Episode 8 RHS Chelsea Flower Show

The Great Pavilion has never looked better!

It is ripe with plants, bursting with blooms from all over

Today we are celebrating the tens of thousands of plants displayed

here this week and the growers who have worked so hard to produce them.

This vast structure has always been the beating heart of the RHS

Chelsea Flower Show, but in 2016, are we seeing

the germination of new ideas under canvas?

Is this show becoming more adventurous?

We'll be lifting the lid on the Great Pavilion to find out.

Welcome to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show,

an event supported by M Investments.

Coming up - we'll be finding out how exhibitors have been pushing

the boundaries to stay ahead of the game.

We're joined by Turner Prize winner Grayson Perry as he casts a crafty

And we'll be exploring some of the gardens and plants

An interesting point that I've been hearing today is that Andy Sturgeon,

who won Best garden in the show... It is a very male garden. Men really

like it and respond to it, but all the women, including the presenters

on our team, are slightly less enthusiastic. They are not feeling

it in the same way, and there are no female judges. I know, a couple of

people have been talking about that. I think it is a point that the RHS

need to address. I'm not defending them, but Juliet Sergeant, many

other women who are potential judges are making gardens here, so they

cannot judge. That makes the point that the pool is too small. 50-50

tonight, male or female, you get a chance to say whether you agree with

the judges in our BBC RHS People's Choice Awards. More details on that

later on in the show. One thing that people don't realise

is that the Great Pavilion is massive, covering an area

of three acres. It really is packed to the rafters

with the best plantsmen So Carol had quite a lot of ground

to cover when she dashed around The Chelsea Flower Show is the

greatest show on earth, and to win any kind of medal here is an

enormous accolade, whether it is bronze, silver, silvergilt or gold,

they are all an enormous honour. Come on, then! What have you done?

We've got it. We are so, so happy! How did you do? We got gold! Very

well done. What did you get? Fabulous! Wonderful. You've done so

perfectly with everything. How many is that? 27. Goals. How could it be

anything else? It is a dream. A dream to try this. I'm getting...

It's just wonderful. You've done it! You've done it!

So excited! You don't expect it, so it makes it even better.

There you go. It's beautiful. It's fantastic. I know. Have you never

got a gold at Chelsea? Know. And I never will. That you have a

silvergilt. 61st gold medal. Can't be better. Way-hey!

Amongst the gold medal winners was grenade. Congratulations to them.

With me is Catherine John. Many congratulations. -- Granada. You

have been coming here for a long time. How many years? 16 years this

year. I think Granada have been coming here 18 years. Many

congratulations on the gold. Does the experience become humdrum? Does

winning a gold lose its appeal? Not that all. You get more excited. It

is beautiful to keep winning golds. We display our try island state this

year, as you can see. You feel Chelsea is changing at all? Yes, I

can see some changes. 15 years ago, I thought we had a lot more exhibits

than we do this year. But it's beautiful. It's so exciting. It's so

exciting being at Chelsea, and to have Granada exhibiting at Chelsea

is just wonderful. Looking at these displays, and that incredible orchid

rising up there, I long to come to the island. I have to down on the

plane but I have never set foot on dry land. So I will come. Please do.

Another exhibit that comes to Chelsea year on year is hardly's

cottage plants. Rob and Rose Hardy you might call the Batman and Robin

of the pavilion. But this year, Rob is flying solo. We went to find out

why. Is this some sort of trial separation between you and Rosy this

week? Rosy obviously has a lovely garden, and she has left me manning

this stand. How do you feel without her? Do you feel lost? Not really,

because she normally puts up the exhibit, stays for Tuesday and then

goes home. She is not normally hear from Wednesday onwards. So it feels

normal. How has it been this year. You've got a gold medal. That is the

21st Chelsea gold medal. Rosy does come and put the exhibit together.

