Episode 2 RHS Chelsea Flower Show

It's the start of a truly diamond week here, at the Royal

Horticultural Society's Chelsea Flower Show. This year's glittering

event, supported by M and G investment has already got people

talking, from sights which range from a topiary Pyramid to a Corgi.

You can join us every afternoon on BBC One, as Toby Buckland, Chris

Beardshaw and I share all the news and views from this year's show.

There is news to catch one the day's event with Alan Titchmarsh at

8pm on BBC Two every evening. But back to today. Chelsea pays tribute

to the forthcoming jubilee. Coming up: Reflecting the realm at the

show garden, recreating some of the best corners of our countryside.

A need for constance - Simon Lycett explains the legacy of Constance

Spry. And diamond life - the new floral

arrivals inspired by the jubilee. There are lots of queens at Chelsea

this year and here's a fray grant Hello and welcome to Chelsea.

The showground is filled with an air of anticipation this afternoon,

as we prepare for the royal visitors, a tradition made extra

special this year because of the jubilee. You can really feel the

excite nment the year this year, can't you? -- excitement in the

year this year, can't you? It is. This is the queen's 48th visit. She

has not had a break since 1971. That is amazing. What a difference

she must have seen over the years - the changes in these gardens.

Everything in life is much more complicated. The gardens are so

well worked and so intricate now. What are the special highlights?

The Great Pavillion is stunning. I love the display, English, with

some fencing. She is going to love it. What about

other gardens - we are standing in this one by Joe Swift. A garden I

think she will really enjoy is in the artisan gardens.

The reason I think she will like it is it is so perfectly worked. It is

like a piece of jewellery. It is wonderful. What about the fresh

gardens - very thought-provoking. Maybe she'll love them. I don't

know. Something for everybody. In two weeks the Diamond Jubilee

celebrations come to a head with a national holiday, star-studded

concert. Here at Chelsea, in a prelude to some so those

celebrations some of the gardens are reflecting the scenery on offer

in the The Queen's green and moment you walk in, rugged rocks

and waters, you cannot be helped by be reminded of holidays and walks

in the British countryside. Sarah, what a wonderful garden.

Congratulations. Well done. It is a garden about memories, is it?

I can't help being influenced by the landscapes I am familiar with,

I have grown up with. Those often involved an element of water and

rock and wild planting. It is also about the excitement of being in a

landscape and experiencing the changes of scale. Say when I am in

the Brecon Beacons you have gushing waterfalls. You also have the moss.

I was trying to really try and replicate... The whole thing.

Holding it together with this gorgeous planting. Within the

planting there are details like we have orchids in the front of the

meadow N the far corner of the garden, we have two lady's slipper

orchids. Sitting there, hiding. The other thing about it is people

say about your style it is quite a painting - do you feel it is a

continuation of this. I like to make the visual links through the

space. We are restricted by the plots. Looking over here, I have

kind of veiled that to try and link the different spaces. And the iris,

our native flag iris, you can see that repeat from the front of the

garden right through to the back. You have some plants which will

grow in a range of conditions. It's really important to understand

those plants and use them as nature with the species. It looks like a

perfect slice of landscape. Adam Frost's garden, on the other

hand, takes all the softer, more pasture ral parts of the

countryside and brought it into a real garden.

The garden is inspired by the work a a Northamptonshire poet: We have

been brought into this big round sitting area, where you can sit

around a fire pit. If it is raining, another seated area, over there,

covered with a roof to it. All the way around it, with this very, very

Adam has done is keep the palate simple, so you can see the same

colours and varieties cropping up. It is held down by three hazels and

coppice willows. We have geranium here, - so what he is doing is

keeping it very, very wild, then suddenly there is a contrast. We

come here and it becomes very, very formal. So we have this canal which

runs very strongly through the whole thing. So, it is a garden,

but at the same time wh it is -- what it is the heartland of England.

It's not just Northamptonshire which is represented at Chelsea

this year. Arne Maynard has returned to

Chelsea after a 12-year absence. His design incorporates many

elements of a traditional English garden. But what is that? I can

tell you for starters, it is a place where you can get your hands

dirty and it is a space defined by the plants. The most you-catching

plant in his garden are of course the copper beach. They give the

whole place shape. Looking at them, I can only imagine his frustration

at the lateness of spring. Many of them have not come into leaf yet.

