Episode 10 RHS Chelsea Flower Show

Hello. Welcome to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, an event supported by

M Investments. It is Thursday and today is the first public day of the

show. Visitors have been flocking through the gate since 8am this

morning to take a first look at the Great Pavilion and show gardens. I

hope do hope they bought umbrellas, because boy, did it rain! I was out

there in it! I was luckily undercover in the pavilion. It seems

to get everywhere. Here, it was flooded. You'll bobbin everyone runs

in there. They were kicking people out. It was torrential. It is good

to have a deluge because the plane that dropped their seed pods, they

get stuck in the back of your throat and you get at Chelsea cough. It

freshens everything up a bit. A little bit less fresh would be

good! Something I was told was overheard today in the crowd was

that someone very solemnly said, I know how to get a gold medal. The

way you get a gold medal this year is put Moss in your garden. The

secret is out. Anywhere in particular? Moss equals gold. It is

not just Moss that is happening today. You need to make your mind up

which is your favourite large garden. The lines are now open to

vote in the BBC RHS rebels choice award. You have until midnight

tonight. Straight after the show, go to our website to find all the

information you need to take part -- People's Choice Award. There is a

lot to look forward to tonight. I will be talking to Tom Dyckhoff, the

architectural historian on what he thinks about Chelsea. So many of the

gardens use architecture, as a stage set. It is great to see those that

use architecture with real heft. Designer Marilyn Abbott explains why

she moved to the other side of the world to fulfil her gardening

dreams. This was a wonderful opportunity to say thank you, as an

Australian, to Britain, for teaching us about gardening. We meet the man

who is on a mission to make big topical bromeliad plants popular. I

wish I had a pound for all the times I am asked which is my favourite

plant. It is difficult, really difficult to choose. Every year at

Chelsea and REH -- and RHS panel draws up a short list of plants to

be considered for Plant Of The Year. They have to reduce this to one

plant. It will be crowned with this title. Later, Rachel will find out

which one won. It is difficult to say! Importantly, why it won. Which

one won what? How do you decide from all the plants and flowers which is

best? If you had to choose just one plant to be your Chelsea Plant Of

The Year, which would it be? If it was up to me I would have to choose

a tree. I was here on the day they were brought on to cite and they are

70 years old and they are stunning. I have to treat them like old

people, they are delicate, he said to me. They are beautiful. A

sculptural form, fantastic autumn colour and a really good flower. It

could be. Everyone has an opinion. We asked the rest of our team what

they would choose as their personal Plant Of The Year, and why.

With so many bold, brilliant plans on display, sometimes it is easy to

miss the gems but this one just shone out to me. Those white bracts

around the flowers sparkle here in the semi-shade. It is small but

perfectly formed. It is my nomination for Plant Of The Year. I

must -- we must have plant for me is this. The Canary Island foxglove.

Just look at the tone of that flower. The combination of the

purple stem, dark green glossy leaves, and it's got a feed with the

most enthusiasm. It is a beauty. -- it scattered seed. The sensuous

Himalayan plant excite me on every trip out there and this is my plans

of the year for 2014. -- plans of the year. The very minute I saw

this, I felt deeply in love. It is such an easy, straightforward plant

and it mixes and mingles with everything. In fact, it features in

most of the gardens on main avenue. My plans pick has such delicate

little hours and it gives autumn colour. I have always wanted one,

but can't. I don't garden on acidic soil. I think GMs are sadly

underrated but this is certainly one of the best. It is called totally

tangerine for obvious reasons and it is soft, sophisticated, elegant and

pretty -- geum. It is the way it combines with so many of the flowers

and foliage that makes it my plans of the year. Well, if you just

looked at the show gardens you would be right to think that moves and

lilacs, from pink through to dark purple, were the colours of Chelsea

through in 2014. We are hearing that blue and black are the hot colours

for this year. You do need to take the whole show into consideration

before making a judgement. I have to say that my favourite plant of this

year, the colour is one which has a wonderful plum, wine colour. Very

different from the one I grow in my own garden. I am definitely going to

be taking that back with me to the garden. My dry garden. We all have

our favourites. No matter what we think is the Plant Of The Year or

the colour of the year, ultimately the RHS panel of judges have made

their final decision. Later in the programme, Rachel will reveal which

perfect specimen they chose to be crowned Plant Of The Year. One of

the best things about Chelsea is the opportunity to see lots of rare

plants that we otherwise might never come across. Amongst them this year

is the garden with a distinct North American flavour. Joe has been

taking a look. It is always really interesting how

these Chelsea Gardens start and this started with a holiday, to Cape Cod.