Did she do that this year, because she has been busy? She did both

exhibits. She's the one who places the plants. She has amazing talent

and artistic flair. The plant knowledge is exceptional. She's been

the most relaxed ever doing a display that I've been involved with

this year. I've never seen anything like it. I think it is the

excitement of doing the garden on Main Avenue. This is our main

business. It's the excitement and the challenge. Normally, husband and

wife team, there's normally a of friction. But this year there's been

none. She's just been soaking it up and enjoying the occasion. How about

for you. You have to deal with the public on a daily basis. They are

always asking you about the plants, your favourite combinations here. If

it is a plant, it is quite straightforward. You start off the

show and you think there is a certain plant they will ask about,

but at the end of the first day, you realise you've got it wrong. It's

something that just captures the imagination. It doesn't swap around

quite a bit. Absolutely stunning. I always come to your stand and see

some fantastic plant combinations. Have a lovely week, without Rosy

perhaps! Rob's wife Rosy has been busy on this exhibit and her very

first Show Garden here at Chelsea. We went to find out more about a

subject very close to both her home and her heart.

Look at this wonderful river, the River test. Beautiful. It flows

through my home in Hampshire. Who wouldn't want a stream like this at

the end of their garden? You've got things like this, and looks, tiny

fish down there. Look at the ripples on the surface. Never the same

pattern. You can sit here mesmerised for hours on end, and it will never

be the same. Absolutely beautiful. This river is one of 200 chalk

streams in the world. 160 happened to be in England. 70% of the water

that is used in the south-east of England is drawn from the chalk

download and that these streams come from. If we go and extract far too

much of it, they are going to dry up, to look horrible. They are

wonderful but fragile ecosystems, and we need to look after them.

Looking after these beautiful chalk streams is such an important thing,

and it really stimulated me into the idea for my first ever Show Garden

at Chelsea. The idea for the garden is based

around everything that happens here at free folk. It has a long history

of papermaking, banknote making, and it is key to our design. The River

Test is used for making watermarks. They also introduced silver thread

into our banknotes, making sure that they cannot be forged. So the idea

is that we use the silver thread by the path, and the water is there as

the key and and for making everything work. -- the key element.

I'm growing all of the plant material myself. We are growing 6000

plants, which is a huge number of plants to get ready for Chelsea.

It's very unusual for somebody who's a Main Avenue garden to actually

grow all of the plant material themselves. Most of the landscape

designers and architects get contract is in to grow everything

for them. Alongside native species, we are also going to be introducing

brand-new garden varieties. This is hebe celebration. Beautiful purple -

pink flowers. It is a beautiful big push. Foliage is a variegated on the

tips, which gives a good contrast to the flour, and the bees love it.

This plant will grow and looks superb in flower for such a long

time in the garden. This is going to be my 25th year

exhibiting at Chelsea. This is the first time I've ended up moving from

the marquee, the Floral Pavilions, outside to do an main avenue garden,

and that really has put my head into garden mode, and thinking about

Chelsea far earlier than I would ever have thought about it before.

Everyone says I looks very calm. Inside, I'm an absolute wreck! But I

will keep the facade up and look really, really calm, and if anybody

finds me curled up in a corner by the end of Sunday or Monday, when

everything is over and the judging has been done, just leave me alone!

I don't want to be disturbed! Rosy, here we are, outside an

unprotected in your first Show Garden. What has it been like? I

have thoroughly enjoyed it. It is different. We are exposed. The

elements are here, completely different from inside the pavilion,

where we don't have to worry about the rain and cold. The plants have

loved it. They have settled in and done incredibly well. We just had to

grow them a bit harder than we would for inside so that they flower on

time. They are the stars of the garden. These plants are very

particular to this chalk stream environment that your garden is all

about. Exactly. Chalk streams, our environment, is all alkaline. All of

the plant material loves alkaline soils. People could look at certain

areas in the garden, and if they are on alkaline soil, it it will be

perfect plant. But you make it clear that you really cannot grow any

ericaceous plants here. No. I tried very early on. I love the blue

poppy. We would grow it with my mother up in Yorkshire on acid soil,

in containers, and then bring it back down to us. As soon as our

chalky water went on to them, they'd don't like it. There is nothing

worse than a sad plant. The key thing is to choose the right plants

of the situation. Absolutely. What are the key plants. One of my

key plants are the geraniums. They are great fun. And I love that. Yes,

it is brilliant, isn't it? It is such a contrast to its cousin, the

red one. It will love your heavy soil. The first show garden, the

judges gave you a silver medal, how do you feel about that? I am very

happy. Coming here, completely out of my depth, I am very happy. I look

forward to seeing your next show garden.

