Episode 13 RHS Chelsea Flower Show

It takes 15 months to create the floral spectacle that is the RHS

Chelsea Flower Show. It is a work of slow and careful craftsmanship.

Tonight we pay tribute to the talented people from designers to

landscapers and no she men who make the week a perfect horticultural

showcase. Coming up: Quality counts - designer Arne Maynard explains

how the art of the craftsmen underlines every aspect of his

gardening life. The craftsmanship of making the garden has been one

of exploring and using elements that exist but reinterpreting them.

Truly challenging - landscapers Mark Gregory and Andrew Loudon feel

the pressure of building the perfect a dry stone hut. With 12

tonnes of dry stone, it is the kind of thing that will keep you awake

at night. Actor and comedian Hugh Dennis shares stories of his Sussex

garden and his thoughts on this year's show. I have this tremendous

urge to do that on the top. I am worried if you push down, somewhere

else in the garden, something explodes.

Good evening and welcome to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, supported by

M&G investments. We have been decorated tonight. I have a button

hole from Canterbury College and you have a beautiful one on your

wrist. Earlier on in the week, these pot are at the things for the

RHS to raise money for the school garden campaign, here we are, I did

one and Rachel did one and they are going up in value and can has been

left behind, she has not started yet. Are you in the lead?

Apparently. Start going online. Start voting and bidding for the

pots. It is not fair. We only have until Sunday night. You are here on

television. I want everyone to treat. Designer Arne Maynard

returns to Chelsea this year after a 12 year absence. The triumph of

his 2012 show garden is its ability to create a sense of preference to

-- prominence despite its feuding existence. It is all about working

in harmony with the surrounding landscape, a concept he explained

when we visited his own home carved into the landscape. For me, it is

really important to celebrate the morning. A even before the Sun has

risen, Dawn here is the most magical experience. To experience

the whole garden starting to wake up, especially when the sun starts

to rise, it does not hit the House terribly early but it hits the

would lands beyond and you get this amazing light. Then the garden is

completely be used in this soft, low light. There is something

really nice, that connection you make what the garden at that time

of day. The landscape is rather overpowering, it is very big, we're

at the head of the Ballee. The cracked and ship of making the

garden has been one of exploring and using elements that exist but

just reinterpreting them. In the kitchen garden, we have oak ageing

because the native tree in Wales and around here, there is a lovely

oak tree over here, it is a material from here so it doesn't

jump out as being wrong. I used his will for making all but rules domes,

for my bean sticks and pea sticks and the Tories used in the garden

as well. Closer to the House, I have kept performs simple but as

they disperse and move away from the House, they turn into native

trees. It is that dissolving of the language and allowing it to become

a part of its setting that hopefully creates a garden that

sits comfortably within its environment. Craftsmanship in the

garden is an extremely important part of the making of a garden.

Something that is beautifully and made, there's a longevity about it,

it will last, it is not just you provide minutes. It is using the

best materials you can and using wonderful traditional skills and

keeping those skills alive because these are the then years that we

see in the garden and they are that things that we get drawn to. The

craft and she is also horticultural, there is that scale of beautifully

clipping at one item to make it something more special. The garden

I designed for this year's Chelsea Flower Show is one that is very

much at gardener's garden. I wanted to create a garden that was not

full of structures, a garden that was made up of planted elements. I

would love for the visitor to Chelsea to be able to see both my

passion of gardening and also my passion for design. It is my love

of architectural plants and my love of the soft perennial planting and

the roses all coming together and is held together and bound together

by the quality of cracked and chipped. It is something that I, as

a Gardner, would love to have and would love to garden and garden it

throughout the year, not just for them once of Chelsea. Are you

hoping? I don't think you should be on this watercolour! It has been a

while since I have been at Chelsea. The expectation is very exciting. I

think it concentrates the mind. But for me, the most important thing is

to do the best of my ability. As long as I feel I have achieved the

best, I feel the garden is going to be very successful.

