Chelsea 2012: The Laurent-Perrier Bicentenary Garden

Arne Maynard’s romantic Laurent Perrier garden was one of our favourites at Chelsea, and deservedly won a Gold Medal.

The Taiwanese Orchid Tree

This Orchid Tree on the Taiwan Orchid Growers Association stand at Chelsea was made up of orchids in test tubes that were attached to a bare tree.

Chelsea 2012: (Not So) Fresh Gardens

This year Chelsea had a new category of gardens on show, replacing their Urban Gardens, but we didn’t think the Fresh Gardens were an improvement, although there were a few good ideas.

Chelsea 2012: The Brewin Dolphin Garden, by Cleve West

This Gold Medal winner was also voted Best Show Garden by the RHS judges, and was certainly a very accomplished, beautiful and sophisticated garden, full of nice touches.

Chelsea 2012: Best in show

The standard of the large show gardens in Chelsea this year certainly seemed up on the last few years (as demonstrated by the RHS judges decision to award 9 Gold Medals between the 16 show gardens).

Chelsea 2012: The Rooftop Workplace of Tomorrow

There were many aspects of the Rooftop Workplace of Tomorrow, designed by Patricia Fox, that we really liked, such as the recycled plastic furniture and planters that looked like stone.

Chelsea 2012: The Westland Magical Garden

The Westland Magical Garden, designed by Diarmuid Gavin , won the RHS award for the Most Creative Show Garden, although it was only given a Silver Gilt Medal.

Zantedeschia or Arum Lily

Zantedeschia is commonly called the arum lily, Easter lily or calla lily, although it is not a lily, a calla nor an arum, however, like the arum and calla, it is in the family Araceae.

Chelsea 2012: Lilium martagon + RBC Blue Water Garden

One of the flowers of the show was the Lilium martagon (or Turk's cap lily), which was on several show gardens, but especially prominent on the Silver Gilt Medal-winning RBC Blue Water Garden, designed to help promote water conservation by Professor Nigel Dunnett, who created our favourite garden at Chelsea 2011 (the RBC New Wild Garden).

Chelsea 2012: On show

There were lots of quirky displays, interesting artworks and expensive plants on show at Chelsea 2012. Above is one part of a 3 x 24 metre hand-painted canvas, Constructed Nature, by Hugo Dalton.

Chelsea 2012: Artisan Gardens

The Satoyama Life garden won a Gold Medal and was also chosen as the Best Artisan Garden – and for once we agree with the Chelsea judges, although it was a pretty obvious choice as it was easily the best of the small gardens – we also particularly like the designer’s work and his intricate use of moss.

Chelsea 2011: Our best in show

The garden we thought was best in show at Chelsea was the RBC New Wild Garden, sponsored by the Royal Bank of Canada and designed by Nigel Dunnett, Director of the Green Roof Centre at the University of Sheffield.

The judges only found it worthy of a Silver Gilt medal, but we thought it had more good ideas than any other garden, although at 10x12m (33x39 feet) it was one of the smallest of the 'large show gardens'.

Chelsea 2011: Cancer Research UK Garden

The Cancer Research UK Garden, designed by Robert Myers, won Silver Gilt, and had a lot of interest, especially in the interplay of textures, light and shade.

Chelsea 2011: Laurent-Perrier Garden

The Laurent-Perrier Garden, Nature and Human Intervention, by the Italian designer, Luciano Giubbilei , won Gold. It was built and planted by Crocus.

Here there was a modern take on a Japanese pavilion by Kengo Kuma, which used 16 revolving wind-driven panels made out of lots of thin pieces of bamboo, that provided interesting shadow and texture and looked a lot better at the show than it did on television.

Chelsea 2011: The Magistrates’ Garden

The Magistrates’ Garden, designed by Kate Gould, won Silver gilt in the Urban Gardens section. It was built to celebrate 650 years of the Magistracy, and had lots of little interesting features.

Chelsea 2011: The Power of Nature

The Power of Nature garden, sponsored by Worcester-Bosch, was supposed show how nature provides renewable energy for heating, with materials chosen to represent the elements: earth, air, fire and water. It even included strips of photovoltaic cells in the walls to power a waterfall.

Chelsea 2011: Homebase Cornish Memories Garden

Designer Tom Hoblyn won a Silver Gilt for the Homebase Cornish Memories Garden, having been marked down by the judges for not fulfilling his own brief to base the garden on the native plants of Cornwall, instead using many of the species more commonly found in the famous Cornish gardens (such as tree ferns and rhododendrons).

Chelsea 2011: Shell game

One of the most attractive gardens on show wasn't one of the show gardens, but an exhibit created by Cheltenham-based Architectural Heritage, which showed off several of their pieces, some nice planting (as seen above), and lots of different things you can do with shells - and unlike the show gardens, you could walk in rather than having to mill about outside.

There's a buzz about Paeonia lactiflora

The Trailfinders/Fleming Nurseries Australian Garden, designed by Ian Barker, won a Silver Gilt  at Chelsea. It was inspired by the journey made by Captain Cook and Sir Joseph Banks on the Endeavour as they mapped the Southern hemisphere (1768-1771), and featured plants found by Banks on the journey.

Chelsea 2011: M&G Garden

The M&G Garden, designed by multi award-winning garden designer, landscape architect and journalist Bunny Guinness, won a Silver Gilt medal.

It had been expected to win a gold, and possibly should have. Apparently the judges felt that too much was packed in to it, but we rather liked much of the design and planting in this very ordered kitchen garden.