I don't think so! Rosy's not the only woman

to leave the Great Pavilion Another woman who has made the move

from under canvas to the show She's no stranger here with 14

Chelsea Gold medals for exhibiting, but this is her first year

here as a designer Lovely to see you. Lovely to see

you. How has it been, the transition? It is very interesting.

As you know, I have been a judge in there but the attention to detail in

a garden is very different to the attention to detail in the Great

Pavilion. Is it just about bailing it? Not at all, it is about the

scale of the paving, how things are built, the scale of the plants. It

is the hard landscaping. The balance, the size of the trees,

versus the props you use, the size of the chairs and everything else.

It is all the other detail you have to take into account? You have to

put everything in 3-D? Exactly. And it is the balance of the sculpture.

You are all about plants and the medicinal uses and herbs. What have

you got here? This is what I am really excited about, it is

Hawthorne. I am from the West Country. In the West Country it is

known as bread and cheese. I was brought up to eat the leaf in spring

and it is really good for the heart. Does it taste like bread and cheese?

No, it tastes like bitter! But it has been scientifically proven to be

good for the heart, both in strength and circulation. That is exciting.

Behind the chairs, this is Willow and that is the origin of aspirin.

And then you see that beautiful blue flower, that is linseed. In the

research for this garden, I was talking to a GP and he said we

really should have flax and linseed with our cereal in the morning and

our digestive system would be really healthy. And you have got Sage. That

is very good to gargle with if you have a sore throat and rosemary. It

is not bad for cooking with either! You have got a Silver-Gilt. To get a

Silver-Gilt, I am so chuffed. When you look up there, it looks

absolutely stunning, Jekka. Thank you very much.

Coming up, Zephaniah Lindo will be catching up with some

of the personalities behind the artisan gardens

Well, yesterday we found out what the judges made

of the large show gardens here at the Chelsea Flower Show.

Once again we are running the BBC RHS People's Choice Award

where you get to vote for your favourite large show garden.

Simply go to our website, bbc.co.uk/chelsea,

and you will see all of the 17 gardens up for the award and all

of the information you need on how to vote.

Voting opens after tonight's show at 9 o'clock.

To help you decide, Toby Buckland and Rachel de Thame

will be guiding you through each of the 17 gardens involved.

Here they are with the first selection.

At first glance, this looks like the kind of property and upstanding

member of the banking community might own, but you don't have to

scratch below the surface very hard, to discover that this garden is very

quirky indeed. You see, it is mechanical. Inspired by the cartoons

of Heath Robinson, the box and be trees and Borders dance the

fandango. The window boxes are dynamic, not simply because they

change with the seasons but because they move. EBorders around on

tracks. It is a garden designed to make you happy and bring joy, and

even the bits which don't move do that. The borders are mix of sweet

colours with fox tail lilies, south vias and ballerina roses. It just

goes to show when it comes to Gardens, you should never be taken

in by first impressions. The Hartley but panic garden

designed by Catherine MacDonald is a place for relaxation for a keen

gardener -- Hartley botanic. That flows under a glass floor to the

actual structure and you can see the coy carp swimming around. Towards

the back is a kitchen garden. On the one side there are vegetables,

runner beans and artichokes, on the other side, and medley in full

flower. Around the glasshouse is very naturalistic planting. Silver

Birch is to give the height and then there is fox gloves and cow parsley.

This brings more intensity of colour. This is very much the theme

of the hedgerow but definitely in a garden space.

The LG Smart Garden by Hay Joung Hwang marries cutting-edge

technology with nature. It even comes with a phone at which enables

you to change the lighting and volume on the TV by tapping your

phone. There are sensors in the border which lets you know when your

plants are hungry or thirsty at the root. But what sets this garden

apart from other high-tech contemporary designs is it is not

very low-key, it is not dark concrete and steel -- it is not very

bloke like. It is fit for contemporary living. The planting is

a florist shop window of colour with bearded iris, geraniums and

foxgloves. This is a very flowery glimpse of the future.