Susannah Hunter and Catherine MacDonald went there and thought

they wanted to create a slice of that and put it in Chelsea and that

is what they have done. But there is more of a story behind that in this

garden because we have this shack in the middle of it. This piece of

coastline is protected. 1961, JF Kennedy created the national

seashore in Massachusetts in Cape Cod. All of these shacks were going

to be bulldozed down, they looked a bit messy, but actually there is an

artistic enclave that has lived there for generations. It was very

important for them to keep them. There was a huge outcry. Petitions

were signed and they were saved, fantastic. You can only inherit one

of these, not by one. If the family ceases to exist they are protected

because they are so important and create the magical landscape. At the

back of the garden we have this backdrop. From a distance it looks

as if it is painted. Actually, Susannah Hunter worked in detail

with leather. It is created with leather, as are the cushions inside

the shack, on the benches. Catherine MacDonald is more of a garden

designer. She has created a wonderful landscape here. We have

sand dunes, which undulate up and down. I love the bleached out

decking. You feel as if you are there. We have a railing running

through with planting dotted around. It is self seeding around.

These plants are tough and have to cope with wind, salt laden winds

ripping through the coastline. They have done a really nice job because

you can see the sand used as a mulch and dotted down to the path here.

The plants, things like the lupins, the Pines, this wonderful pine here,

holds the garden together and gives it plenty of height. My criticism I

guess is I love this planting and the backdrop, but I am not convinced

they actually go together. I know Chelsea is all about theatre. But I

feel that some of the backdrop could have been softened with more

planting in front. It is a little bit too in your face, as it were.

The judges liked it and gave it a silver medal. Well done, two women

here at Chelsea the design duo, that is what we need of.

Much of that planting on the Massachusetts Garden was specially

grown for Catherine and Susanna by a nursery. It did not prove to be an

easy task. What was the problem? I browsed through the list, I saw

the plants, beach grass, it seemed straightforward. When I looked at

the individual species' names they were things that were not available

in the UK. Did you realise that? Yes. We wanted to have a garden that

was representing Massachusetts and Cape Cod specifically. I was aiming

to use as many native and naturalised speeches as possible. I

started with a list that had a lot of natives and took it from there.

What did you do? Catherine is a scientist, so she is very pedantic

unspecific. She kept me on a tight leash. We started off with a list of

plants that were endemic to Cape Cod and worked through the list seeing

what we could find. When we had exhausted all possible avenues of

finding something, then we went on to the B list, which was plants that

were introduced into Cape Cod. But maybe naturalised. It is very

purist. Do you think the public will realise that? Not necessarily. A lot

of the species look similar to plans we have here. But we wanted to try

to be as true to Cape Cod and Massachusetts as possible. It was

the most difficult plant list I had ever had to work too. We had done

plant lists from Corsica and last year, the Australian garden and this

was more difficult. Really? New grow plants for shows, sometimes more

than one show at a time. Have you had any major disasters in the

process? We had a scary moment with the ink very one of our main plants

in the garden, because it was starting to go brown and lose its

leaves before Chelsea. Catherine came and had a look and instantly

saw, which I had not seen, the ones that were losing leaves were the

male ones about to flower, and the lovely once had berries result,

female ones. You have become used to growing plants for show gardens. How

many can you manage at once? I find it really difficult to say no

because I adore doing it. Nothing gives me a greater thrill than to

get a plant list for a gardening show, particularly if I think I need

to jump on a plane and go somewhere to warm to buy the plants. That is

exciting. This year we have done 20,000 plants for Chelsea, for seven

show gardens. And your own as well. I don't think people realise how

much the nursery is put into the show gardens. It is a huge amount.

The work starts sometimes a year in advance and the workload itself

becomes more and more intense and friends in the closer you get to

delivering the plants to the client. -- frenzied. What is the wastage?