It amazes me that now having seen that film, that this is so much

reflecting your own garden, you have got your own garden at

Chelsea? I probably have, it was not a conscious decision. I

consider myself more of a Gardner and a designer so all the skills

and the way I garden have been translated to here. It is about

craftsmanship and journeys but also these wonderful things. Look at

this astonishing pavement, would these are laid on site? They were

all laid onside and I wanted to do that here because I wanted to sue

the craft and ship being created here at Chelsea but you get a much

better finish if you do it like that. The it is very comfortable

and incredibly smooth. Where does this all go at the end of the

Which? It will be demolished but we are going to recycle all of the

pebbles. When you say you're a partner and not a designer, I see

that in here because the same applies to me and looking at these

lavender patterns going through, I love the density of the planting

but that seems to immediate that. The it gives the garden a breathing

space. I have put the lavenders in to put them some division, I have

put them coming out at Chipping. You do have access into the border.

It is you access pack? Yes. I love this idea, most of us love old-

fashioned shrub roses, you have crafted these wonderful his will

twigged domes to which they are growing. That is something that I

create for my clients and I garden at home like this. Amid these

wonderful domes each year and it is one of my favourite things in

February to do. You create these domes and every year they get

bigger. By winding the roses around, you get so many more Floris and it

holds them all up. This is a garden which will be interesting all the

time, not just for Chelsea and it is quite unusual? Yes, we have the

trees, the beach Coe's Golden in the winter. You have the wonderful

Petrie and the structure of the Roses. Quite often, I leave my

herbaceous standing. The birds can enjoy them as well. His great

achievement here is to create a real garden that offers all year

round interest. That has involved a great deal of planning and thinking

be on the idea of a show garden which by nature is transient. To

find out how he did it, you can join him on our red button coverage

at the end of this programme. Tonight we're talking about the

great craftsmanship that goes into Chelsea and you only have to look

at a hard landscaping in the show gardens to see the skill and

precision that goes into each creation. There are many different

skills on show this year. No matter how good your garden

design, none of it is achievable without the skills of a very

talented army of craftsmen, putting up with some tough demands and they

up with some tough demands and they up with some tough demands and they

really deserve recognition. In the Trailfinders garden, this sandstone

wall which dominates the garden took 10 days to build like the most

complicated and heavy jigsaw. Not only do all the pieces fit together

perfectly, the wall leans back so all the corner pieces have been

individually hand worked to create that angle and it is details like

that that really left the garden. The fact that these are long beans

can project from the wall and this substantial table can float above

the terraced is down to clever counterbalancing, calculated by the

engineers. Here is an incredible folly, and

the designer likes to work by a for urging the woodland to find pieces

of timber that suggest how he will make the structure. Here we have

this incredible piece of the cherry that twists and turns and then

suggests this spiral staircase. Around the sides their hour

beautiful markings that go up and down here. On the sides, interwoven,

Stagg oak and each piece carefully selected so it fits perfectly. When

you look up, well, there is a ceiling covered with these pieces

of grass, cut into the shape of leaves and powdered glass goes on

top of that to make the colour and these were all created by the

students. Absolutely incredible, it really personalises the whole thing.

On the river is this incredible example of a that chin. It looks

absolutely beautiful and I know he waited a month while it aided and

became the right colour. The whole thing is a fantastic example of

folk crafts. Here, it is the joiners who have

stolen the show. These frames are made from thousands of individual

pieces which gives this intriguing pattern and create these beautiful

curves. They were crafted in the workshop then craned in and bolted

down to create the backbone of the gardens. There is a lot of

painstaking work here but it is what that because they are a real

show-stopper. This garden is all about showcasing

traditional hand-built scales and they have this wonderful shepherd's

hut, a similar to the ones you would see in Slovenia. It is

entirely stonewalled and is all about selecting the right piece of

stone for the right place. None of it is cut, it is just about finding

the right piece for the right place. It is beautiful. They have also

brought all his stone over from Slovenia and it took them four days

to construct here on the site which is very impressive. This garden

demonstrates perfectly how skills handed down are still relevant in

There is one little stone shelter that has been attracting a great

deal of attention right the way through the week. It is the

centrepiece of Professor Nigel's garden and it is based on Trulli

Houses built on the coast of Italy. These homes were built without

cement. This aloud them to be dismantled by the Italian

landowners, desperate to avoid taxes after their labourers moved

on. Well, landscapers Mark and Andrew planned a twist on these

unique little dwellings, but their hell see adaptation hasn't been --

Chelsea adapt hasn't been without challenges. We joined them a couple

of weeks ago. This technique has been used for

thousands of years in the Mediterranean. We have got that in

the back of our mind. We think if Italian peasants have been building

them, I'm sure we can pull it off here.