The L'Occitane garden by James Basson has been inspired by France

and uses materials brought from France. At the back is a circular

stone shelter for a Shepherd or a farmer to use. There is ace dream

just bubbling up through the ground. There are rather stunted looking Oak

trees back there on the hillside, and these lovely pines coming

through. -- there is a stream bubbling up through the ground. This

is studied with poppies and flax. These trees are stunted, they have

been pruned hard. They are working trees and they bring a real sense of

the place. Don't forget, you can't vote yet

until you've seen the remaining gardens which we'll be showing

you throughout the rest of the show. Awards can divide opinion and one

man who is all too familiar with such accolades is artist

and former Turner Prize winner Grayson, thank you for coming to

Chelsea. Had you been here often? Never. I am a virgin. Your first

visit. What were you expecting? I was expecting amazing craftsmanship

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

the precision and the perfection. I am seeing that time and time again.

What about the whole social event? Chelsea has become a huge

ritualistic event. It is part of a mega fate of Britain.

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

is a celebration of British culture which goes on over the summer and

this is a big part of it. It is the produce show on steroids really. Do

you garden at home? No, I was slave Labour to my parents when I was

young and it put me off completely. I love looking at Gardens, I love

sitting in the garden and I love the whole philosophy of what they mean.

What do you think they mean? I think they are a meditation on mortality.

As I age, every spring, I find myself sighing and thinking I have

made it another year. There is something very touching about that.

When you see the flowers come out and the birds nesting I think, we

have made it through the winter. I find that very moving, more moving

as I age. Maybe you will become a part of that and doing some hands-on

gardening, who knows? I said to my wife, if you ever catch me

with a golf club in my hand, shoot me! But a spade, I think I could

live with that! Go around the show, have a look, choose some things you

like and then we will come back and have a chat later. OK.

This has been put together by a group of people who love plants, the

Alpine Garden Society. There is a water feature in the middle and lots

of plants around the edges. I love these. What has particularly caught

my eye is this one. It is un-American woodland plant and it is

called shooting stars. You can see why. -- it is an American woodland

plant. Apparently it is pretty EEC to grow as well. Nice easy to drain

soil and it will combine beautifully with Hostas like that.

Not all alpines are easy, and plantsman John Massey has taken

on a notoriously difficult plant to display at the show.

Rachel De Thame went to find out about the delicate little flower

Hepaticas are dainty little plants which thrive in woodland found on

mountain slopes in Asia and Europe. If you get up close to them, you can

see them. You feel incredibly greedy. At his nursery in South

Staffordshire, John Massey is so passionate about Hepaticas, he has

built this Alpine house for his ever-growing collection.

It is like being a kid in a sweet shop. How many plants have you got

any? I don't know! I am terrible about that! A lot! I know these are

pretty much global. They are right through the temperate zones of Asia

and Europe and Canada. They are small perennial woodland plants

growing on sunny slopes. It is strange because most people think of

them as needing shade but they like to flower in the sun. As soon as

they finish flowering, they are under deciduous trees. They are

opportunists so they take that early spring sun and then they have the

leaf canopy in summer. Yes, and they take it much drier than. John has

travelled the world in search of rare varieties of Hepatica. He will

breed more remarkable variations of this gorgeous plant. These are from

America. They are really hairy. All the leaves you see on Hepaticas are

covered with fine hairs. There are two species in America. We are off,

hang on! This is the other one which is Americana. It is much, much

smaller. This is stunning. I love it when a plant draws you in. You have

to look at this close-up to appreciate it. This is the beauty of

them and in my mind, part of the charm of Hepaticas, the simple

beauty. The more tender Asian varieties can

be more of a challenge to grow, and are best grown in pots under glass,

whether temperature doesn't fall minus five Celsius. The Japanese are

far more complex. You have far more variations. The stamen, the petal

fall, and hundreds of different doubles. It is a bit of a love hate

relationship with the Japanese, because I cannot resist them, but I

know they are no good outside. I always tell myself, we don't need

any more! But as soon as you see a different one, it's like, I must

have it. If you want to have a go at growing hepaticas at home and you

don't have a house like this one, you could put them in a pot in the

garden, choose one of the European forms, and put it somewhere where

the pot can get lots of right sunshine in the spring when it is

flowering, and as the weather warms up in the summer, put it in the

shade in a quiet part of the garden where it won't be noticed. And

hopefully you will have this for many years to come. A talking point,

something to show off, a little bit challenging, but 100% worth it.