They still look good. That is the idea of them - to give year-round

interest. In their shade he has put classic new dawn roses. If you have

a shady north wall this is the flower to grow. A lovely sweet

fragrance. Brustleing around at the base of the -- bustling around at

the base of the trunks there are alpine strawberries and coming out

into the sun valerium. One of my favourite things are these topiary

balls. They will give the garden interest throughout the year. It

will give the gardener something to do, clipping them and getting them

into shape. My favourite shape though are the roses. That one over

there is one of my favourites. You can see it is being trained over a

dome of tied hazel. Now, that is a good idea. They look good

themselves through the winter, but because they are tied down their

buds break along their length, so you get more flowers. The hard

scaping plays its part too, the pebbles are lovely. These pink

pebbles give it a colour of campaign with casis in it.

Being a Devon boy I love the pebbles. I love a garden with a few

skimmers in it. Lovely! Floral tributes to Her Majesty's

jubilee can be seen across the showground.

Visitors to the floral design marquee this week will be wowed by

the Royal Emblem cut in -- in cut flowers. It is fithing as flowers

played an important part in the -- fitting as the flowers played an

important part in the Queen's wedding. The flowers were designed

by the woman often dubbed as the queen of floristry, Constance Spry.

She designed the floral displays for the coronation lunch in

Westminster Hall. Now it is time to welcome Simon Lycett. We get kisses

- how gorgeous. Constance Spry was such a revolutionary floristry lady.

What was so important about her technique? She was the Jamie Oliver

of the day. A real maverick. broke and changed all the rules.

Before her everyone had arranged one type of flower, plonked in a

vase in a sensible way. Did ladies often have floristry as a

profession? No. She made it a legitimate career. It was this sort

of creation that she pioneered. Before it had been much more

uniformed, would it? One type of flowers - a vase of all roses or

daffodils. She still did that. It was her use of the colour pallet.

It was allowing the flowers to do the creating and the arranging

themselves. This would be a typical signature style for her? A lot of

people who have written about her say Chelsea was her time of year -

that late spring, early summer, when we have lilac, but we still

have cow parsley. What did she do that was so ground-breaking?

suggested that we use this - two inch mess chicken wire, which we

gather up and we roll it around and you are almost making it into,

someone once described a giant shower cap. You get a network and

into this you can put your stems and it will support quite a big

decoration. This had never been seen before - she introduced it?

She introduced it to create soft arrangements. What about the

materials she used to create these amazing displays? She suggested

using things we cut from our gardens. Previously beach folly

yarge goes down quickly. She suggested some boiling water -

about a good few inches and then stand it in, leave it for a minute,

top it up with cold water. Then leave it. It will probably blow

over here. What does that do? over here. What does that do?

expels all the air it means it will look lovely and fresh and stay

gorgeous in a vase for two or three days. So she collected lots of

plants from her garden. Because we learnt this technique we were

allowed to use cow parsley. She made people look beyond the cut

flowers to things in the hedgerows, wonderful lilac, things like dock

and things lying around in the hedgerow. This was accessible to

people. Yes, it made it affordable. Before it had been for the very

wealthy. She showed us wonderful top tips.

One last one, very quickly. Glis serene on to cotton -- glisereen on

to a cotton bud making the leafs nice and shiny. By 1963 Constance

Spry's influence resulted in nurseryman David Austin naming his

first ever English rose after her. It was an overnight sensation. Many

other English roses followed. What was it about the character of this

type of rose that delights us so much? Here's nurseryman David

Austin Junior, with the grower's His idea was to create a particular

type of rose he had on his mind which he went on to call English

roses. His objective was to bring the best character of old fashioned

roses and combine them with the best character of modern roses.

An English rose is tipfyed but large blooms which catch the light

in a certain way and the fragrance is very important. A couple of

examples would be Crown Princess skaf Marg -- Crown Princess

Margarita. Constance Spry is very significant,

because it is the first rose that my father introduced. The only

drawback was it only flowered once in a season. It was not until the

early 80s when Graham Thomas was introduced, which is a fantastic,

beautiful yellow repeat flowering English rose, which went to be

garden as far as I'm concerned. They are amazing, fantastic plants.

We are halfway through our afternoon coverage of the RHS

Chelsea Flower Show, and there's plenty more to come. Floral

diamonds. We meet the new plants named in honour of this year's

jubilee. And fresh ideas. Toby looks at a new category of garden

It is the first official day here at Chelsea. The press have been

allowed in with a handful of celebrities. What has caught your

eye? I think the fact that spring is still coming outside the

showground but in Chelsea it has arrived. Everything is looking so

alive. Any particular gardens that have caught your eye? Cleve West,

it's got so much soul. It's like being in the land of the gods.