New grow the plants, they cannot all be used, can they? Sometimes we grow

five or six times the number of plants that are actually used in the

show garden. Not in this case. Dave was only able to 55 or seven in the

country and that was all we had, so there is not a lot of waste -- five,

or seven. You still managed to make your own display look fantastic. We

did. The pianist did not quite behave themselves in the way they

should have done, but we got there -- peonies. We have to make sure

that designers like Catherine are happy first. It looks good. Over the

years I have been lucky enough to visit far-flung parts of the world

to enjoy gardens and plants, growing especially in the natural

environment. A few years ago I travelled to south-east Australia to

see Marylyn Abbott's garden at Kennerton Green, which is a very

English garden in Australia. She is a native Australian, but she moved

the other side of the world to fulfil her dream of owning and

making her very own English garden. Last month, we joined her at her

home in West Green House near Witney, Hampshire, near to where I

grew up. The inspiration for her debut Artisans garden here at

Chelsea. This garden is my dream. I would

always have wanted an English garden.

Like most Australians of my generation, we are all of British

ancestry. You scratch an Australian, you will find an Englishman, an

Irishman and a Scotsman! In the 1830s, my family came to Australia.

The young men that came out to re-establish themselves or to make

money for their families, they wanted to have gardens like they

left at home. My mother and my grandmother grew what they thought

were English gardens in a harsh climate. So I was indoctrinated,

that this was a paradise on earth, this was England, that this is where

gardening happened. So therefore my thoughts on gardening will be based

always on the English concept of gardening.

I retired from the Sydney Opera House. I was looking for a new

adventure. I had a garden in Australian but with the climate

there, you could not really grow a proper English garden. So over a

three-year period I came to England backwards and forwards, looking for

a garden. 20 years ago I had the opportunity of purchases the 99-year

lease of West Green House. It was in ruins but the heart ruled and it was

the most wonderful thing I have ever done.

The day I arrived, I came in the back gates to the garden, all I saw

was a jungle and the remains of walls. This area was the worst.

Where I'm standing now, I'm on the edge of a very large thick concrete

swimming pool. The bottom was broken. There are were saplings and

all of those nasty slimy things at the bottom of the pool. The building

that is now the bothy, it had been used as a changing room, with no

roof and only three walls standing and weeds growing up it. It was a

horrible area. The first thoughts when looking at the garden and the

terrible black hole of a swim pool, I felt like Alice in Wonderland. It

was a bit of fun then and we took that theme a little further. As you

can see, the tea pot is a part of it and the little topiaries are the

pawns. When I was asked to do a garden for

Chelsea, I thought what are the things that say West Green? I was

reading a book about topiary. I saw that the name for fancy gardening

was opera topiary. I thought this was be marvellous, to link the two

together for opera and gardening. So where were the best examples of

topiary? It was the bothy garden. Imagined a gentleman who would have

been here perhaps at the beginning of the 19th century. He was a young

man who during the day had to be a gardener, a handyman, because in

those days, the gardener had to do everything. He had to be a very good

artisan. I looked at our old bothy and I thought this is where he would

have come at night. As he relaxed he do could have planted the left over

favoured flowers and all of the topi a ry he wanted to do and any left

over bulbs, he could have planted in the pots. So the garden I have

created for Chelsea incop rates all of this, the chimney, the old black

windows and the old door, it is all exactly the same -- incorporates all

of this. I hope that I have created his

little world. Marylyn Abbott, congratulations!

This is a beautiful garden. It got a Silver Medal. What is astonishing is

the way you have brought West Green House to Chelsea, seemingly in every

detail? If you come to West Green House you see that the bricks all

have holes in them. That is the motions of the wasps. We sat here

burrowing to get the same effect. One thing that everyone has

commented on is that it takes on everything that is English. It takes

someone that removed to do this? Well, to me to play hollage of

hundreds of years of knowing that ordinary British men and women who

came to Australia, to create their British gardens and this was a

wonderful opportunity to say thank you to you for teaching us so much

about the English garden. You crammed a lot into a small

place. It was tricky. How did you select the plants you have chosen? I

have chosen plants that grow on a wide range of soils.

I look for plants to perform under a wide spectrum of claimant

conditions. You talk about resilient plants,

obviously we have the loopiness, what other plants do you think are

resilient and adaptable? Well, just about everything here is adaptable.

Foxgloves, we can grow them in new south Wales and here. Once again, a

wide spectrum. This, Cranesborough, it is a main stay of nearly

everyone's garden. It is almost a weed, isn't it!

Clearly it is stunning. You to branch out to a larger garden after

this? Well, age will be part of this. My knees have been killing me

this year! But it has been a wonderful thing to do. Chelsea is

the ideal for all gardeners to attempt. But I think that age has a

lot to do with it! Well, thank you very much indeed.