It is twelve tonnes of dry stone. That's the kind of thing that would

keep you awake at night. I have known Andy's work because I

have seen his work at work and he has been on the show as a stone

waller. When this job came, I knew I had to work with somebody really,

really good. Yes. We have never built anything like this before.

Hats off to Mark for having the vision to do it in dry stone work.

It would have been easy to have something fabricated off site. It

would have taken less time, but this is the real deal. I think it

will pay dividends in the end. It is only day five. I think we're

bang on programme. Bang on. stone we're using on the buildings,

this is limestone from Dorset and we're dressing a natural face on to

it. So just with a hammer, we're just chipping the stones to make

them fit. As it is a round building, they are cut like pieces of pie so

they fit in around the corner and there is a var variation in the

colour and that adds to it when you see it in the building. There is

There is blues and greys and browns and when it gets wet, that brings

the colours out and it will look better again.

I like to come down to Chelsea to promote dry stone walling. Show

people that it is not about traditional field areas in Britain,

but it can be adapted and used in a contemporary way in garden design

and this is a perfect scenario to do it.

There is still some way to go though. Oh yeah.

We have done a rough calculation about how much stone we will need,

12 tonnes. I am looking at what I have got on the ground, I have got

three tonnes left. I know we are running out of stone. I know we are.

MOBILE PHONE RINGS Hi Chris, how are you doing? The

issue is I need stone here by the morning. If you can pull me out six,

two plus four that look half descent I can have a lorry there

first thing. Cheers, Chris, thanks. That's interesting. I have got two

stone Masons that have run out of stone. If I can't release the staff

folding, I have got three days work...

MOBILE PHONE RINGS Excuse me. Mark Gregory. Are you

phoning about a lorry for the morning? I need a lorry. I need a

lorry down to to Swannich. Everything is so fast. A big

problem. Somebody said, "Don't you get bored being at Chelsea?" How

can you get bored doing something like this? It will be tight. We'll

get it done. No pain, no gain is Mark, how many gardens have you

done at Chelsea? 55 I built. What on earth did you set this

challenge? This is probably the most technical thing that I built.

I have built amazing gardens, but this one got me excited. I kicked

against it. The craftsmanship is amazing. How

many tonnes of stone? We we estimate 11 tonnes, but I got that

wrong. We had 19 tonnes delivered. With the waste, it is 15 tonnes.

I thought, "They must have done it against a frame." The fact that you

built it like an egg without any frame work. I was going to put in

ply, but something gets you. It is massacrism. Can you pull it

off? Does it sadden you that at the end, that it will be demolished?

will be rebuilt. We haven't got time to pull it down properly. It

will be pushed in by machine. The sen teen me next -- ten teenry

next year of the Chelsea Flower Show. Anything? I want to go

building for Nigel. Nigel did all this naturalistic planting? Maybe I

will come back as a designer. That would be good, design your own

for 2013. I had a run in eight, nine and ten,

and to come back, there is talk. But I need to find money!

Hint. Hint. Whatever it is you, you get to do, I hope it looks as

He is known as the much put upon father of three who struggles with

adorable but frustrating. Hugh Denis is one of the country's best

loved actors. Hugh took time to join us at Chelsea.

They said, "You will find him on the caravan garden because he is

keen on caravans. ". I wouldn't say I was keen on caravans. Until I was

16, I spent every holiday in a caravan.

Do you not like it? As soon as I could not go caravanning, I didn't!

Maybe I'm not that keen on it. We have had great holidays.

What about gardening? Are you keen on gardening? Well, my wife is a

garden designer so I am keen on gardening by default if you see

what I mean? My parents always had a garden and and grew grew

vegetable and that kind -- vegetable and that kind of stuff.

For the last 10 or 15 years, I have lived in a house where Latin names

are stand. I try and keep up, but can't.

But you appreciate what is out there. Has your wife educated you

into knowing what you are looking at? I just love being outside. I am

happier being outside than inside and being outside in a fantastic

garden is great. Well, you have got it here. If you

want to be in a caravan, you might as well be in Jo Thompson. I don't

know how you would hitch it up and tow it.

You have had a look around. Anything that would appeal to you?

Well, what I like is over there. I really like Arne Maynard's garden.

This is difficult to say if you have had a glass of champagne, as I

have, I like beach. -- beech. I love the idea of the hedge in the

sky. So you have hornbeams. This order, it seems. I like lines and

and axis and somebody said, "It is a very male thing.". I like the

order because I like, you know, I like vistas and that's going to

take you to one, isn't it? If you have got two beech...