Something scary and awesome about it. The planting is divine.

entices you in. You just want to walk through and absorb it. What

about our duty boys, Joe and Andy? Very good. I was chatting to Andy

earlier, he's got an Imperial quality to his gardens. Its

Romanesque with those steps and heavy stone. What about Joe Swift?

I was worried when I saw his plan. But on the ground it is fabulous.

The colours are beautiful and it is innovative. Everyone else looks

exhausted, Joel is just radiating. Diamuid Gavin, our naughty boy of

gardening. I just walked past the Chelsea pensioners lined up on his

huge pagoda gardened standing to attention, just looking fantastic.

He knows how to make gardens that people talk about. Whenever he is

here, it raises everybody else's game. If you want any publicity at

all, you've got to do something extra special to get a look-in

because he is a genius. The great pavilion, a firm favourite with the

public. What has caught your eye in there? So much. The Cliff Richard

stand. A apparently he is here today. I saw him. He looks well.

He's got his own stand, summer holiday. He looks like he is from

Barbados. He has a house there. Taiwanese orchid grower Association,

very special. They've created these lanterns as a dedication to the

Queen in the jubilee year. The name of the garden is the universal

Glory Of the Dragon. It loses something when it translates from

Taiwanese into English. But it is beautiful. Those beautiful lanterns

are not the only Jubilee celebrations taking place in the

great pavilion this year. Everywhere you look there are

glittering tributes to Her Majesty's diamond anniversary, as

Carol Klein has been discovering. There's no doubt Chelsea has gone

Jubilee crazy. And it's a great opportunity to discover new plants

bred especially for the Diamond Jubilee. And what better flower to

celebrate the diamond jubilee than a rose - and what a beautiful rose,

too! This is a modern classic roles. It's one of the brand new series

which combines all the qualities of the old roses, that sense of

romance and softness, with the robustness and solidity that you

come to expect from modern roses. The Rose itself is called the

Queen's Jubilee roles. It has got it shining green foliage and the

most gorgeous, scented flowers. It's a real belter. This rose is

not just for Chelsea. It's going to be planted all along the Jubilee

Greenway, so people will be able to enjoy it this year and it will go

on giving them pleasure for years I was lucky enough to be sent a few

sample seeds of this brand new variety of sweet pea. It is called,

of course, Diamond Jubilee. It really is one of the most beautiful

Swede people macro I've seen. It's got these pale pink flowers with a

gorgeous pink edge. Although the flowers have this delicate, fragile

air, the plants themselves of robust and give these long-stemmed

stalks with may be four or five flowers to each stem a. The colour

is divine. But when you lean over and smelt... Bears the most

beautiful perfume. What more could With sweet peas and roses, it's all

about flowers. But on this stand there's hardly a flower in sight.

Here, its foliage that is important. And what foliage it is! Dark,

dramatic - truly exciting. And there's one new introduction. It is

diamond queen. There are lots of Queens at Chelsea this year, and he

is a fragrant one. It is hosta Fragrant Queen. It has delight all,

lily like, pale lilac flowers full of cent. But the real reason you

grow hostas is for their magnificent foliage. In this case,

big, variegated, heart-shaped leaves. One of the problems with

growing hostas is that they are very prone to attack by slugs. But

in this case - off with their heads!

Her Majesty will be able to see all those floral tributes to herself

when she visits the show this afternoon. You can see coverage of

her tour this evening in our highlights programme on BBC Two.

Nude to Chelsea this year are the Fresh Gardens. A cutting edge

category that is challenging designers to experiment with

different approaches to garden design. It has attracted innovators

like Tony Smith, Will you may remember for his Chelsea garden

back in 2009 that stopped visitors in their tracks with its bold use

of bedding plants. This year he is back with a garden cold Green With

Envy. It is a very different garden. Yes, I think the new Fresh Gardens

category has given us a whole new opportunity. Not to compromise but

really go for it. People look at this and say, I don't see a garden

there. Take us through the concept. Yes. It is a cage, the structure is

a cage. All of these Perspex Robbs are past. Within the cage are three

types of plant which in the past have been subject of collecting

frenzies or crazes. We have tulips, the 17th century tulip mania with

people losing their houses over single tulip bulbs. Because of the

expense. And because of the envy and desire to own them. The whole

thing is wrapped up in envy and desire. The ferns, the Victorians

collected versions almost into extinction. And in the centre we

have the orchids, which even today are being collected in the wild and

made extinct. But the red colour is for desire and green is for NB. The

title leads you, when you say green with... Envy. It is very green. The

artificial grass is green. It could possibly be the subject of over the

garden fence envy from neighbours. All day yesterday I saw you giving

this a little rub, trying to bring it up. Do you think the garden will

be understood? I think so. I don't think it's that difficult to get

Forster most people I've talked to have been there or thereabouts.