Thank you. You can always guarantee a range of

different gardens at Chelsea. Similar-sized plots, yet so many

different interpretations of that space.

I am with Paul Hervey-Brookes. We have the reconnaissance

reconnaissance -- Renaissance Garden, you got a Bronze Medal, how

do you feel about that? I think when you work for something like this,

you aim for gold, you hope for gold. Did you appreciate the Bronze Medal?

I felt gutted. For the people that came, that

volunteered and that poured their hearts and souls into the garden.

There is a huge team behind you but it is not just you but the pressure

is on you, I guess? Yes. But for everyone involved, I thought I had

let them down. You cannot escape that feeling. But by the time I got

here, I thought, it is what it is, there is no point crying over it,

just get on with it and engage with everyone.

You have not let anyone down. The visitors love it.

That is the main point, I think. What was the judge's feedback? One

judge put it brilliantly, death by 1,000 cuts! I liked the phrase. All

of the elements in the individual settings are good. One said that the

planting was beautiful. But together for them it did not

work as a whole unit. So you have to accept what they say.

Do you feel you have learned something from that? I think if you

get Gold Medal like last year or Bronze Medal like this year, the

judges' feedback is important. They are people to look up to, they have

a huge knowledge of wealth to draw on.

What would you have done differently now you have had the feedback?

Anything? I don't know that I would have, actually. The judges' feedback

is one thing but I made a garden that followed my own heart. I met

the brief of the sponsor, so I hope that other people stand in front of

it to take bits from. To me, if one person stands and looks that they

would like those things, that to me, shows me I have done my job.

This is clear. shows me I have done my job.

that you can take away, think about, shows me I have done my job.

With this judgement, I will reflect on the garden for the next time.

This will not change but I can use the sheet for better understanding

for the next thing -- time. That is crucial.

Well, the next time, you are coming back to Chelsea? I hope.

You have done a large garden, do you think you will do a small garden, a

fresh garden, an artisan garden? Any ideas? It depends. I liked having

the luxury of the space. In the odd way, the judges set a challenge. To

satisfy myself, I have to come back and do better. So the first option

is to come and prove that I can do it.

Well, a Bronze Medal at Chelsea have a huge achievement. You did not let

anybody down and everybody loves your gardens. Congratulations. Nice

to see you, and hope to see you back! You never know! You can always

get something from a garden, it does not matter the medal that it has

got. Immediately I saw this, I was struck by the pool. The lovely dry

Stonewall at the bottom and the straight lines rippling in the

water. That is what matters. You pluck from gardens the things you

like. Paul was amongst a few of designers

who included sculpture. Toby has been enjoying sculpture as Chelsea

in all of its shapes and forms. -- at Chelsea in all of its shapes

and forms. There is no shortage of sculpture

here at Chelsea this year, in fact, I have never known so much! With new

materials, tools and manufacturing techniques, it is as if the limits

on what artists can achieve have been removed.

For some of the original sculptures at Chelsea, you get in a knee deep

pocket, or something bigger to get them home.

But the rules are always the same. Framing is key. If you use

overhanging trees or hedges... Or oak panels like this, it can show

off the sculpture to the best. That is whether it is a bird bath or

mashle representation of the sound wave when you say "light" fanned you

are clever with the framing you can completely change the way a

sculpture looks. The sculpture you choose is down to

personal taste but the backdrop needs careful consideration. Grass,

or foliage or even better, a colour that makes your piece of artwork

shine out. And that is true whether you are

using stone, willow wig womens for the sweet peas to train up, or you

are using sparkling silver bench. -- wigwams.

Access is essential. With statues, the touching is half of the fun. It

is essential if you grow your own to keep them tightly clipped.

And that's when you realise, when you see the gardens at Chelsea, that

every element from the planting, the paving, the stone in the walls it is

treated like a piece of sculpture, framed with a beautiful backdrop.

That's why the gardens here look this good! That is fantastic,

though, isn't it? Every night this week I am being joined by people

from different creative disciplines to give us their Angolan Chelsea

flower full show. Joining me is the architectural historian Tom

Dyckhoff. Is this your first Chelsea? I have not been for a few

years, so I am eager to see how it has changed. Are you a gardener?

