Episode 14 RHS Chelsea Flower Show

We have had lots of laughter. We have had tears and there have been

more than a few surprises, but we have now reached the finale. The

show is over for another year, but here is a look at some of the

highlights. Sit back, put your feet up and enjoy our flower filled

feast. up and enjoy our flower filled

highlights. Sit back, put your feet up and

Chelsea flower show. The last six days

Chelsea flower show. The last six some of the world's

Chelsea flower show. The last six spectacular. It

Chelsea flower show. The last six the memory of the landscape.

Recreating the landscape doesn't the memory of the landscape.

has taken a memory and turned it into a garden, which is beautiful.

How into a garden, which is beautiful.

I love it, but the most into a garden, which is beautiful.

moments was approaching this big into a garden, which is beautiful.

chance to catch up with highlights from this very special week in the

gardening calendar. We are revisiting some of our favourite

show gardens, remembering who triumphed, and meeting some of the

exhibitors and designers who hope to make this Chelsea flower show one to

remember. The build-up began at the start of May when Sophie visited

what would become the main showground.

This is main avenue and it is about modes, rain and beautiful trees. It

is hard to believe that in less than two weeks, this place will be

transformed into spectacular show gardens. There are 17 show gardens

in total, with some of the biggest names in garden design working very

hard to get them ready. I have got this dry climate thing going on.

Which is hard to imagine today. Look at us! It is a stage where it is a

hole in the ground and mount wondering what I was thinking. The

pressure, more than any other year, has been immense. For the first

time, I am not liking it. The most exhausting thing about being here is

not a building, it's not the plans, it is the fear of being crushed to

death. So many vehicles and I'm convinced something is going to get

me. This is perfect Chelsea weather. Every year, you wonder why you do

it. You are in the rain and I am now stuck. The top goes up. Fantastic.

It is a bit up in the air at the moment, but one of my favourite

things is this tree. You come to Chelsea to seep perfection, but then

you get this tree. They got a bit keen with the chainsaw. But that is

the look. Seven days later and a lot has changed. Not least, the weather.

You have got your first show garden here. Huge amounts of work. The

husband will be inside where you normally are? I am stupid to have

started this, show garden and inside. Totally bonkers. With this

planting, it is celebrated as soon as it starts to rain. We are doing a

little rain dance. It is working because you have a full day of rain

tomorrow. It is a smart garden. You can water your garden whilst you are

on the tube. Get your phone out? You think, what can I do, I can turn it

on from my phone. How is this going? We have had tree problems, water

problems. But we are there now, nearly. It is the hardest garden I

have ever done. You are getting married and month after Chelsea.

What has been the most stressful? Chelsea. First show garden how has

it been? It has been amazing, horrendous, fantastic. I have never

been so scared. It is the best flower show in the world and to have

my space! It is just amazing. Once the building was complete, the

doors were thrown open. I was privileged to get Mike first glimpse

of the finished gardens at dawn. It is a fine, clear morning rising over

London. I have Chelsea, not quite to myself, I am sharing with a few

photographers, but the chance to look at the show gardens. And the

weeks of work has come to an end. They are ready. Not yet judged, not

yet seen by the world, but poised and perfect. What you're looking for

at Chelsea is the special. Things that immediately hit you. This is

one of them, the Telegraph garden designed by Andy Sturgeon. Andy has

made a garden with geological power, using vast slabs of triangular

stones but combining it with a very subtle, gentle planting. Using a

palette that is low-key, but never drab, makes a combination that is

entrancing. I think this is a really special garden.

This garden, called the antithesis of supper guide, by Martin Cook and

Gary Breeze looks like an enormous block of granite surrounded by drab

gravel. It seems not a lot is going on. But then you notice there are

tiny little holes on the side of the block. If you look through those

holes, what is revealed is a beautiful garden. The combination of

the stone and the garden hidden inside it creates one of the most

uplifting things that I have ever seen at Chelsea. I

think the M garden designed by Cleeve West is lovely. Inspired, I

love the way the stones are manipulated and used and then become

quite modern garden with an open space. That takes real skill.