John, I'm so happy to see you here at Chelsea. And better than that -

you've won a gold medal! Fantastic. You dream of doing it, but you never

know if it would happen. Up until five days ago, we didn't know if we

would be able to put on this display. Hepaticas flower in

February, so to see them here at the end of May is such an achievement!

We bought a trailer, we put them in at the end of December, and they had

been in the freezer trailer between 0 degrees and 0.5. I brought the

flowering ones out seven days ago. If I brought them out too soon, the

flower was would have gone over. When you were going through the

process of warming them up again, do you do it gradually? No, I brought

them out about a fortnight ago to cut foliage out and put them

straight in the fridge. They stayed in their seven days. Then I put some

benches outside the greenhouse and put them out in full sun. So to get

that quality, just talk me around some of the details here. There's 12

species through the northern temperate zone, and they all seem to

love to cross with each other. This one comes from China. These are some

crosses we have done between these two. You can bring the marbling in.

This one over here, it's wonderful. It's just absolutely incredible.

That's stained glass. The day got better for you because on top of the

gold medal, you were also awarded the Diamond Jubilee award for the

best exhibit in the Great Pavilion. Because you were out having lunch,

Sir Nicholas Bacon, the president of the RHS, gave you the award as you

were sitting eating your pudding. I made a real fool of myself. I cried!

But it was wonderful. What about visitors. How are they responding to

the display? Do they understand the level of it? We had several people

in tears. I always feel that if a stand can touch you in motion Lee,

that's the most important thing of all. The have been fabulous. Given

your success here, will we see hepaticas again at Chelsea? I doubt

it. I wouldn't like to put the plants through it again. I don't

know whether... I would probably be totally... It is quite stressful.

You put your life on hold for basically a year. That makes me

feel... This is the moment, this is the chance to see this, and it may

never happen again. It is like listening to live music. You go to a

concert and you never actually get the same thing again. That's what

makes it so special. You have made beautiful music here at Chelsea.

It's fantastic. Congratulations. Hepaticas are just one of the many

plants that were discovered in an era when European plant

hunters were scouring the world Much of what we grow in our gardens

today can be traced back to plants In the furthest flung corners of the

globe. I have a personal connection to this, because a couple of my

forebears were plant hunters. One of them, David on, was one of the first

professional plant hunters employed by the RHS at the beginning of the

19th-century. And it was some quite ordinary plants. Plants that we

think will grow normally come from exotic places. Right here, I have a

bamboo. It doesn't need special conditions, it is very robust, but

it comes from China and Japan. Back 100 years ago, that was as weird and

exotic as the moon. Here in the pavilion you can see plants from all

over the world. In the Show Gardens you will find plants use to gain the

full effect coming from all over the planet.

Out in the show gardens, James Wong has been exploring some

For the last 100 years, Western design principles have dominated

horticulture across the world. You could be on one side of the planet

or the other, and find it if a call to picture a garden that isn't

immaculate lawn, maybe some roses round the edge, and somewhere over

and Willow. I think that is a shame, because in Asia there is a

completely different style of gardening that evolved

independently. It uses different plants, different principles and a

whole different language of how we even talk about gardens.

That is perfectly displayed here. You start out in Tokyo in the east.

You have a colour palette dominated by green. The interest is provided

by texture and structure, this beautiful bamboo. You have to look

for the beauty. The beauty is in the detail. Out here at the front, you

have a blaze of colour. It is about thing dazzled from a distance. This

garden highlights how so many of the things we think of as classic

English plants actually come from the East. The perfect English Rose

is a hybrid between Iranians and Chinese species. He is a wisteria. I

think of this as from a cottage garden, but it is from the

rainforests of Southeast Ainger. Around the Mekong Garden,

traditional designers would have been coming from the Middle East and

further north in China. You would only see that garden design style in

temples or palaces. The majority of people would never have witnessed

that. In my grandparents' garden, you will see a layer of fruit and

veg underneath a canopy of fruiting trees. All of the planting here is

in floating rafts on the body of water. I love being able to look at

this, because I find it so familiar. Asian gardens are not just about

particular structures, colours or forms. They are about more

fundamental questions, like, what is a garden ready for? This is almost

like a Japanese tea house where the garden is a work of art that wraps

around you in 360 degrees. There's no painted Redbridge, no bamboo, no

pagoda. Yet to me, this is an utterly Asian gardens.