Sadly, not. I live in London and house prices being what they are, I

have a flat, not even with a balcony. I have a window box, it

looks sad at the moment. I am very keen attentional -- potential

gardener. My dad was a great lover of the garden. I remember from my

childhood, I would love to have a crack. What are you looking forward

you'll come to Chelsea? Two things, the relationship between the garden

and the structures and hard landscaping inside the gardens, and

secondly I am looking at the planting themselves, looking at the

3-dimensional itty of it, the structure, the form, the shape, the

plan. Those key elements towards architecture, I am looking for that

in a garden as well. And has gardening ever influenced the way

you look at architecture? Very much so. If you look back through

history, if you look behind us here, the former tea, the connection

between the building, the landscape, it has been the key to

architecture going back to Stonehenge. Thousands of years,

right the way through to 16th and 17th and 18th century gardens as

well. One of the strange things about show gardens here at Chelsea

is buildings and structures tend to be used either to hide what is going

on, or just to add some shape and form. They tend not to be used as

building. Exactly. I am looking to look for real architecture. I am

looking for heft and might, that integration, that relationship

between the building, the structure, whatever it is, and the

landscaping and the plants as well. At the moment within architecture

there is a great resurgence of interest in planting and integrating

with the most modern of architecture. I am thinking of a

place in New York, very fashionable in architecture, where an architect

has worked with a landscape designer to create an amazing structure.

Yesterday, we had Dan Pearson and Thomas heather Wick, who are

starting work on the garden bridge, the same idea. One of the things, we

can grow plants cheaply, we can raise plants from seed and take

cuttings and as gardeners that is what we love to do. We can't grow

buildings from seed. what we love to do. We can't grow

expensive. They are expensive and slow and generally pretty weighty.

But that said there are amazing structures that are much more

affordable and I am interested in this country in self build, building

your own structures. There is stuff out there, Kit Holmes, Kit

architecture, that is light weight. I would love to see that in Chelsea

in years to come. Are there any particular designers you have

enjoyed at the show? Or is it just general? A general wander around,

looking forward to seeing what the latest trends are in gardens.

Gardens are not my speciality, I can't wait to look round. I will be

interested to see what you make of it. If you want to add architectural

form to your garden, you can do it with plants because you can add

something big and preferably exotic. Carroll has been taking a look at

plants that can help you to structure your borders.

You can almost feel the temperature rising. How about that for a spot

You can almost feel the temperature tropical colour? These wonderful

plants come in this enormous range of oranges, pinks, even a few black

ones, dark and dangerous. Very mysterious. But the other thing they

have got, apart from their colour, is this fabulous structure. It is

almost surrealist, this spade that wraps around the inside workings of

the flower. It lowers insects in. You might assume that because the

topical as you Benteke -- these tropical, exuberant appearance they

were difficult to grow, but not a bit of it. Put them out for the

summer, at them into your pots, anywhere you like, where you want

the colour. But then, when Frost threatens, bring them indoors. A

cool conservatory, a greenhouse, you -- your porch, anywhere will do and

withdraw all water from them. They want to be bone dry. In the spring,

start watering them again. They will burst into growth, promising you

another summer of exuberant colour and beautiful structure.

Structure is not always about being solid and sculptural. Sometimes it

is quite the opposite. In the case of these, it is about being willowy

and wafting around. Yet this beautiful construction would look

brilliant in anybody's garden. These plans are from South Africa. They

are not grasses. They are separate group of their own. It is a vast

group. Some of them are tall and wonderful. Some of them have tiny

little in fluorescences right at the stems which twinkle in the light.

But in terms of their cultivation they are very straightforward. They

are not as hardy as most of the ornamental grasses that we grow in

our gardens, but they will take temperatures down to about -8. What

they really love neutral to added -- acid soil and adequate moisture. A

great idea if you feel you must have one of these gorgeous plants is to

grow one in an enormous pot and thinking into the ground and then

come with the help of a friend, when it starts to get really cold, bring

it indoors under cover -- think it into the ground. Bring it in,

somewhere where it is bright and light.

These are an incredibly aristocratic group of plants. But hailing as they

do from Himalayan Woodlands, the one thing they detest is a soggy

bottom. So if you want to grow them yourself, give them a bit of shade,

give them really excellent drainage and Woody soil. You can't go wrong.