Knowing when to stop, knowing when not to fill a space with something

is the sign of a master at his peak. Just for a short time, at the

beginning of this long day, I have been able to share these gardens

with a kind of innocents, and on sullied perfection. That has been a

treat. This year there were 17 gardens are

all vying for attention. Inspired by landscapes and plants from all four

corners of the globe. Here is a taste of some of the gardens that

went all out to grab international headlines.

I found myself in one of my favourite places on Earth which is

northern Provence. James, you won a gold medal, congratulations. Thank

you. The garden is wonderful, but I have heard people say, it is very

similar to last year. Are you repeating theme you are good at? It

is the study of landscape each time and these landscapes have a tone to

them, add texture to them. People react to the tone and texture. They

see this bright flush and then this brown, slightly dry garden and they

think it is the same as last year. But if you look at it closely it is

a study of a completely different part of southern France. We just

need to learn a bit more and pay more attention to detail. Like the

landscape of Yorkshire. If you look at Yorkshire there are 15 different

landscapes. The detail is remarkable. Any particular things

that prove difficult or problematic? The real difficulty was the

complexity, 200 species of plants. The way we manage that was spinning

personalities through the garden. We put some of the girls putting their

stuff in and then characterful people. It interesting people's

personality comes through. It is my wife's favourite garden and I know

the crowds and the viewers will love it also. This is Charlie Albo's

second garden in a row. This has got plenty of structure, it is a

minimalist, it is designed incredibly formal. We have these

Hornbeam is hedges which create a courtyard feel up here. And we stand

from one level down to the other. Everything feels so familiar and it

feels very English. But when you look in detail at the plants, there

is something slightly different going on, something more Australian.

This box hedging which goes round to the bottom level, was all clipped on

site. One guy did it so meticulously and it creates such a strong

structure. C, your planting looks familiar, but it somehow isn't. We

have all different things in. You are playing on a theme? The

Melbourne climate is fantastic and you can grow a lot of plants. You

could grow them here. You don't get a harsh frost like here. It can get

a bit hot in the summer but not the baking heat like Sydney can get. I

get a lot of support from my own garden going home after a busy week

and it relaxes me and that is what I wanted to create. Was it easier this

time? It was more stressful because you had the fear of the unknown last

time around, but now you have two come up with what you know needs to

be delivered. We have put so much work into this garden, we get here

first and we leave last. You are showing the Brits up. We just want

to do well. It is a fantastic garden. You must be delighted with

this garden? I am thrilled to bits. My plants are looking like little

jewels. They are standing to attention and flowering. The

foxgloves were closed, but since I planted them, they are flowering.

Just looking like butterflies, wonderful. You have been in the

great Pavilion many times, but this is your first show garden. It is

wonderful there are so many women this year? It is great we can show

how skilled and there are some absolutely beautiful gardens

The herbs you have grown, nurtured like babies, tell me about some of

them. In this area, there's thyme, chamomile and menthol. All of them

are edible. The chamomile is double flowered. You could make tea from

it. You can use it in cooking. But it's the bees and butterflies that

will come. If you're sitting here you have something to watch, as well

as the water. This is your reflexology path. Yes, it is. It

really does work. It's not so good to stand still on, to be honest. You

have to keep moving around. It's fantastic. I wish you every bit of

luck with your first show garden. Thank you very much indeed.

There were a total of six gold medals awarded in the main show

gardens. Chris Beardshaw's Great Ormond Street opt garden made for a

beautiful, reflective sanctuary. It appears at the show before it moves

to the roof garden of the hospital, where it will be enjoyed by the

parents and families of children being treated there.

A sense of peace and calm was captured's in Paul Martin's garden,

which scooped gold for the clean lines and sharp details, against the

foil of multistemed trees and subdued planting. Winning gold for

the sixth time was Cleve West, with his M garden, which evoked his

childhood memories of Exmoor, with its oak trees and the contrast of

natural and precision with cut stone. Jo Thompson's Gold Medal

design featured her take on a 21st century Rose Garden, complete with

huge water fall leading down to an inviting lawn. A slice of France was

brought to south-west London with this award-winning L'Occitane

Garden. Andy Sturgeon was on the verge of tears, when he not only won

gold but scooped his second Best Show Garden award for the dynamic

telegraph garden. Many congratulations. Thank you.

