Nine days at the Chelsea Flower Show

Chelsea Flower show started off in style.  Myrtle our tiny black cat decided that she would stow away in the lorry and see what all the fuss was about .  Being  such a timid cat we were amazed that she went. Luckily Carol, who was helping with the deliveries to the Show gardens, spotted her running out of our lorry into the Alitex glasshouse, at least she has good taste.

She is now safely home showing off about her adventure.

Friday 18th May, we left for the show wearing thermals and coats.  We returned late on Saturday night, 26th May, wearing thin shirts ,thin trousers and dark glasses.  What a difference in a week.

Having delivered all the plants to the show gardens I was very eager to see what the garden designers had done with our prize babies but, before  I could have the pleasure of seeing them, we had to ‘Crack on’  and build our own display.

Sunday,  after we finished our display and our stand I went into the great floral pavilion to start my assessing of the floral exhibits as I had the honour of chairing the judging.  The exhibits were stunning, even more so this year, considering the weather.

Monday  is Press, Judging and Royal visit.   We had our fair share of visitors, I was very pleased to see Ringo again and touched that he took the time to find us.

I asked him how the plants he had bought from our 2009 exhibit were fairing.  He enthusiasticiy told me  where and how he had planted them, proving that he is a great gardener.  Talking of great gardeners I was thrilled to see Penelope Hobhouse.

She has known me since I was a child and has always given me good  sound advice, which I treasure.

After chairing the judging I had the pleasure of show Prince Michael of Kent around the show. This was followed  by the President of the RHS presenting me to her Majesty the Queen  during the evening reception, which was a wonderful,  especially in this Diamond Jubilee year, and a lovely way to end a very special day.

Tuesday, results day and the gates open to the RHS members. The L’Occitane en Provence garden

won a deserved gold medal which was justice to Peter Dowle, Angie and their team  who had worked so hard to pull this off.

Some days before the show Tom Hoblyn, who was creating the Arthritis research UK garden, visited the Herb Farm to check on his plants and saw my large Angelica. He rang his good friend Andy Sturgeon, who was designing the M&G garden, as he knew he was missing a large specimen plant for his garden.

Don’t they look splendid.  This garden won a deserved gold medal.

Wednesday, our new seed collections , designed by Hannah McVicar were selling incredibly well, especially the Edible Flowers, which was very exciting so much so that we had to ring back to the farm for more .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the early evening I was invited to open the Edible and Useful garden at the Chelsea Physic Garden. This was a huge honour and a privelage.

My great aunt took me to see this garden many, many years ago when it truly was London’s best kept secret garden.  Today it is one of the best havens in a never sleeping city.

Thursday, before the show opened Jamie Oliver visited to see the show .

It was great to see him looking so well despite his punishing schedule, as I know he had only just returned from the USA.

Also up bright and early that morning was Cleve West, the designer of The Brewin Dolphin garden , sweeping up the plane tree blosom which was falling like snow, making us all cough and our eyes stream. He not only did this, he also did the majority of the watering, proving that he is a true gardener not just a designer.

This garden won the Best in Show, it was a stunningly beautiful garden.

Friday, the heat on our stand had been proving horrendous, we were, according to my phone, 34C, but kindly Mac, with the fresh supply of seed, also brought up a fan to cool us down.  So we were back to being human.

It was lovely to see so many people enthusastic about growing plants from seed.

Saturday The final day and it ended on a true high note.  We had grown loads of plants for Tom Hoblyn, who created the Arthritis research UK garden. It had been awarded a silver gilt medal,  so we were, with him and his team, feeling a bit low. But…..

the public know better and gave it ‘The People Choice’, which was simply brilliant. An accolade to him and his team for all their hard work.

Next week, hopefully, I will blog about the true stars of this magnificent show, THE PLANTS. To whet your appetite here are a few in the Arthritis Research UK’s garden.

Twenty five years… my memories of growing up on the Herb farm.

In the lead up to the Farm’s Silver Jubilee celebration, we have all been reflecting back on the last 25 years, which for me has been my childhood growing up on the nursery. The Herb farm has naturally evolved at the same rate that my brother Alistair and I have grown up, and we have shared every step along the way.