In terms of a flower that perfectly epitomises poison -- poise and

grace, what could do it better than this beautiful plant? She is like a

flower that has been to finishing school, or an absolute diva. But I

think it is she who steals the show. It is one thing to look like a

floral opera singer, but the plans I have got here to my mind looks like

a cross between a floral cockatoo and a hand grenade. It is certainly

explosive. It is a pineapple. A bromeliad. But it may look like a

pineapple, but it will not taste like one. It is not edible. As a

variegated, exotic plant, it could be exactly the thing you need to be

an eye-catcher. But the truth is not everybody is going to like it. The

Great Pavilion is packed with exhibits but nobody is going to like

all of them. Some people, quite frankly, will dislike some of them a

lot. That is particularly the case with exotic blooms. Really adds like

this pineapple do so more than anybody else -- bromeliads. Don

Billington will not be swayed from his one-man mission to bring this

much maligned plant to the nation's heart.

I think the problem we have with bromeliad As is nobody really knows

them yet and to look at them for the first time, they probably frighten

people with their vibrant colours. Is this going on after nine o'clock,

because some of the ones people can sometimes pass comments in a naughty

but nice sort of way. As well as being quite passionate over

bromeliad As, I am passionate over a guy called Rod Stewart and the name

of the company derives from the fact he had an LP out in 1971 called

every picture tells a story. I want to see gel -- Rod Stewart at the

Chelsea Flower Show, so I developed my collection in the hope I might

one day meet Rod Stewart. # Wake-up medley, I think I've got

something to say to you #. . Bromeliads are one of the largest

plants in the plant kingdom, from the Americas. These plants grow on

every sort of level. The plants I like to display are more of the

jungle type, but some are close to cacti and succulents and Le Fondre

deserts. -- they live on deserts. I like to grow epiphytess. You have a

parasite that will collect to a host and take from it, and epiphytes

lives on it and it connects onto it. This birdies -- on this bed, you can

see from the base of the plant where the offsets start to form. Each one

will send out three or four. When they get to one third of the size of

the parent plant it is possible to take them off and repot them, or

collect them onto a brunch somewhere else. You can see how this is fading

away. We have one of the young ones starting to come out.

I got interested in bromeliads when I was working at Liverpool but Onyx

and helping to build Liverpool national collections. In 2008, while

at Chelsea, I purchased about 200 or ?300 worth of bromeliads and that is

how I started my collection. I have three national collections within

the family, which includes one of these. The idea of what we are

trying to do is to show people the diversity of not just all the

different colours you can get, but also the sizes and shapes of them.

This particular plant we are looking at now, you can see the

inflorescence coming out which is going to form the flowers. A

question I am often asked is how we can get these to flower again. At a

recent presentation with the RHS I was asked that question. If you get

a plant about this size, the funnel this size, get an apple, put it on

the side of the pot, cover the whole plant and the apple with a paper

bag, feel it, leave it for 12 or 14 days. After that period of time the

apple will rot down, release a gas called ethylene and the ethylene

induces the flower. If you use a pair, you will get two flowers. One

of the judges what if you use a banana skin? I said, you will get a

bunch! We were first at Chelsea in 2012 and

low and behold, the first time we had entered and our first time of

asking we got a gold medal. We were lucky enough to achieve the same

again last year. This year, we are hoping for the same again. With Rod

Stewart appearing in the UK, he might take the day off to visit the

Chelsea Flower Show and if that is the case I will be there, looking

for him to see if he wants my autograph!

Did not turn up? No, he never turned up. I am really disappointed. I only

do the Chelsea Flower Show in the hope of meeting him. Maybe next

year? Why should I bother next year, if he does not turn up to see me

this year. I go to see him in concert, so he should turn up to see

me here. You got a gold medal. I did. Three in a row for the company.

Fantastic. I love the idea you first saw bromeliads at Chelsea and now

bring them here every year. In 2008, I bought some and it has grown and

grown into something as big as this. To beat -- do people either love

them or hate them? They do. They are frightened of them. The colours are

so vibrant and they think they cannot look after them. But it is

one of the easiest plants to look after, otherwise I would not do it.

Some of them look plastic. They do. I could put a few plastic ones in

and the judges might not notice! You have this one trooping down,

creating the mood of the exhibit. It gives an airy atmosphere and

encloses the divine in. You have other ones as well. Quite a range.