APPLAUSE Thank you very much. Now you can

have this beautifully heavy... Congratulations. Well done. That's

fantastic. You've won gold and done a fabulous garden. How does it feel

to be best? Absolutely brilliant. I know it means a huge amount of work

It's not just for me. This was a big journey, this garden. It's a huge,

monumental task. I know a lot of people during the construction, even

a few days ago, thinking oh, my God, those guys are never going to

finish. There's so many heavy bits of stone, it's a huge task. The guys

who have built this garden, Crocus, all the guys and girls who. Planting

with me, they've done an amazing job. This is very much for

everybody, I think. Congratulations, well done. Many congratulations.

Thank you. For over a century the Great Pavilion has been the place to

see plants from all over the world at the peak of their perfection.

Inside horticulture's big top there were plenty of show stoppers which

gave the gardens outside a run for their money.

People have a tendency to think of gardens as natural. But really you

use natural ingredients to create artificial theatre and there's no

garden that's more theatrical than this. Tell me about it. It's a

massive theatrical jigsaw, to take people on a journey, onto a 1920s

British Pullman carriage. You come out and you're in Malaysia. You've

been on a trip. 60 feet long, 38 tons To be able to go in and pop out

on the other side, you really feel you've been on a journey. I hope so.

And I hope it encourages people for their own gardens. I love the tree

firms. The hairy tree fern, that's fantastic. It has scales on it. Also

the silver tree fern. We probably got the only two left in Europe now.

All this afternoon and dantsing girls! -- dancing girls! Chelsea is

all about drama, all about excitement and if you're looking for

that, this stand has it more than anyone else.

Sarah Eberle has created a massive exhibit here. It's 22 metres by 12

metres, which easily makes it one of the biggest gardens at the show,

bigger than most of the things on Main Avenue. It's got 4,000 plants,

towering trees, beautiful, modern pavilion and a lake. For me, this is

a game changer for the pavilion. The thing that I absolutely love

about the pavilion is this sense of anarchy. Outside the show gardens

are sponsored and marked by points. The whole thing feels that so much

work has gone into it, so much precision. I like the very British,

slightly chaotic eccentricity of the pavilion. I like the different

sizes. You might have a husband and wife with an exhibit and someone

like Birmingham City Council with ten or 15 people involved, a huge

exhibit. The different scale, of the plants, and the sizes of the

exhibits. Then people who can show just one plant, just seeing a Gold

Medal display of saracenia, and thinking it's the most interesting

thing in the world, which it is for that moment. It's a celebration of

obsession. It certainly is. When it all comes down to it, those

spectacular displays are nothing without the award-winning

performances from some unique individuals in their own starring

roles Everyone's dressed to the nines,

trying to stand out from the crowd. I'm not talking about the people!

I'm talking about the plants. I want to find those subjects who are truly

worthy of regal attention. On parade today, two ladies in

waiting from the truly noble family. Their family name trips off the

tongue. The first is agapanthus. They're renowned for growing these

beautiful plants. They were flowers that were beloved by the Queen

Mother. In fact it's even -- there's even one called Queen mum. Although

we've become familiar with them in our gardens, they still retain this

exulted status. They're very, very special plants. No wonder. Waiting

in the wings are these Deb students -- debutantes. They're narines. They

hold their elegant heads high. It's their very first time here and

you're not expecting to see them, because essentially they are

Autumn-flowering bulbs. But somehow Hoyland plants have managed to

conjure them into bloom for their very first royal performance.

Talk about regiments, Pomp and Circumstance - just take a look at

these vegetables! This truly is Trooping The Colour. Is this a

pyramid, a pillar or a pinnacle of purple podded peas? It sure puts

those busbys in bearskins in the shade.

Long before you see the brilliant colours of these beautiful

hyacinths, you can detect their fragrance wafting around the Great

Pavilion. They truly are the princesses of perfume.

For me, this is the ultimate royal gala performance, the like of which

we've never seen before. It's composed of the crown jewels of the

floral world, hipaticus. It makes me feel like a queen.

That beautiful stand won the prestigious Diamond Jubilee award.