Now tonight, we've launched our BBC RHS People's Choice Award

across tonight's show. we're showing you all the gardens

Here are Toby and Rachel with the next four.

The M Garden designed by Cleve West was inspired by a childhood on

Exmoor. You enter the garden via a cobbled Combe. Flanked by dog rose,

honesty, Driss of quaking grass. It gives a nod to nature, but the heart

of the garden is quite contemporary. There is a pools fed by a babbling

mountain stream. If you have ever been to Exmoor, you will know it is

a rocky place, and there are quite a few boulders here. There's also

scree, outcrops, and warning made of stacked stone, as you would expect

to see pending in the sheep. This is a trip down memory lane for the

designer, packaged up for Chelsea. Most gardens have at least one

gloomy corner, but the Morgan Stanley Garden for Great Ormond

Street Hospital is designed for complete shade. It is the work of

Chris Beardshaw, and the Borders are a tapestry of chunky foliage plants,

with blue hostas rubbing shoulders with sparkling silver. Above them,

Acer 's form umbrellas. In summer, these are like a moving sculpture,

moving in the breeze. In the autumn, it is a splash of colour in the

centre. And of course, of reflections of the sky. The garden

has a very Japanese feel to it. That is thanks to the Acers, but also the

chunky timbers of the pavilion. They are designed to be the place to take

in and contemplate the world. The Royal Bank of Canada garden designed

by Hugo Bugg takes as its inspiration the Jordanian landscape,

and celebrates the preciousness of water as a resource. There is a

strong structural element to the landscaping. Lots of geometric

straight -- shapes, and acute angles. The designer wanted to

emphasise the preciousness of water by keeping the water feature itself

very small. The plants are either natives of Jordan or hybrids of

natives. The Aleppo pine with a very vertical shape. Many of the plants

have strong colours, scarlet, blue and yellow. And there are sparkles

of creamy white. The garden very much illustrates what a broad

spectrum of plants one can use in this sort of arid landscape. This is

a garden that is designed to be both useful and beautiful. It is the St

John's modern apothecary by Jekka McVicar. There's lots of herbs that

you will recognise here, such as Time, lavender, with the flowers

that are good for oil and attract bees. And a few blasts from the

past. Whoa dude is loved by Dyers of wool and Celts wanting to paint

their face blue before war. This is probably the garden with the highest

plant to hard landscape ratio. But the hard landscaping is useful, like

the rest of the garden. A circular path is designed to make it easy to

pick and tend herbs. Jekka has designed this garden for health,

well-being and to be good enough to eat.

You've had the first eight gardens, and we'll show you the other nine

It's a veritable carpet of fragrant flora in the Great Pavilion

here at Chelsea, an event supported by M Investments.

There are plants and flowers for as far as the eye can see.

But amongst these plants, there are individuals that really do

Here's Carol Klein with some of those knock-out blooms.

# Give them the old razzle-dazzle # Razzle-dazzle #. All of the stars

of the show are here. The Great Pavilion is packed with all the

classic stars, and everyone of them is trying to the limelight. Almost

all lilies have a most beautiful perfused, and almost all of them are

really easy to grow. You can grow them in the sun or dappled shade, in

pots or in the ground. Just make sure they have excellent drainage,

because everybody knows that no show stopper likes a soggy bottom.

PNE is surely must be the most voluptuous, the most sumptuous of

flowers, especially the gorgeous doubles with their platter of petals

and they are truly queens of the catwalk -- Peonies. A lot of people

think they don't last long, why should I put them in my garden, but

how could you resist a flower like this? They may be shooting stars,

their performance is over quickly, but while they are there, there is

nothing that can hold a candle to them.