LAUGHTER They are going to lead you to a

fantastic vista, but I really like this kind of, again, it is very

structured actually. But there is chaos within it and it is beautiful.

You mind three of the unrulyest children on the planet in

Outnumbered. How important do you think gardens and gardening are to

children? I think they can be tremendously important actually in

all sorts of ways. There is a battle that goes on in our garden

between herb herbaceous planting and a football goal and in

Outnumbered, it is interesting, the garden never really features in

Outnumbered except to bury dead mice or pigeons or, you know, there

is one episode where I catch Ben Ben trying to drill through a water

main. That kind of thing, but actually, gardens and gardening,

they are great. We grew vegetables with the kids very young to get

them used to the idea of things growing. Just about putting effort

in and watching things happen, really.

It is nice to know you think it is important? Yes, it is very

We will be catching up with Hugh later in the programme as he treats

us to his impression of this year's Now tonight, we are looking at the

outstanding craftsmanship that goes into making Chelsea and that

craftsmanship can be found in the helm, is Andrew McIndoe. It is not

all about you, is it, Annie. You have got a huge -- Andy. You have

got a huge team. Ricky, prepared the show plants for the past 47

years. There are plants like this, they are brittle so you can't just

chuck it on a lorry and bring it here? No, you can't. You have got

to be gentle and strong to move this.

So you have got to have a technique as well, haven't you? You have to

have a technique and discipline really in respecting the plant

material. I know you have been coming here

for a few years and have any of the skills and crafts changed in that

time? I have been coming to Chelsea with Hillier for 34 years and you

know, during that time, this show has changed. You have seen that

yourself in the show gardens. The standards get higher and higher.

It must be very important that you are building a team that has

expertise within it? Within somebody else puts soft and sharp

plants together in a different way, it is really interesting.

We are coming to the end of the show now, but your stand always

looks as fresh at the end as it did on day one. How do you achieve

that? We keep pumping water in. We use plants in larger pots. We dead

head and look after the plants because I want want visitors to see

something on Saturday that is as good as press saw on Monday.

What is this? This is the work of Alan. Alan has been with Hilliers

for 50 years. It is amazing that one person can be responsible for a

plant like this? What we underestimate is the amount of work

that goes into something like that and how long it takes to produce.