John was somewhat surprised to receive it, while he was enjoying

his exhibitors lunch. Carol caught up with him to get his reaction.

John, congratulations. I mean, huge congratulations. As far as I'm

concerned, this award could not have gone anywhere else at all. I think

sometimes if you believe you can - that something's worth doing, that

you can achieve it. To do the stand is a dream. To get this as well,

it's surreal, really. I'll probably - when I sober up tomorrow

morning... LAUGHTER

I might believe it. No, it's fantastic. What is it about these

flowers that make them so special? What do you love? Why are you so

fascinated by them? I just fell in love with them. When? Can you

remember? When I was about 11. They were in my parents' garden, when

they moved house. It was the worst place for a rock garden under a

sycamore tree. There was a stream, there was water and they were

growing there so happily. I was just intrigued. Then many years I was

asked to do a talk in Japan on hellibores. And I said I'd go if I

could see the hipaticus in the mountains and they did. That was it.

You really are quite obsessional about these plants. I'm totally

crazy because I wouldn't dream of going to another country if they

weren't growing there. There's no point is there? ! Is that what it

says on your passport, collector? Yeah! It's always been a dream to

try and bring this sort of display to Chelsea, but it wouldn't have

been possible without - Without your wonderful team. They are. Philip,

Rupert, Simon, all the lads. You can't name them all. It's the end of

the programme! LAUGHTER

Congratulations, John. Very well done. I'm very proud to be here.

Outside the smaller show gardens fall into two categories - the more

conceptual fresh gardens which aim to deliver a message through design

and planting and the bijou artisan gardens the jewels in Chelsea's

crown, each created in a plot measuring around 25 square metres.

With seven fresh gardens competing this year, Ann Marie and Toby went

to have a closer look. I always really enjoy the fresh

gardens at Chelsea. These are the gardens without any constraints. The

designers can make them any size they like, embrace new technology or

an exciting, unusual idea. This garden has particularly caught my

eye. The theme of the garden is called Revive. That's wonderfully

illustrated here. We've got this metal fret work that runs throughout

the space supporting the natural. Look at those stems. It really feels

like it's holding the yew up. We've got this naturalistic planting

behind me here, moving through all sorts of plants, this represents

Primaeval nature. Further round the space, more structure here and

there. However I think where the garden doesn't quite succeed is the

naturalistic planting could be bigger and the formal planting isn't

formal enough. The only thing that really unifies nature here is the

beautiful admittedly, lace work that runs through the space, but I don't

think it's quite enough. I have to say, I really, really love

this garden. This garden is a space in which to work. It's not only

beautiful, but practical too. Let me show you how it works. So every

single plant in this whole garden, the borage, and even nettles are

used to make Dai. Here we've got these beautiful flow forms and what

they do is naturally purify the water, which aids the Daiing

process, as does this copper pot, which really enriches the colour.

The wool goes in, it's Daied and is made into balls of wool, which I

just love. The balls of wool become something completely magical. Up the

steps and we've got this wonderful, tactile tapestry. Now the garden

really highlights that we're losing our dying traditional skills, but my

word it celebrates the craft and I love it! This is an unusual fresh

garden design because it is a true garden. Yes there's two categories,

conceptual and show gardens. I designed this together with Paul

Robinson and we've created an urban space that you can sit and enjoy

with friends, come together and just relax in a nice environment.

here it has a wonderful sense of enclosure, but it is the size of a

few car parking spaces yes, they will be broke up after the show and

put into areas in London. So people can enjoy the space. This is the

launch of the idea. It is about bringing premium quality green

spaces to London. These small spaces face in on each other. I guess it is

to bring different parts of the community together. Yes, the outside

is a bit undulating, bit unknown and isolated. Inside, there is a party

going on. Right colours, glitter in the paving. These cute little booths

which make you feel safe and happy. If bees are drawn to flowers and we

are drawn to colour and that is the thinking behind it? Yes, we have

used organic and natural things to paint the trees with. They will

hopefully act as beacons to drop people into these urban spaces. I

love the orchids. It is a hardy garden orchid, specially bred for

the show. Last year you got a silver last year, what you think you will

get this year rush to mark I will be happy with a silver and above.