They are very diverse. We have these with the tops. Also, up there, we

have much bigger ones. What is called Samantha, which was entered

into the Plant Of The Year a couple of years ago. We have really big

ones which look totally different from the airy one growing down. A

fantastic exhibit and you got your gold medal. Have you got one on the

front of your car? Not at the moment, no. If I get rich, I will

get one made, like a Bentley or something like that. Earlier in the

week Don put is really a Brazil forward to the RHS judges to be

considered for the RHS Plant Of The Year. Was it a contender? Who won

and who decides what makes a Plant Of The Year? Rachel has been finding

out. RHS Chelsea Plant Of The Year is in

its fourth year here at the show and it is an extremely prestigious award

which showcases the work that all of these nurseries that exhibit here

are doing with their breeding programmes. It also creates

something of a buzz. The winning plant will have been

chosen from more than 60, introduced at Chelsea this year. They range

from bulbs, like this beautiful Narcissus, right through to

perennials, climbers and shrubs, even a black-skinned tomato. That

sounds exotic. It seems to me like the judges have their work cut out.

James, tell me about the process behind this particular award? Right,

any grower can submit their favourite plant for this.

Then it is selected by all of the members of all of the RHS Plant

Committees. We started with a list of 60, that is whittled down to a

shortlist of 20. Then the Sunday before Chelsea, there is a meeting

and all of the people in the plant Committees, about a couple of

hundred but normally about 75, each one incredibly knowledgeable, so

knowledgeable, and they decide which one of the 20 is the Plant of the

Year. I have to ask you, what happened to

Don's Bromeliad? He reached the last list and we hope he enters next

year. What are the judges looking for? For

impact. Something to make the judges go "wow." And again REAL appeals to

the public. Tell me about the winner this year?

Hydrangea macrophylla, Miss Saori it was named after the plant breeder's

wife. The first plant he bred he thought worthy to be named after his

wife. Andy, so when you first saw this

hydrangea, did you think, that is a winner? Yes. It has the wow factor,

hasn't it? It has the wonderful meringue quality it looks like a

dessert! People look at it and they can feast on this one.

I think it is very delicious. What about the competition? Have you

looked at the other contenders? I have had a look around. What is

great in this competition is that you are seeing lots of different

types of plant. They are assessed both on appearance and on their

potential. New introductions come and sometimes they just disappear

thereafter but I this with this type of competition and the numbers of

people looking and assessing them, they have a far better chance of

choosing a plant that will be a long-termer.

What does it mean to you to have won this? Is it a big deal? Yes, it is

great. I was going to say it is the icing

on the cake but looking at this, I am not sure I can say that! But it

is fantastic. You have plantsmen voting, people who are a part of the

show, people who are a part of the society that are dealing with a

great variety of plant material. So to get a win it really mean as lot.

Well, many congratulations to Andrew and his team.

Now, the concept of plants being in vogue, in one year, out the next,

has been going on in gardening for years but it is very hard to

understand. Why do trends come and go and plants suddenly become the

thing we must have in our gardens? Chris Beardshaw is trying to unravel

the fickleness of fashion! We are remarkably blessed in Britain as to

the range of plant species we can cultivate within the confines of our

garden. There is a claim that nowhere else in the world can you

grow such a broad range of plant material from so many different

climates. However, occasionally, we back a little too spoiled. Plants go

in and out of fashion. Sometimes we plainlily fall out of love with them

as we are overused to them. But sometimes a new plant is revealed

and we clamour for it in our gardens, to then discover that

perhaps we didn't quite have the conditions that suited it. It

becomes a bit of a prima dona, too much trouble to grow. But then there

are the plants that fall out of faufr that are really worth growing.

Every time we see them, we think, well, I don't understand why we are

not growing it more often. This is one of those specimens, Rosa glauca.