What I always hope any weight, even if you don't get it at all, it's an

interesting thing to look at. I think that is what flower shows are

about. Do you think it's a welcome addition to have some conceptual

garden design here at Chelsea, something different? I think every

show will only survive if it revolves. If the public come and

see different things each time, if you go to a show of any description

and you see the same thing year after year, you won't keep going.

This is a garden to see at night, spectacular. We'll be doing that on

the red button. Over in the Main Avenue, designer Cleve West is also

breaking some of the rules of Traditional Garden Design. You can

find out how by switching over to our red button coverage after this

programme. Tony may be breaking boundaries now,

but Florence -- florist Constance spry was breaking some of her own

over 60 years ago. You are going to give us a demonstration of her

signature displayed. Yes. She was a pioneering, she didn't just used

vases. Household items from her kitchen cupboards, the gravy boat,

baking tins, we created that in a footbath. This, I'm going to do in

my role that largest teapot. Inside, I've got a bit of screwed-up

chicken-wire, some water. We will create a decoration. Talk me

through what we've got. We have wonderful, fragrant mint. She was a

great fan of using things that you could grow with your garden and

easily get hold of. She was a maverick. She wanted to use

everything, she didn't want to be too elitist. No, she wanted to use

that everyone could get hold of. She wanted to make it something

everybody could do. She started out as a head teacher in a school where

children used to come on day release that will working in

factories. She was teaching them domestic science, cookery and

household management, but she noticed they were more interested

in the flower arrangement she had on her desk. That is what started

it off for her. The mint it smells gorgeous. Did she exited at

Chelsea? She did, she was famous for her stand that used to be on

sundries Avenue. She used to get very frustrated because people

would say to her that there was nothing small and modest that would

fit in their own lounges at home. She always used to say they would

never have been seen above the heads of Chelsea crowds. This is

about the body. In goes the greenery to give us the bones for

our decoration, then we start to put in our rather wonderful sweet

peas. Can you use anything or is this a great combination? You can

use anything but I like it because you can put peas and mint together

in the kitchen, so I'm putting them together in my flower arrangement.

It looks a bit like a sculpture as well. Her arrangements were always

very striking, often for their simplicity. She was famous ones for

creating an arrangement of just kale. Vegetables and berries

featured large in a lot of the decorations. It's something we

still do again today. For her to be commissioned to do the flowers for

the Royal Family and the Coronation and wedding, that must have been a

huge thing for her. It was quite an honour. She was a very famous

person at her time. She was a household name. She was one of the

top female designers. It was a phenomenal accolade for her. A nod

from the establishment, the royal seal of approval. You've done a

Royal Wedding. Yes, we were lucky enough to work for the Queen on a

dinner that took place the night before the Royal Wedding. Look at

that. Final piece. Last stem in. They smell magnificent.

beautiful! Something we could all do at home. Easily. Toby, come and

join me. Look at this. Stanning. Simon has delivered again. Have you

ever done a floral display like that? No, I haven't, but I've grown

a lot of cut flowers. You can have quite gaudy blooms, but they look

lovely in a buyer's -- bars. Tomorrow, it is metal stake, an

important date. We are going to be with the courageous ladies giving

out the metals, finding out who's won. Who's your money on? There

will be a lot of gold. In the Artisan Gardens... Amongst the

runners and riders, it could be Joe Swift. Chris Beardshaw is not too

sure how he's going to do this year. He took a risk but it's a lovely

garden. The day tomorrow. There is more coverage of the first day here

at Chelsea tonight. You can join Alan Titchmarsh for a 30 minute

round-up of the day's events here on BBC One at 7:30pm. Alan will

also be back on BBC Two for a one- hour programme at 8pm, when there

will be full coverage of today's celebrity visitors, as well as the