Anything silver and above will be great. Good luck, he deserve it.

Back to the small gardens and the partisan category, the brief is

firmly rooted in the celebration of traditional crafts. This is the arts

and craft inspired garden. Traditional music and flowers. My

favourite part is this oak framed structure. It is chunky with a built

in seat. It gives you a view out onto the world, an imaginary

landscape. You got a silver medal, which is a great medal at Chelsea. I

think the judges thought he was trying to fit too much into a small

space. Lots of elements going on, but they don't come together in a

cohesive garden. It is meant to energise and relax and in a small

space it is hard to do two things. It is a fact our gardens are getting

smaller so we have to be more ingenious with the way we use our

space. And this Japanese designer has shown you can create a garden

that is beautiful, but also space-saving. I think he has cracked

it. With a small footprint he has created a two tier garden. What I

like it he has planting up at this level. He is creating the scene with

the maples and the masts so the whole scheme is integrated, even at

this level. As you come down the stairs, you have this vertical

garden, but it is also coming out at you like three-dimensional. You can

get nice and close to plants like this time, that looked like they are

growing out of the walls. Water features and it draws you to it

beautifully. We have a terrace, a great garden. There is even space

for a car. You would expect to see a Japanese import. No, this is Chelsea

after all. At the way, everybody! Chelsea first time that lives a

stone's throw away from the showground is Nick Bailey. He has

designed, what I think of is the mathematics garden. It has caused

quite a stir, it is a big garden, but it is a complicated theme. Maybe

not to you if you are a mathematician. Was that deliberate?

I am aware that all plants are run by these algorithms. All this stuff

is going on inside so the garden was trying to extract and show the idea

that mathematics underpins all life and growth. How have people

responded? Most people arriving see the colour and the form and the

void. It was important, but it was about showing the wildness of the

beautiful plants and then subtly extract some of the mathematics. The

water bowl at the front, has an incredible spiral that you find so

commonly in nature, in Sunflowers, pine cones and pineapples. Elsewhere

we have tried to pick plans with obvious geometric forms. The big

message is this copper band that swirls through the garden that

carries these real plans growth algorithms. Using copper like that

was a big decision? It was, but I love copper as a material and we

used it in so many different ways to try out the colours. We tried out

scrambled eggs. You place scrambled eggs across the surface of copper

and it brings out this incredible mottled texture. This is your first

show garden, did it much your expectations? It exceeded my

expectations, inasmuch as it took all my arts, energy and soul to

produce it as well as the 40 people I worked with to produce it. We look

forward to you coming back to Chelsea. I do hope so. All the

wonderful designs would be nothing without the plants. A relationship

between grower and designer is the key to a successful show. My name is

Dave and I am the owner of a nursery in Somerset.

I started growing plants when I was 16. I went to university and studied

horticulture and I have been in the nursery business ever since, which

is over 30 years. We first started growing plants for other Chelsea

gardens in 2008 when we were approached by Andy Sturgeon. We got

asked to grow the things nobody else wanted to touch. We have got 39 days

to supply over 25,000 plants to seven different Chelsea flower show

gardens. This is one of the main growing tunnels for plants for

Chelsea. It is our hothouse. It is about 10 degrees a minimum to bring

on some of the plants that are a bit slow at the moment. We are growing

for quite a spread across the globe of plants. We are growing something

for Nick Bailey which is called the chicken wire plans. It is the Zig

Zag leaves which make it look like chicken wire when you look down at

it. Our speciality is plants from a specific location. One of the

craziest plants we are doing comes from New Zealand. It has got this

registered, spiny leaves. We grow for designers from Australia, Japan.

