Imagine then, the day after my visit, my surprise at finding out that the Rewilding Garden had not just won a Gold, but also awarded Best Show Garden. And to think I didn’t take a single photo of it! All I can say is it wasn’t deserving of such accolades as we’ve seen so many similar gardens in the past.
Before I get into my thoughts on what I did like at this year’s Chelsea, it’s worth noting that a return to its traditional date wasn’t the only change that took place at the world’s most renowned flower show.
Following many years of sponsoring the event, M&G Investments pulled out. They didn’t even sponsor a show garden as they had done in previous years. In their place was a much lower profile name, indeed one I’d never heard of until it was announced. The Newt in Somerset was this year’s headline sponsor. Curiously, they didn’t sponsor a garden, or for that matter have much of a presence at the show. That being said, the garden that won Best in Show just happened to be a recreation of a Somerset landscape. A happy coincidence?
This year there were 39 gardens (up from 27 last year), of which 13 were Show Gardens with one other being an RHS garden that wasn’t judged. In addition there were 12 Sanctuary Gardens and 9 other even smaller gardens that went under the banner of balcony or container gardens.
Another change introduced this year saw artificial grass banned from the show as it goes against the RHS’s views on plastic. Even so, I can’t recall much artificial grass being used at Chelsea. What I can’t forget however, was the embarrasing lack of the real thing last year in the Great Pavilion.
One recurring theme that has permeated recent RHS events, is that most gardens are sponsored by charities. Personally, I view this a worrying trend. By their very nature, charities have to be seen as being frugal with their funds which means extravagant creations are far less likely. Why the RHS is unable to attract more corporate sponsorship should be a concern to the society as a) there are only so many charities and b) the lack of corporate or country sponsors is self-perpetuating. This year, as far as I could see, the only major corporate names who sponsored a Chelsea garden were Boodles and the Body Shop.
My biggest issue, however, with charities being involved is that in almost every case, it forces the designer to come up with some kind of narrative that relates to the charity. The truth is, these narratives are rarely clear for the show’s visitors to understand.
In the real world, gardens rarely have to tell a literal story, but at RHS shows, designers of charity sponsored gardens appear compelled to explain how their garden design and planting choices do actually tell a story. I contend you could swap almost any charitable sponsor with any garden and it would make little or no difference in the mind’s of the visitor.
Equally important, is that having charities as sponsors, has a negative influence on the garden design, as most tend to focus on appropriately ‘representing’ their sponsor, which results in gardens shaped by some kind of educational message, rather than reflecting something less restrictive.
One positive development this year was that the vast majority of show gardens — some 25 I believe — will live on elsewhere either in part or in full. I’ve long advocated that as an entry requirement all show gardens should be designed to be reused afterwards. Far too often, expensively put together gardens went on view for just six days before being scrapped.
As I always say, it’s important to remember everyone’s Chelsea experience is different, visitors to the show come for different things. Generally, I’m looking for things that are out of the ordinary: interesting gardens, interesting garden features, interesting artworks, interesting plants and flowers and, if I see them, interesting people. And of course, it’s me who defines what’s interesting.
This year, I came to Chelsea with a clear intent: my focus was going to be on photographing textures, in whatever form they may appear. That way, all my images, however disparate the subject matter might be, would at least have a visual connection. That meant I was looking for the rough, the patterned, indeed anything that wasn’t smooth or plain.
I began on Main Avenue, Chelsea’s most prestigious stretch of real estate, home to the big show gardens. While Chelsea is packed full of gardens, floral displays, trade stands, art and installations, it’s the show gardens on Main Avenue that draw the crowds, receive the most the plaudits, and attract the most attention and media coverage. And compared with the distinctly lacklustre offering of last September’s show, this time round things were a lot more impressive.
Most spectacular of all was Sarah Eberle’s Building the Future garden which occupied what is arguably the prime spot at the top of Main Avenue, a location which in recent years has been home to the M&G Garden.
Sponsored by Medite Smartply, to highlight their sustainable MDF product, Sarah’s design had all the ingredients to produce the wow factor all show gardens should possess. Most important, it was visibly different from much of what we’ve seen before, it had scale — a towering 6m tall cliff-like structure, inspired by natural rock strata, was topped by three chutes, impressively cascading water down to a diagonal pond.
It also had fabulous detailing. Everywhere you looked there were interesting textures, with clever use of smartply and metal. The rust-coloured hard landscaping was softened with the use of jungle-like foliage, verdant ferns and mosses.
Walking through this edge-of-forest garden was like stepping into another world. It was more like a movie set, than a show garden. Its curvaceous form reminded me of Thomas Heatherwick’s iconic East Beach Cafe, which can be found on the Sussex coast at Littlehampton. Indeed, there was something distinctly Heatherwick in its design DNA.