It is from the mountains of central and southern Europe. A rose species

that gives a classic five-petalled flower. The flowers fragile, falling

if you try to harvest them and shove them in a vase. They do not like to

be confined to that watery space. But this is a plant whose muted

shades and amping stems suits a gravel garden like this or a rampant

hedgerow but is equally happy jostling with perennials in a stiff

or a formal boarder. If you buy one rose for the garden this year, make

it this one. If you talk about dwarf confers, to

a gardener under the age of 70, you can see the eyes rolling and the

taste police being called for. But there is a group of confers that are

well worth including, especially in a contemporary garden. This is one

of them. Not as dwarf as a rockery confer we are used to seeing in the

1970s. But this is pinussilvestrus. It is seen in the rocky clags in the

Highlands on exposed sights. But this is cultivate cultivated species

it is called watereri. It really does very admirably is to produce a

series of legs from the ground with beautiful pink bark exposed,

becoming the centre piece of the garden. One group of

becoming the centre piece of the undervalued is amongst the olding

becoming the centre piece of the living and remaining plant that is

the ferns. They are the most amazing, adaptive

species. They grow all over the world on every continent in all

sorts of climates but we associate them most with damp moist woodland,

clinging to rocks and cliffs and boulders. This is a wonderful

example of how to use the ferns. This is polysticken. Soft, the

foliage delicate to the touch. But they have root-like structures that

bind and clove and cover, so as a consequence you get a carpet of

wonderful fronds. Ferns offer so much more than just a

backdrop. The right plant in the right place offers a wonderful

scene. This is what has happened here. We think of ferns being green

but look at this underside of that wallicianafrond. Tonally, it matches

with the viola, that is tumbling around. It is a beautiful

combination. Subtle but still beautiful. From a slightly more

acidic colour, well how about the sensitive ferns, the acids 34567ing

with the yellows of the iris sibe are, ica behind.

-- siberica. Oft an the RHS Chelsea Flower Show

we celebrate the exotic plant and sometimes forget we have a wealth of

natives, well worth growing in the gardens and can take centre stage.

This is one that deserves that centre stage it is the native, the

common field maple. The reason for growing it is because it will

produce this wonderful multi-stem. It you allow it to produce multiple

stems, there is a canopy of golden foliage to emerge in autumn, as well

as supporting a wealth of wildlife and mammels with its seeds. This is

one of the first trees I grew as a child. It has emotional memories for

me, and the first tree that I built my first tree house in. And seeing

plants coming in and out of fashion, maybe we should not worry about it.

We allow ourselves to indulge in a particular species or flower, then

we rediscover something afresh. As long as we keep ourselves

open-minded to the wealth of plants out there, we are then sure to fill

our gardens with joy! It is funny how plants do definitely go in and

out of fashion. When I was a child my moth mother grew dail areas as

cut flowers. They were not considered worthy of the main

garden. Now we have dahlias grow growing here aplenty. 30 years ago,

I would not have seen dead in this type of garden but certainly things

change. These are beautiful. Earlier, Tom Dyckhoff joined us here

to talk about his personal thoughts and opinions of Chelsea. He has been

taking a look around and we joined him to see how he was getting on.

The way that we design landscapes and buildings often reflects how we

review the universe throughout centuries. Looking back to

Stonehenge or 17th century classism, and the relationship to physics,

often the architecture and the gardens that we create are framing

devices for the landscape. I love the idea of the star-gazing garden.

There is an amazing pool where the night sky casts itself at night.

This is an actual building to be used after the show, used

appropriately as an observatory for gazing at the stars! I love this

garden. It is like a piece of architecture. Like walking into

somebody's house. Here is the entrance hall with this lovely

chunky basalt underfoot. Here the doorway with the copper. And here

you have rooms. Each room has its own feel. Almost like a dining room

and a living room. Down here, beautiful iris and hostas.

And there is a change of scale, moving up, at the back here to this

garden room at the rear. There are great chunky red cedar columns. Like

they have been plucked from a Greek temple. And they smell amazing from

the rain. I like the combination of the geometric structure and then the

plants bursting forth from the architectural frame it puts me in

mind of a citizen garden or Japanese. It feels calm and

structured. But the designer left off the roof. We could have done

with that a few minutes ago, when there was torrential rain here! This

structure is not even a show garden. It is a trade stand. But this is so

inventive. Compared to the show-stoppers. This is a little

rough around the edges, you can move into it straight away. This is using

shipping containers, that is very fashionable at moment. And there is

lots of roofed greenery. So many of the gardens at Chelsea

use arc feck tower like a stage set, push it and -- use architecture like

a stage set, push it and it may fall over, so it is great to see this

design, using real heft! I like a bit of heft in a garden building

too! That is all for tonight's show. Nicki and Andy are back tomorrow.

They have David Linley with them. And tomorrow, the BBC RHS People's

Choice Award. Your vote could make a difference. You have until midnight

to vote. You can find out how to vote by going online.

We are back here also tomorrow night at 8.00pm. Until then, goodbye.

Goodbye.