The challenge is what excites me. There is a lot of victories this

year. A little bit of a new thing for us. These came in yesterday from

Germany and you could buy quite a nice car for the price of one of

these trees. The brief I had on this was that I needed to find one branch

like that and one like that. We have got this for the Japanese guys at

Chelsea, I think it is about 50 years old. We are a pretty small

nursery, nine guys here, ten, 12 different growing locations. Gary

manages the team on a day-to-day basis and they are a great bunch of

people. Last couple of days we have had beautiful sunshine, a lot of

things flowering and things moving so we are putting them in a cooler

climate to make sure they are on target for the show. I lay awake at

night sometimes thinking about the enormity of what we are doing but

somehow it all works out in the end. Gary and I have a close working

relationship, virtually every day we will walk the entire nursery in the

morning and look at every single plans for every job and every

designer. The most difficult and challenging plans we are growing

this year is Lupin 's. They are nightmares. We only need a couple of

days. Gary goes to London about halfway through the build-up. It is

full on, 24 hours a day. It is crazy, absolutely crazy. Whilst we

miss him here, the brilliant thing is, he is now based in London. We

are in Chelsea, you get a bit hectic and people get pent but ultimately

the plants come and they are nice, and that is what everybody cares

about. Everything is looking good. It has just gone mid-day and I have

had 27 phone calls. Clients get more stressed the closer to the show we

get. It is our job to manage them and just say, it is OK, we know what

we are doing, don't worry about it. It is incredibly full on at this

time of the year. Constantly things are going round in your head.

Failure, we don't talk about failure. It is not an option.

Here I am on the mathematics garden with Dave. You have supplied a lot

of plants? Yes, some of the shrubs, the trees and eclectic perennials.

The diversity is extraordinary. It must make your job difficult? It was

quite a challenge and even more so because the only joint Nick on the

project in February. I love thinking, where will we find this,

where do we go next. A lot of it is hunting them. I am their personal

shopper. You go all over Europe, you know the guys in the nurseries in

Europe. With Nick we went to Germany, we went to Belgium twice,

we have been to Italy, Spain and Cicely. Just picking up 12 the

plants. You have got to be a serious horticulturist and know what someone

wants. It is not just finding it, it is getting the quality. You have got

to have a beautiful one. You have to go and see it, that is what makes

the job so time-consuming. You have do see it in person. Do you do most

of your business through Chelsea now throughout the whole year? Are

nursery is really geared around Chelsea. You have got a silver this

year? Yes, and we worked with Tom hobbling as well. Lovely to see you

Dave, keep supplying those fabulous plants. Thank you. Awards can and

always will divide opinion and one man who is used to controversy is

the artist and former Turner prizewinner Grayson Perry. Thank you

for coming. Have you been here often? Never, I am a virgin. Your

first visit, what are you expecting? I was expecting amazing

craftsmanship, and that is what I am seeing. The love of it, the detail,

the precision and the perfection. I am seeing it in all of the gardens.

What about the social events? Chelsea has become this huge,

ritualistic event? It is what I would call a mega fate of Britain.

You have Wimbledon, the Royal Academy summer show, the Proms. It

is the celebration of British culture that goes on over the

summer. This is a big part of it. It is the produce show on steroids. Do

you garden at home? No, I was put off by my parents. I was slave

labour to my parents when I was young, and it puts me off. I love

looking at gardens and I love sitting in the garden. I love the

philosophy of what they mean. What do you think they mean? They are a

meditation on mortality, in some ways. As I age and every spring, I

find myself sighing and going, I have made it another year. There is

something very touching about that. When you see the trees, the flowers

coming out and the birds are nesting, it is like, we have made it

through the winter. I find that very moving, more moving eg as I age. We

send him off to look around the show. I like the idea of this garden

very much. It's about dyes and natural colours. I am partial, often

I use natural colours like cobalt and copper and so, I can have a

sympathy for these shades. I'd like it see these gardens in about five

years, see what they look like when they're mossy, rusty, dirty and

crumbly and overgrown. I'm not so particularly keen on the shape of

the garden. I think the stinging nettles on the corner is a wise,

tactical plant. I can imagine the wear and tear on these gardens is

heavy that. Will keep the corner nice and crisp. That's clever. This

amazing stand of chrysanthemums here is a weird alienness that I find

attractive and spooky. As a creative person, often I think that my job is

to have my own series of mistakes really. That's what I do. There's no

perfect art. It's marvellous to see the perfection of nature, I suppose.