Speaking of show gardens, it’s important to remember they’re designed primarily to be looked into, usually from two vantage points: the front and one side. That’s the view the vast majority of visitors get to see. Only a select few get to venture onto the gardens themselves. Sarah’s was one of three gardens I got to go on this year and I can’t stress how different being on a show garden is from just looking at it from behind the ropes. Not only do you get a completely different impression, but at close hand, you can really appreciate the small details.
From a garden that really impressed me, to one that frankly disappointed: Andy Sturgeon’s MIND Garden. Now, I’m a long-time admirer of the Brighton-based designer. He’s been responsible for some of the most memorable show gardens in recent years at Chelsea and many would say he’s England’s most talented garden designer.
As I’d been following the garden’s conception and build on social media, I knew what to expect and I have to admit to being somewhat underwhelmed by what I’d seen online. Sadly, it wasn’t any more impressive in person and certainly not up there with his previous gardens. I’d go so far to say it was rather bland.
It also wasn’t especially original. On Instagram, Andy has recently shown a garden he designed on the Isle of Wight which looks remarkably similar.
And, like so many charity sponsored gardens, its connection to its particular sponsor required a great deal of PR fluff to ‘explain’ its story. Indeed, you could probably provide a narrative that would connect it to almost any of the charities involved at this year’s show.
In the past Andy has made bold use of huge corten steel panels and, most recently, large pieces of blackened wood, to provide the visual drama to his gardens and, importantly, a dark backdrop to his exquisite naturalistic planting. This time, his garden featured a series of curved clay-rendered walls, each with horizontal textured bands. These were in shades of beige and in truth the way they were rendered made them appear more like non-descript rough pieces of concrete than something visually interesting.
To be fair, when I saw the garden, it was in fairly dull weather which didn’t do it any favours. With the sun out, and the shadows of the plants dappling its surfaces, I’m sure it would have looked a lot better, even though it was very beige.
As with all his show gardens, the planting was beautifully done. He’s one of the best at using grasses and among his preferred verdant foliages and ferns he always has pops of colour such as the lime green euphorbia and blue polymonium.
I didn’t have the opportunity to go on it, but from the outside looking in what the garden desperately lacked was a singular focal point, an eye-catching feature that drew you in. Instead it was just a bunch of fairly mundane curved walls that hid rather than enhanced the garden. Those walls also hid the details such as Johnny Woodford’s carved benches. Moreover, whatever your vantage point, the garden looked much the same. I may have not rated it as being up there with Andy’s best, but the RHS judges did, awarding him his umpteenth gold.
Exactly how a garden is deemed worthy of a gold medal is still a mystery to me. While the RHS do provide some details of the criteria they use to judge gartdens, they never give any explanation as to why one garden gets a gold, while another receives a silver-gilt and another has to settle for a silver. What is also never revealed is how much each garden has cost. That means it’s impossible to judge if it’s good value for money or which designer has used their budget most assiduously.
One garden I was looking forward to seeing in person was the Morris & Co Garden. Ruth Willmott’s first show garden on Main Avenue was a celebration of the Victorian designer William Morris and the 160th anniversary of his company Morris & Co. As the garden was originally intended for the cancelled 2020 Chelsea, it was in fact a celebration of the company’s 162nd year.
All things considered, it was worth the wait.
Its centrepiece was a sqaure pavilion made from laser-etched metal. The etching was based on Willow Boughs, William Morris’ first wallpaper design from 1887. It was painted in a wonderful shade of maroon called Dragonblood.
The same etched metal was used at the bottom of two shallow rills. It was such an original idea and something I’ve never seen before.
What was also impressive was the planting. As well as pollarded willows and a hawthorn tree, I liked the subtle use of cottage garden flowers whose colour palette toned in beautifully with the metal, with a few rust coloured flowers set amid an expanse of pale blue blooms.
Richard Miers’ Perennial Garden was another I dismissed as not being anything special. The judges deemed it only worthy of a Silver Medal, but by the end of the week it had won the prestigious People’s Choice for Best Show Garden at Chelsea.
Clearly, judging garden design is entirely subjective. And if truth be told, many of the public casting their People’s Choice votes will have only seen the gardens on TV where the BBC’s aerial cameras give a completely different viewpoint than if you were seeing it in person. And once again, exactly why one garden wins over another is never revealed.
Moving on from Main Avenue, it can also be challenging to keep up with changes the RHS make to their other garden categories. How they name and describe them seem to change annually. The Sanctuary Garden category — of which there were a dozen examples year — is basically a catch all for gardens that are smaller than those on Main Avenue. Of the twelve, one gem caught my attention.
Tom Hoblyn is another of my favourite garden designers. Last year his Secret Garden for Boodles was right up therre as being my best garden at Chelsea. Tom packs a lot into a small space, but his gardens never feel crowded. He has a great sense of scale and subtlety as well as an unparalleled attention to detail. He is also a master of the verdant garden, concentrating on ferns and interestingly leafed plants. Not surprisingly, his gardens are always extremely photogenic, something that can’t always be said about many show gardens.
