Show stopper

You have probably idly wondered, as you stood in a queue for the loos at Chelsea Flower Show, why the Royal Horticultural Society stages its greatest flower show of the year in the week before the Whitsun Bank Holiday. Late May is good for irises, Oriental poppies, alliums, hardy geraniums, seed-raised verbascums, lilacs, wisteria and viburnums, but it is too late for tulips and too early for roses and most summer perennials. That is why so many of the plants seen at Chelsea have either been forced into premature growth or retarded.

It becomes clear if you know that Chelsea used to be called the Great Spring Show, in the days when the RHS was mainly run by gardeners with woodland gardens on acid soils in the south and west. It was, therefore, first and foremost, a rhododendron and azalea show, with rock gardens as a subsidiary interest. You would not know that now. When Hydon Nurseries gave up showing rhododendrons ten years ago, much of that ericaceous spirit died. Once or twice since then, there have been no rhodie exhibits at all although, this year, the banner was carried by the excellent Millais Nurseries. And there were a few rhododendrons sprinkled about the show gardens, although never much to their advantage, I am afraid. As for rock gardens, modern-day concerns about the removal of rocks from the wild have permanently done for them, although D’Arcy and Everest and Hartside Nursery of Alston in Cumbria (known, rather wittily, as ‘Plants with altitude’) put on brave displays of alpines in the Great Pavilion.

This year, interestingly, show garden designers seemed quite ready to use plants which were genuinely in season. Perhaps it was because this was the Credit Munch Chelsea, with money very tight and ‘grow your own’ to the fore, or perhaps it was a flicker of recognition that show gardens aren’t much use to the visitors if the plants are forced or held back to create a strong visual impact.