Because flowers, they are so transitory. What they're screaming

at us is a beautiful, psychelelic vision of mortality. The joy of a

garden for me is it's my private space, where I can just have a beer

and watch the birds and watch the sun go down. For other people it's

like an art gallery. These head dresses, they're amazingly well

crafted. The thing that screams out for me on these is they're on male

torsos. That made me think of the notion of flowers. Flowers are

almost "the" symbol of femininity in many ways. Looking across the crowd

here at Chelsea, I'm interested in the gender balance. It's about 70%

female today, I'd say. We still think of the traditional horny

handed son of the soil as being a man. I have a suspicion that most

gardeners are female. One thing men do like is convenience. Maybe

gardening is too hard work. I love this garden, it might be my

favourite so far. I spent some time in Japan. For me, Japanese gardening

for me is something, the attention to detail and the overall

traditional aesthetic of it, I think the thing that really I love about

Japanese gardening is there is something, an implicit ageing about

it. They love a bit of moss. Every single detail has been made to look

artificially natural. I'm kind of drawn into this one because I kind

of match. That immediately sets off thoughts in my head about taste.

Because taste is something that I've been fascinated with all my life.

When people say I like something, that's a huge, complex thought. What

makes us like something? Our whole lives are leading up to that moment

we say I like something, your class, background, education, your job, how

old you are, what gender you are, everything is coming to bear on why

you like this thing. One person's horrific, vulgar naffness is another

person's sublime beauty. Because taste is just a way of signalling to

people in your tribe that you belong. There's no such thing as bad

taste. Maybe... It's been something of a roller

coaster ride for Matthew Wilson. He came to Chelsea last year and did

his first show garden and was definitely disappointed to receive a

silver gilt. Undeterred, this year he was back for more with a garden

inspired by a beautiful part of England.

This year I'm doing a garden for the whole of the county of Yorkshire.

The attraction for me is it's a landescape that I absolutely adore.

I never get border of it. I think you can't get border of it, because

it's so diverse from big-scale, epic stuff right the way down to really

intimate and very Kos eking landscape. It's got everything

really. You can't take this landscape and stick it into a 22 by

12 metre plot in Chelsea. You can be inspired by the elements - water,

stone, plants, trees - and try to get something of that ruggedness and

put that into a garden. It's not just about the landscape or

the gardens of York Shh... Shire that have inspired -- Yorkshire that

have inspired the Chelsea garden, it's this window, the greatest at

Yorkshire, the largest expanse of medieval glass in Britain. What I

find incredible about it, and so inspiring about it, is the way that

the glass and the light interact and the way it changes through the

course of the day. In the same way, actually, that light changes a

garden during the course of a day. The garden is effectively the arch

of the window laid on its side. So I've exploded all the elements and

re-assembled them in a different way. The planting has been the

biggest challenge. How can I actually get the landscape and the

gardens of Yorkshire across through the planting? I've taken the shape

of the windows and size of the individual windows and laid them

onto the ground with a stone edge. Then into those stone windows, I've

effectively planted plants that represent the colours of the stained

glass in planting. That's the plan any way. I've gone for plants that

have got hopefully quite a lot of character in them. Rather than

things that are pristine, they're a bit more naturally and -- gnarly,

craggy - a bit more Yorkshire. Capturing something on this scale is

obviously a massive challenge for a Chelsea garden, where you're

effectively scaling everything down. At the same time you've got to give

it a sense of something big, impressive, something that people

will go "wow". We are making a modern evokation of the Great East

Window in the form of a five by three metre stained glass panel

which the York glazers trust are making. And it will be big, not

quite as big as that. But it's big nonetheless. It will be something

quite unlike anything people have seen before at Chelsea. I'm very

nervous about it. I'd be very stupid not to be nervous about it. Yes, I'm

aware that a lot of people have spent a lot of time and energy and

effort helping me to make this garden happen. So, yeah, I am

definitely nervous about it. It's a big thing, isn't it? It's a

big thing. There was a happy ending, because

the public just loved his design, over all others and voted his garden

as the RHS peoples choice for Best Show Garden.