What we really all need to be looking for is plants that are good

plants which are going to be enduring favourites that people

like yourself can use for years to come in gardens which will deliver

more than one season of interest. Well, thank goodness for people

like Alan. We're halfway through our coverage

of tonight's RHS Chelsea Flower Show. It is evening we pay tribute

to some of the talented craftsmen that make such a triumph. Coming

up: Courageous show manager Alex Denman delves into the family

history of one of Chelsea's early pioneers. Tales of the Orient -

Carol follows in the floral footsteps of Edwardian plant hunter

Ernest Chinese Wilson. This has to be one of Ernest's most exciting

finds. A comedian Hugh Dennis brings us his own wry look at

Chelsea this year. It seems to be easier to grow a bigger parsnip and

a bigger carrot. We have spent the week looking at the big and bold

here at Chelsea but we can also offer the small but perfectly

formed. This is the most beautiful bonsai tree but they don't just

magic their way up here, it took quite some are bringing British are

grounds. Several large men, a trolley and lots of shouting and a

lot of careful handling until it finally made its way up the steps

to our little platform. A beautiful example. What and nerve wracking

entrance! 40 years old, with several 1000 pounds. When it

belongs to one person, they're not bothered by the money. You don't

grow a treat for 40 years because of the finance, you grow it because

you love it. A it looks older than it is. They are so beautifully

trained, works of art. In nature, this would reach 80 feet. A have

these wonderful implements that they cut them with. They look like

surgical tools. Thanks to the bonsai Society for showing us this,

it is a special piece. How is your pot doing? This is Carol's painted

pot going online shortly. Can you see what it is yet? We are

determined that Carol is going to be the winner. Next year will be

100 years since the first official Chelsea Flower Show was launched

here in the Royal Hospital Grounds. Thatcher was not the first to be

staged here. In 1912, one of pioneering at nursery man persuaded

the floral elite to come together in the prototype of a show. His

name was Sir Harry Veitch and he heralded from a famous family his

legacy to the party cultural world is huge. Today RHS show manager

Alex Deadman cornets this marathon event and her passion for Chelsea

has prompted her to delve into the history up so Harry and his

relatives. Before the mayhem began, it she travelled to Devon to

My whole life pretty much revolves around the planning of the Chelsea

Flower Show so I am really keen to understand how it all started. I

know about Harry Veitch and his Chelsea legacy but I am keen to

understand his wider family and the contribution they made to

horticulture. I am meeting up with a member of the Devon group of the

charity, Plant Heritage and an expert on the life and times of the

Veitch family. Welcome. Why are we here? Harry was renowned for his

bare trees in Chelsea and the floor show that you have brought me here

to Devon. In many ways, this is where it began because Harry's

great-grandfather was John Veitch and he was the first head gardener

here. He was employed to lay out the parking. He made land available

for Veitch to start his own nursery. Later, John's son, James, moved the

nursery to Exeter. I have brought some interesting memorabilia to

show you the story. This book is an Encyclopedia of plants, introduced

by the great Veitch of Russia. There is an interesting page here.

It shows a family tree. I recognise him, that is Harry Veitch, isn't

it? It is indeed. Here is John Veitch, his great-grandfather

during the 1830s. John's son James decides to send his own a plant

collector to go exploring for his own plans. The first plant hunter

was William lob and these coniferous that he collected wild

will be society. At the time, we had so few evergreens that these

plans were truly astonishing. Harry would just have been a young boy

when his first seedling trees began to change a landscape. These were

being marketed by Veitch in 1855 for two Guineas each. It was a

small fortune and to some people, I year's majors. Many other natives

are deciduous and the evergreens were highly sought after to help

cloak the landscape during those long bleak months. James Veitch was

well positioned to make a lot of money on the back of his new plants

but later he was joined or his son James and the two of them and the

nursery together before James Junior moved to the nursery to

tells it. There are some fantastic black and white photographs of the

site which no sadly no longer exists. This is the King's Road,

Chelsea? One of the things with family when known for were

replicating the environment with the plants were coming from. They

went to a lot of trouble to try and give plants the conditions they

enjoyed in the wild. Not only home to exotic plants, the Nurseries in

Chelsea were also where Harry grew up. He came up to London as a

teenager, he finished school aged 14 in Exeter and joined the nursery

but he also continued his training in Germany and in Paris, working

for some leading nurseries in Paris before joining the firm in London

bus-stop and if Harry at the helm, the firm added its most prosperous

period of its history. He became a regular visitor to continental

horticultural gatherings. 1912, Harry was pivotal in the setting up

of the Royal International Horticultural Exhibition, why was

this so important? Harry was so important in this event because he

was the only surviving member of the 1866 committee which organised

the last international horticultural exhibition at. It was

his knowledge and experience that helped shape and organise the 1912

show and make it a great success. Almost too keen on my role as show

manager at Chelsea, it was his role will stop you or the modern Harry!

I love this document, the first show of garage. Here is an

interesting colour drawing. Look at that! They would have put on at the

marquees for the event. This is a wonderful document for me because

the show has made what was relevant at that moment in time and there

are centenary celebrations in 2013, this is the most perfect document.

It is impossible to overestimate the contribution that family needed

to horticulture, despite the fact it was over 100 years ago that they

were active? What an impact they made. Harry was one of the leaders

of this flower show and he was the only night of horticulture. So it

is a centenary. Sir Harry Veitch was prominent in more ways than

one? He was very well respected and well loved and many of his head

gardeners, they used to gather here and at that very clock of the Royal

Hospital at 12 noon on Thursday of the show to raise a toast to the

family. They slipped away unobtrusively for refreshment!

Those were the days when head gardeners came with their top hats

and morning coats and were sent around by the owners to look at the

plants and make notes and go back and report. There was a great time,

a great time of plant exploration and in fact, we have an exhibitor

here who were one of the original exhibitors. Exactly a century ago,

it was at this show that Sir Harry was knighted and have the look at

the back, an advertisement for a company who are still here today.

Those plans have come back into fashion and are always well loved.

The Veitch family, responsible for the way our gardens are today a

century on with all those things that they got it used to this

country. We would never have had those, others that we see today

that grace the great estates, those majestic plants and trees and it is

all down to the family. Kept going in the Veitch Memorial Medal. The

great legacy of the family was of course the vast number of plants

they have used to Britain. At their height, and a shoe men were

responsible for commissioning a whole network of plant hunters his

guard the globe for new acquisitions. One of the most

prolific was Ernest pulls them who earned the nickname Ernest Chinese

Wilson because of his extensive travels through the country.

