Sonya's Travels - Chelsea Flower Show 2021
"At last Chelsea 2021! Last year it was cancelled - this year delayed by several months, so you can imagine how excited I was to finally get there! My daughters Em and Rachael came along with me. I’m secretly hoping they follow in my green footsteps one day. The first ever autumn Chelsea Flower Show featured the brand new Houseplant Studios, so this is where we headed to first to investigate."
(For those of you who don’t know - Sonya is our Poplar Houseplants manager and has a particular passion for these beautiful indoor plants. Sonya regularly travels to shows and gardens of interest all over the country and features in our Poplar blogs)
The Green Room. Designer Ian Drummon of Indoor Garden Design
Sponsored by: @malverngardenbuildings
Awarded Gold Medal
Visitors could escape the hustle and bustle of the show into this plant-filled retreat. There they could find themselves gently swinging in a suspended seat surrounded by the trailing root systems of orchids, air plants and macramé plant hangers with a carpet of mosses underfoot. A potting bench was illuminated by a grow light, which can be used to boost light levels for prize specimens during the darker months.
"Bling, bling and more bling! This garden room was full of colour and sparkle, from it’s disco balls to it’s neon lights. Not surprisingly this one was the girls favourite. The building looked to be suspended by a giant pink macrame hanger - hilarious and imaginative.
Look out in store for some Chelsea inspired macrame plant hangers from Chloe @thecoppercacti."
Celebrate Autumn With Houseplants. Designer N1 Garden Centre, @paulholt
Awarded Gold Medal and Best Houseplant Studio
Intended to inspire a plant-styling refresh in people’s homes, this autumn themed studio was created using a palette of the season’s colours to evoke comfort and warmth. Natural, sustainable materials were mixed with lush, soft foliage as well as vibrant and variegated plants.
"This garden room had some absolutely stunning houseplants with an autumnal theme running throughout. It brought in a wonderful mix of textures and natural materials, some you might already have around your home and items like the seasonal squash and pine cones you could forage or even grow. The overall effect was warm and cosy with lots of lovely green from the plants."
Click the link below to view the Celebrate Autumn With Houseplants video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B4VdJ8NU30
Pharmacy Of Houseplants. Designer The Edible Bus Stop
Sponsored by: @patchplants
Awarded Silver Gilt Medal
This immersive studio suggested a contemporary interpretation of a traditional pharmacy with interior plants set out as healing products on display cabinets.
"The pharmacy sparkled with clean clear glass, reflecting the surroundings through mirrors making the Studio feel much bigger than it actually was. Beautifully presented without a leaf out of place! The plants were very neat and uniform, in matching white pots with white gravel, from succulents to palms.
On the back wall there were many different glass receptacles with plants of various stages of rooting. This was fascinating seeing how all sorts of houseplants can be propagated at home."
Click the link below to view the Pharmacy Of Houseplants video.
Forest In Your Home. Designer Forest. London, Fran Bailey
Awarded Gold Medal
With a theme of plants and people living in harmony, this studio demonstrated unique and inspiring ways to display houseplants in a small urban setting. It illustrated the health benefits of indoor gardening and showed how houseplants can offer both aesthetic and environmental benefits.
"There were jungle vibes from the moment we entered this houseplant studio. Spanish moss, carnivorous plants and ferns surround you suspended from natural branches. Soft lighting highlights the white flowers of the orchids, bamboo furnishings and jute mats."
Green Bathroom Retreat. Designer Conservatory Archives
Cabin was again @malverngardenbuildings
Awarded Silver Medal
This bathroom setting demonstrated how you can create a natural paradise in the smallest forgotten corners of your home. It showcased a wide range of plants suitable for bathrooms, such as hanging epiphytes, structural tropical specimens and architectural cacti, which thrive in low light, high humidity or on sunny windowills.
"My kind of bathroom - aquatics in the bath and plants surrounding it. You can keep check on your them while relaxing. They really had fun with this one. The second water feature was a fast dripping tap in the sink. Every surface had a plant and there were cuttings rooting in all sorts of glass vessels.
The foliage was absolutely stunning, from Alocasia, Philodendrons, ferns and Monstera, a feast for the plant enthusiast the moment you entered the studio."
Click the link below to view the Green Bathroom Retreat video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fGs-OemIzs&feature=youtu.be
Meeting Anne-Marie Powell
"Anne-Marie @anne_mariepowell is a garden designer and has most recently designed the Wildlife garden at RHS Wisley Hiltop. I started following Anne-Marie on Instagram during lockdown @myrealgarden and she has been an inspiration to me and many others. She is a kind and a very funny woman and has a real zest for life.
I was excited to meet her at the @gazeburvill stand that she had designed. The planting as you can see was bright and beautiful. All the flamboyant table displays were created by @arthurparkinson who travelled several times by train to @sarahravensgarden at Perch hill in Sussex and back collecting a colourful array summer cut flowers."
Guangzhou Garden. Designers Peter Chmiel with Chin-Jung Chen
Sponsored by: Guangzhou Government, China
Awarded Gold Medal and Best Show Garden
Inspired by the holistic landscape stewardship programme of environmental planners in Guangzhou, China, the garden features a woodland dell for cleaner air, a pool of water and shelters – the latter a social space for people to gather and homes for wildlife.
"This garden was highlighting the benefits for city planners working responsibly in cities with nature and creating green lungs, between buildings. It certainly had a calming effect even in a very busy RHS Chelsea Flower Show".
"Next it was onto the Floral Marquee which was filled with spectacular displays of everything you could possibly imagine - it was difficult to know where to look first!"
"There were so many other wonderful gardens to see at this years Chelsea Flower Show with too many to mention on this blog, but I have to mention the RHS Queen’s Green Canopy Garden, commissioned as part of a global project to mark Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022 and designed by David Dodd. This lush green and purple woodland was made up of twenty-one trees with a carpet of grassland and wildflowers."
"And finally, in the Sanctuary gardens category Finding Our Way - An NHS Tribute Garden designed by Naomi Ferrett-Cohen. This garden celebrated the work of the NHS and the collaboration of professionals working to fight the Coronavirus. A beautifully planted garden with grasses swaying in the breeze and perennial plants for late season colour."
"So that’s all for now. Looking forward to Chelsea 2022 now. Tickets go on sale soon - how exciting!"