What does that mean to you? A huge amount. It reinforces the fantastic

feed back we've had during the week, people really responding to the

garden. Yesterday somebody came up to me and said, "I'm going to vote

from your garden and I'm from Lancashire!" People obviously loved

this garden. Voted for it in their thousands. What do you think it was

that they particularly liked about it? Well, I hope that they - and I

think from talking to people, they got the concept of the garden quite

easily. They loved the stained glass. An the relationship between

the stained glass and the planting. That's not something people will

have seen at Chelsea before, certainly not on that scale. I think

people like the craftsmanship and there is a lot of craftsmanship in

the garden, the glass, the stone work and so on. I think they loved

the planting. I've had such lovely comments about the planting. The

planting has come alive over the last few days, not that it wasn't

before, but it has noticeably settled in and grown and flowered.

This is an aspect of Chelsea that one doesn't really consider very

much. No, of course, we're at the prime growing time across the UK.

Third week of May, plants are growing like the clappers. Here

they're getting lots of attention. They're being watered. It's been a

lovely weather week. Everything's growing together. I sat over there

earlier on, watching honeybees weaving in and out of the flowers

and thinking, wow, four weeks ago, this was a dull, old, grassy bank.

Now I'm feeding London's honeybees. You won a silver medal from the

judges. I know that although you were gracious about, it it was a bit

of a disappointment. Yes, it was. Does this make up for it? Oh, yes,

absolutely. This is such a wonderful thing because it reinforces all the

wonderful comments I've been having during the week. It speaks from real

gardeners, doesn't it, people watching the programme, night after

night, day after day, enjoying the gardens and seeing something in this

that they find inspirational, aspirational that they can take

home, all those wonderful things. I think that's why people have voted

for it. Well done, great success. Enjoy it. Thank you very much.

Congratulations to Matthew. He's chuffed to bits. Congratulations

also to Juliet Sargeant who won the RHS people's choice award in the

fresh garden category. Does that surprise you? It doesn't. People

always respond to a story, particularly, let's be Frank about

it, if it plucks at the heart strings. It's a very serious message

behind it. Absolutely, people feel somehow it deserves to be taken

seriously and given an award. That's understandable. But of course, the

judges don't do that. Nor should they. They are judging it on the

garden. They don't care how much work went into it or what the back

story is or anything like that. It's rare that the people's choice is the

same as the judges' choice for Best Show Garden. Now in the artisan

category, there was the meningitis garden which won the people's choice

award. There's all the sculptures coming through the walls, again, a

strong message. I think viewers can really connect with that. That's

what it's about. It is, but you can't blame the judges for following

their brief. No. That's the thing. People get confused about that

sometimes, I think. The people's choice is about the people's choice!

It certainly S It is now over for the people, for the judges and all

of us. The RHS Flower Show 2016 an event supported by M Investments

is coming to an end. We have been here all week from dawn till dusk.

Tell me about it! Trust Toby to go the extra mile and do the night

shift. He was rewarded with a magical, out of hours spectacle.

When the sun sets over Chelsea, it's not a cue for all the show gardens

to go to bed. Some are designed to impress 24 hours a day. Sure, the

life of a show garden might be short, but when darkness falls, they

light up the night like fireflies. I like the way this garden is lit

because it's warm, it's useful, it's inviting. Best of all, it's easy to

copy. The most common type of garden light say spot lamp. The temptation

is always to direct it straight onto what you want to illuminate. That

beam is as bright as a car head lap p and blinding. What I like about

this design is he uses regular spot lamps, but they're directed onto a

white wall and the light is bounced and it creates a lovely, soft glow.

There's no shadows, but the light is bright enough to read a book by.

Lighting is so transformative, especially when used to pick out

individual plants. When lit from below, these are turned from

leathery leaved plants by day into geographer's maps with yellow rivers

cutting through verdant green mountainsides, just wonderful. This

garden there are LED lights embedded in box hedges. They're like the port

holes a plane, exciting, and raising a sense of anticipation.

Used well with water, garden lighting can be other worldly, it

can add another dimension. But designers also use it to focus on

their garden's message. Light can make the mundane seem

special. But even here at Chelsea, where perfection is everywhere, it

adds another layier, a layer of romance. That's just about it from

us at Chelsea. I'll be back next Friday, as usual, in the usual slot,

Gardners' World and Joe and I will be there to bring you coverage from

Hampton Court Flower Show at the beginning of July. Until then,

bye-bye. Bye-bye. Once upon a time, there was

a great and glorious king.