It is easy to forget, when you see such diverse and wondrous plants at

Chelsea, that we gardeners have and always had access to such

incredible vocabulary of plants. Many of the plants we grow our only

in our gardens as a result of the Passion, determination and courage

of plant collectors. This is probably the most popular millie in

probably the most popular millie in the world. It was introduced by the

plant hunter, Ernest Wilson and is probably his most famous find. In

1903, he was sent out by the firm, James Veitch and Son, to China. He

founded in at Ballee and he couldn't believe his eyes when he

saw it for the first time. He wrote about it very politically. This

lily, in full bloom, greets the weary way fair, a lot in twos or

threes, but in hundreds, in thousands. You can tell he really

loved it. He collected lots of bulbs. They were sent back to

England but the great majority of them rotted in transit will stop

but he was determined to find this millie again and in 1910 he set out

on another exhibition. He found it and left instructions for 6000

bulbs to be collected. On his return journey, there was a massive

fall of boulders which knocked out his chair and his leg was crashed.

He limped ever afterwards and people called it his millie limp

but when that Lily reached these shores, it was the sensation

Bostock the top of that time. Its popularity has increased ever since.

This has to be one of Ernest Wilson's most exciting finds. He

founded after trekking into the mountains for 19 miles will stop

just imagine the astonishment when he came across it! It has these

wonderful soft petals. But they open up from these brilliant lads,

look at that, it is just like a dragonfly emerging and gradually,

it stretches out and becomes Santon or white silk. But the plant, when

it sets seed, dies. But in the offing is a brand new selection.

Just imagine, one day we all might be able to have a try at growing

this most wonderful Ernest Wilson introduction.

It has been a very busy week for the two ladies at the helm of the

Royal Horticultural Society so I am delighted they have been able to

find time to drop in and see us. Welcome to the director-general Sue

Bigs and President and his are the banks. I know you have been working

a lot to get youth involved, not just at the Chelsea Flower Show but

with gardening as well, it does seem that a lot of youth have been

involved here? They really have been, it is extremely exciting and

particularly one stand where the children have produced all the

vegetables, they have done the most wonderful part on the wall of the

Queen with all their hard work and And the campaign for school

gardening is getting into primary schools. There is over 18,000

primary schools with a gardening initiative, but you have the idea

for a bursary? Yes, we have had a range of bursaries that are

encouraging younger people to come forward and go on amazing

expeditions to plant,00 plant, hunt and find ways of planning seeds. We

have had a new bursary that will be lucky for one lucky student to win

this bursary and research into some fantastic plants.

With the idea of getting people interested in in horticulture as a

career. I challenge anybody not to walk

around here and not see what a fantastic career it is.

You have had the President's award. Who have you given it to? It took

me until today to decide and I have given it to Jihae Hwang.

It is the most evocative garden I have seen. The sense of detail is

enormous. You almost pass it by with its rustybarbed wire until you

see a a helmet. It is a moving exhibit.

Yes. Well chosen. Thank you very much.

One look along Main Avenue and you can see the pleasure this year's

show gardens bring to the crowds here. In recent years, medical

research has proved that green spaces and gardens can help in

rehabilitating people. There is proof of that at Chelsea in an

exhibit created by some of our wounded servicemen under going

rehabilitation at Headley Court. This is the work of the guys and

girls of Headley Court and they are up there with the best in the show.

Gardening is therapeutic and for people who have suffered life

changing injuries to find things that they can do which help them

build their physical strength and regain their co-ordination and give

them a sense of purpose and to be able to see something at the end of

it is tremendously important. I am a physiotherapist and I am

passionate about trying to enable guys to realise their full

potential and I can see how you can use the outdoor environment and use

the site to achieve the rehabilitation aim. I have tried to

piece these together. I was deployed last year with the

Royal Marines in Helmand province. On 7th July, I was on patrol and I

was hit by a blast which resulted in me losing my legs and left arm.

This is the first day I have been here. It is just so amazing walking

about and seeing the different gardens on offer and the different

people thaw meet. It is a lovely place.

