Going for gold: Alan Titchmarsh's pick of The Chelsea Flower Show designer gardens
Who will be the stars of the show at Chelsea this year? Here’s our selection of three grand designer gardens hoping for a medal...
Out of Africa Sentebale designed and planted by Matthew Keightley
Out of Africa Sentebale: Hope in Vulnerability
This show-stopping garden has been designed and planted by Matthew Keightley, who started his career in landscape gardening at the tender age of 17. The award-winning designer is now head designer for Rosebank Landscaping in Berkshire. This year he has fashioned a garden to celebrate the opening of the Sentebale charity’s Mamohato Children’s Centre in Lesotho, southern Africa.
The charity was founded in 2006 by Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso of the Lesotho royal family. The garden aims to raise awareness of Sentebale’s work in providing healthcare and education to the region’s most vulnerable children, many of whom are victims of extreme poverty and have been affected by the heartbreaking stigma of losing one or both parents through Lesotho’s Aids/HIV epidemic.
This is Sentebale’s second year at Chelsea. The charity has received acclaim in the past when it teamed up with B&Q to create the Forget-Me-Not Garden in 2013.
This year’s garden has been designed in three sections to illustrate the diverse landscape of Lesotho. The journey through the gardens starts with a wild, arid section featuring native, silvery-blue foliage, set against spikes of hot flowers in a vibrant palette of yellow, oranges and reds.
The central part of the garden focuses around the camp (complete with a campfire). Matthew wants this to reflect the welcoming, safe environment that the Mamohato Children’s Centre represents, and the experiences the children have there. The area has been planted with a playful mix of blues, pinks and purples with ribbons of yellow linking the zones together.
Lastly, your eye will move to the tranquil end of the garden, reminiscent of the high mountain ranges of Lesotho. A cool, calm planting scheme of whites and blues sits alongside a refreshing waterscape.
Abbey days- The Laurent-Perrier Chatsworth Garden is a unique show garden
Abbey days The Laurent-Perrier Chatsworth Garden
This year, Laurent-Perrier has teamed up with Derbyshire’s historic Chatsworth House (the estate on which Downton Abbey was based) to create a unique show garden. Award-winning garden designer Dan Pearson is at the helm of this project and returns to Chelsea after more than a decade.
In the past he has designed five award-winning gardens at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and Laurent-Perrier has been awarded an incredible 13 RHS gold medals, so this garden is certainly one to seek out. Dan’s passion and expertise in naturalistic perennial planting promises to produce a show garden that encapsulates a shared heritage in gardens, nature and beautiful surroundings. The garden itself has been constructed in a prominent triangle design, which can be viewed from all three sides.
Dan has taken his inspiration from the less trodden paths of Chatsworth’s 105-acre garden, its ornamental trout stream and Paxton’s rockery. His planting scheme reflects the lightness and delicacy of the 200-year-old, family-owned Champagne House.
On the waterfront -The M&G Garden by award-winning garden designer Jo Thompson
On the waterfront -The M&G Garden – The Retreat
Award-winning garden designer Jo Thompson returns to Chelsea with a Main Avenue garden for the show’s leading sponsor, M&G Investments. Jo’s garden features a double-storey, oak-framed building, a natural dipping pool and two relaxing seating areas.
A curved wooden bench has been sunk into an area surrounded by flowers and a stone bench sits by the water’s edge. Jo has used a soft and elegant planting scheme in a palette of green, pink and white with accents of deep wine. Swathes of roses, irises and geraniums sit alongside ornamental shrubs and trees to give a naturalistic feel. Artist
Tom Stogdon has also created a beautiful limestone sculpture for the garden and a spiral of Purbeck stone has been set within the planting scheme.