Our Back garden in Filton, 1985

It all started as a hobby in our back garden at our semi-detached house in Filton, Bristol. There is only 18 months between my brother and I, so Jekka (mum) decided to give up work to look after us. It was only natural for Jekka to invest time making our family a herb garden, as her mother and grandmother were passionate cooks whom used lots of herbs in their dishes. As toddlers, we spent a lot of time in the garden beside her, digging up our her seedlings and putting all sorts of  things into our mouths, fortunately we have always been organic from the very start.

Many of Jekka’s friends use to raid our herb garden, for Tarragon or Lemon Thyme, depending on what fashionable recipe they were trying to re-create that evening.  Jekka started to grow herbs in pots for them to take home.  I remember pots of herbs all over the house and on any spare surface, in the conservatory, up the stairs and in the bathroom. It soon became obvious that we needed more space, so in 1987, we moved to Rose Cottage and the start of the business, as we know it today, really began.

Rose Cottage was a derelict blacksmiths cottage on 2 acres of land. We all lived in a mobile home for two years whilst we made half of the house inhabitable. It was a picture of the good life, plus two toddlers and a hyperactive border collie called Ben, who loved to chase the swallows. And just to add a further complication, Jekka also had her right arm in plaster, as a local farmer had enthusiastically swung her across a barn at a local barn dance. Alistair and I spent most of our time outside, having many pirate adventures. Our dad, Mac, helped us build Dens and Tree houses, with the pallets from the compost deliveries, all over the farm and in our over grown orchard.

Our first Poly Tunnel at Rose Cottage, 1987

We also had many adventures on the road. With two child seats strapped in beside her, Jekka would travel around selling her herbs to local shops and local garden centres in the South-West of England and South Wales. Alistair and I, always wanting to help, would carry one plant each, whilst Jekka would carry in trays. We would always be singing and making up songs. We had one song in particular – ‘ We are the champions’ by Queen, it was not for several years that I discovered that my mum had not in fact made up this song, it was quite a disappointment to discover that it was well known.

In 1991, we exhibited for the very first time at Bath Flower show. Jekka had designed a silver snail, for which we were awarded a silver medal. Alistair and I were her sales assistants and would be stood on a box to make ourselves look taller, proudly repeating all of Jekka’s stories about herbs to the public. We were fashioned with white baseball caps with the herb farm logo hand painted on in green fabric paint, so that people knew whom we belonged to, especially useful when we went off on our explorations.

It was through exhibiting at Bath Flower show that Jekka gained her confidence to exhibit her herbs at the RHS Flower Shows. In 1993, they built their first island exhibit, at Bath, and were awarded a large gold medal. This boded well, as a month later Jekka and Mac drove to London in our small white van and with our neighbour’s horsebox, to build their first Chelsea Flower show display. I had just started Secondary school and Alistair was in his final year of Primary school. Our dad would pick us up direct from school on the Tuesday evening and drive us straight to London. In those days, Jekka borrowed a caravan and was camping in Battersea Park. We would change into our ‘posh’ clothes in the caravan and then catch the red double-decker bus to the bullring entrance, where Jekka would be waiting to walk us to her display. For our first Chelsea exhibit, we were awarded a silver-guilt medal. After all the excitement we would be bundled back into the car, full of sleeping bags and pillows, clothed in our pyjamas, to be driven back to Bristol so that we could go to school the next day. This tradition continued for the next 7 years whilst we were in school.

Our first RHS Chelsea Flower Show exhibit, 1993

That same year, we exhibited at the first RHS Hampton Court Flower show and were awarded our first RHS Gold medal, for our Thyme sundial. I am extremely proud to say that we only ever won Gold medals at Hampton court and have named our Golden Retriever, Hampton, after the show.

Geoff Hamilton talking to camera on our Hampton Court stand.

It was a very busy year for Jekka as she was also writing her first book ‘Jekka’s Complete Herb Book,’ which is still in print and on its second edition. We were now living in half of the cottage whilst we were converting the other half. Our main living area was also the kitchen, dining room, sitting room and mum’s office. We would be watching Blue Peter, with Jekka sat behind us typing and Mac  sat at the kitchen table working on the accounts. In the evenings, I would fall asleep to the sounds of Eric Clapton as mum continued to write all night.

That summer, we all went camping in Brittany. As with most camping holidays it rained a lot. During this holiday Jekka and Mac both had to proof read the book. We would have big adventures, similar to Famous Five, walking along the cliffs trying to find a fax machine to send pages back to Kyle, our publisher. Our treat was a seafood gastronomic, the French waitress was extremely impressed to watch, my brother and I, sit and slowly eat the whole platter!