This year he was back with another garden for Boodles. This time it was inspired by a 16-day round-the-world business trip the jewellery company’s then Chairman made back in 1962.
Its central feature was a ingenius serpentine water feature — created by Bamber Wallis — that split the space in two. What made it so special was that it was designed with a unique ripple effect with the water constantly moving from one end of the garden to the other. I thought it looked stunning and was pleased to have been able to get to see it at close quarters.
Whilst Tom’s garden last year featured some fabulous undulating louvred oak walls by furniture maker Jan Hendzell, this time what really made an impression was that the dark brown walls were roughly rendered and contained imprints of various ferns. A simple idea, that worked brilliantly. Last year I suggested Boodles create a jewellery line based on Tom’s woodwork, and on this garden I think the rippled water feature and fern-textured walls would lend themselves perfectly to a jewellery collection.
Boodles however were on a different wavelength. Adjacent to the garden they had a full-size showroom — something I can’t ever recall seeing at a Chelsea or Hampton Court garden — and they did have a special Around the World collection “designed especially for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show”. I didn’t care for it personally, but what was most disappointing was it didn’t in any way reflect the design elements of their own Chelsea garden.
That was my only gripe. Appropriately for a garden sponsored by a jeweller, it won a gold, a step up from last year’s silver-gilt. Hopefully, next time around, Boodles will sponsor a full-size show garden and give Tom the scope to do something on a bigger scale.
The final garden that got my attention was definitely not a garden, it was an installation. John Warland has made a habit of conceiving thought-provoking designs at Hampton Court and at Chelsea. This time, to highlight the alarming rate at which Arctic ice is disappearing, he created something quite unique.
Called The Ice Garden, it was a slowly melting 10-feet-wide block of ice. Hidden inside, encased in ice, were an arrangement of flowers. The intention was that they would be revealed by the time the show ended. To give an idea of what to expect, several ice-encased arrangements were on display.
The base of the 15 tonne ice block was surrounded by flowers and created a striking and unusual backdrop for photographs. However, like a number of the smaller show gardens, it looked much more impressive in the artist’s rendering than in person. The judges deemed it worthy of a silver-gilt.
This year no less than six of the 13 show gardens received a gold medal. Personally, I think it’s ludicrous that almost half of Main Avenue went away with a gold. Indeed, every single show garden won a medal of one colour or another. Surely, all that does is devalue the cachet of winning one? I’ve said it before, it’s almost like a medal is a reward for taking part. I simply can’t believe six show gardens were considered to be equally deserving of a gold.
If it were me, across every category at Chelsea there would be just the one gold, one silver-gilt, one silver and one bronze. On top of this there could be other categories such as Best Planting, Best use of Trees, Best Water Feature, Best Structure and Best Artwork, to name just five.
And if I were to give out those awards this year, Best Planting would jointly go to the MIND Garden and the Boodles Travel Garden, who would share Best Water Feature with Medite Smartply. The Morris & Co Garden would get Best Structure and I’d be torn between the Boodles fern wall and the Medite Smartply rock stratas for Best Artwork.
Finally, if I were the RHS, I would introduce some physical awards — something more impressive than the simple cards they currently give out. Surely, winners need to receive a trophy deserving of the prize.
So that was my 2022 Chelsea experience. Last September I said I hoped the show’s return to its regular May date would mark a return to its previous exemplary standards. There’s no question this was a far better show and that many of the show gardens were worthy of the world’s most prestigious floral show. Even so, the RHS cannot rest on their laurels.
Future Chelsea’s need even more ambition and wow factor. The reliance on charitable sponsors must be pared back and efforts made to attract a wider range of corporate sponsors with deeper pockets and bigger ambitions.
Behind the shot: These images were taken either using the Olympus OM-D E-M1 with the M Zuiko 1.8 75mm lens or the iPhone 12. Over the years I’ve tended to focus on tight compositions when shooting show gardens, floral displays and artworks at Chelsea and Hampton Court. The challenge as always is to come away from the show with a set of interesting images that are different from those taken by all the other photographers there. Photographed at Royal Hospital Chelsea on 23 May 2022
About the author: Based in Sussex-by-the-Sea, on England’s south coast, Gary is a creative writer and image-maker. He specialises in out of the ordinary portraits of musicians and people with interesting faces, as well as photographing some of the world’s finest flowers and gardens. On the writing side, he also penned deep dives into some of his favourite songs beginning with Bryan Ferry’s ‘These Foolish Things’ ‘Ghost Town’ by The Specials and ‘All The Young Dudes’ by Mott the Hoople. Most recently, he has written a biography of Robert Palmer and the story behind Whitesnake’s ‘Still Of The Night’. All these can be found here on Medium, along with his reviews of gigs and events and chats with musicians.