The concept behind our garden is not to adapt it, but to enable

individuals to learn new skills. In the wheelchair, we need to teach

them how to negotiate difficult obstacles. At the guard ant Headley

Court we have built that feature into it and we have tried to do

that here. It is good for lads to build up

their endurance. A lot of lads are in their wheelchairs they lose

muscles. And it is great for building up endurance and balance

and it is great to get used to walking on stable ground again.

To meet the guys on the trade stands and get new ideas that he

can encompass -- and we can encompass. Diarmuid better watch

out, we could be lifting that Gold Medal!

Actor and comedian, Hugh Dennis joined us to talk about his garden

and what he loves about Chelsea. He agreed to bring us his own personal

reflection on the show. Sit back I like gardens. I really like

gardens and I like the British is an actual man. I like this yew

with a little pom-pom on the top. If you push down, somewhere else in

the garden, something explodes! These gates, I think, are from a

salvage yard and they are beautiful. They have a slight Mediterranean

feel about them. They are Middle Eastern. They make this entrance,

they look like a purple and green microphone, but mostly they look

like a dandelion clock, I think. memories. We had a massive yucca in

our garden and I used to ride my bike obsessively around the track

which went past this yucca tree and most daysI fell off into it. It was

right on the corner and a yucca tree is like nature's upturned

knife block. I wouldn't have one in my garden now obviously to protect

That's what it is. Holy veg vegetables. It seems easier to grow

a massively long parsnip than a long carrot. I wonder why that is?

Those leeks look like the thing you would feed into a machine gun.

They are fantastic. Not as fantastic as this though which is a

Formula One car made out of hedge. You have got to think, you know,

with all the advances in Formula One technology, that's probably a

bit of a mistake. If you leave this car standing for too long, it roots,

does it. Every 26 laps it has to come in or a prune. The hedge

people are like something out of dro of Doctor Who.

This is Arne Maynard's garden. This walkway is fantastic. It is copper

beech. Hedge in the sky. It is fantastic. There is a big conflict

that goes on in our garden between, you know, herbaceous and

beautifully planted borders and a lot of grass at the end of which is

a massive football goal. Both of those bits have to be there,

but I'm sort of on the football The thoughts of Hugh Dennis. We are

talking about craftsmanship and what is fascinating about Chelsea

is the different approaches each exhibitor brings to the table. Take

James Basson. James studied fine art before moving into horticulture

and that has influenced the way he has approached landscape design as

How does your fine art background influence the garden you have

created here? By studying nature, looking at landscape and painting

and trying to bring it back to life on a canvas, I have appreciated the

energy within that landscape. It does seem like a unique

approach? We have started with this stone and beating this stone into

this almost oil colour work surface, gave it the first pastel tone and

we through the colours we had to hand and we have grown over a year

to give that sort of lift and light quality. Contrasting this heavy

material. You call it pudding stone. Where is

the influence? We live and work in the south of France. In Nice, there

is an area of pudding stone and they dig it up and throw it away.

This is a natural stone and the French call it it pudding.

There is hot silvery plants at the front? These plants are growing

naturally in that environment. We have pushed them on and thrown them

into the garden. Well, it is really superb.

We are nearly at the the end of this evening's Chelsea coverage. We

will be back tomorrow. But there is just enough time tonight for us to

sit back and enjoy a few magic moments that will linger long in

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 76 seconds

Oh happy memories. It has been so wonderful watching everything come

out, including, fruit. Bless her, Natalie of Tutti Fruitie says we

keep meaning to come to Chelsea. We never do. So we are sending this. I

am going to enjoy tucking into this. Thank you very much.

Our irises have been opening nicely as you have noticed. As on its

green stand, the tu tulips that were in tight bud have come out

into glorious blazing bloom. It has been fabulous watching it all and

it has been fabulous too, Carol watching your pot develop. We have

been painting pots for the Royal Horticultural Society's campaign

for school gardening. There is an auction online. Here we are. It is

a little bean which begins to grow and grow and grow... Mind you don't

drop it! It grows inside the pot. Go online

to that well-known auction website and bid for these pots and

encourage children to garden even if you don't do that and Carol's

will get the most votes. With the least time. Picasso once drew that

famous dove and he said, "How much can you sell that for?" He said �1

million. They said, "�1 million for 15 seconds work?" He said a

lifetime. We will be back tomorrow when the

traditional plant sale is underway. There is a chance to catch the

week's highlights on Sunday. Before then on our Red button coverage.