But how do you guarantee this breathtaking show? Some gardeners

complained that there Peonies dead flower properly, but the main cause

of that is planting them too deep. As long as you ensure that the

tubers are under the surface of the soil, and you give them good, rich

compost to start with, like most eves, Peonies respond to a bit of

pampering. Treat them well. # blue moon, used all me standing

alone... The deep infinite blue of Delfin

aims, they are like no other colour in the garden -- delphiniums. If you

want the show to go on, once the top spire has finished flowering, take

them out with some sharp secateurs and that will allow the

understudies, the side shoots, their moment of glory. If you want a truly

Coptic display, if you want it to be sexy, sultry, dissimilar, then why

not go for dahlias. They are from Mexico and you can feel that heat

when you look at the beautiful blooms. They are really

straightforward to grow but they are tender. You must protect them during

the winter. You can easily dig up their tubers, put them in a box in

some dry compost and they will sit there are happily all winter. Then

in the spring, pop them, water them and they will spring into growth. In

a matter of months, you will have this superb displays seething with

hot colours. # razzle-dazzle them and they will

make you a star... Absolute perfection.

Clematis have been exhibited at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show

Lovely to see you. How did you do? have been produced on this

Lovely to see you. How did you do? We won a gold medal. How many is

that now? That is number 28. Well done. I did not want to assume that

you won. You have a revolving exhibit. Yes, we have some funny

things outside. I told Dermot he copied me. His whiz around. His are

more sophisticated. What do you think of this lovely new one which

is called Volunteer. There are masses of flowers. As they fade and

drop away, more new buds appear. And they grow well in a container? Very

well in a container. Congratulations on another gold.

These plants have been hugely popular over the years,

pulling in the crowds, but amongst the masses drawn

to these exhibits in the 1980s was 18-year-old Marcel Floyd.

This was a visit that was to transform his life and lead him

My name is Marcel Floyd, I am a clematis grower and I love them.

Back in the early 1980s, I had no other work on at all and someone

said, would you like to work in the garden centre and I thought I would

give it a whirl. I was playing football, going to bands, that was

my life. I was not fussed about anything to do with gardens at the

time. In 1984, I decided Chelsea Flower Show is on, let's go and see

what it is all about. As I was wandering around the stands, nothing

really took my eye that much until I saw Raymond Evison and I loved the

clematis. I bought 30 or 40 and planted them in my parents' garden.

They thought I was going through an addictive phase but they had to put

up with 90 of them in their garden. A bit addicted was an

understatement. Obsession? Yes, to a certain extent. My first daughter is

called Albani named after the Duchess of alchemy. My second

daughter is named Jasmine. -- Albany. We did think we would call

my son Jake the potato vine but we thought that would be a bit cruel so

he is named Jake after the Jolly Jake. I love clematis because they

give you say much. December, it can be snowing and you will have the

clematis Winter Beauty out in flower. Then there are masses of

plants and when we come into April, there is this one. I love them, they

thrive on neglect. They will flower in April, May and again in August,

September. They are native to Siberia, North Korea and South

Korea, so they are tough. Then you come onto the lovely big flowers,

the show stoppers. The one where you think, how the hell is it flowering

that big? It is a dinner plate. You cannot eat off it but you can

appreciate it. It is brilliant. All year round they will give you

flowers and they are beautiful. Chelsea is the biggest show on Earth

in the horticultural calendar. There is nowhere else that comes close to

it. We are very chuffed, proud is an understatement to be in. Our theme

at Chelsea is Japanese. We are doing a Japanese tea house because many of

our big flowering varieties in our garden today originated in Japan.

Here we have the roof of our Japanese tea house. This is the

first part. A lot of curves and a lot of work has gone into this. This

will be covered in lovely wooden shingles. On each of the four

corners it will be held up on posts 8-foot high and there will be panels

where you can look through to the lovely polished floor. The chap who

is working with me, he decides, the builders are going on holiday for

three weeks, less in! We will get it done and it will look great on the

day! Gold would be lovely if we got it at Chelsea. It would be the icing

on top of the cake, to be honest. Us being there is what it is about for

us. Marcel, it is like completing the

circle. You first saw clematis here at Chelsea and here you are with

your own exhibit. How does it feel? It is strange. In 1984I was into

music, not flowers but once I went to Chelsea, bank, a beautiful

flowering clematis and 32 years later, here I am and not a day over

25 of course! Not a day! You have been to Hampton Court but does

Chelsea feel different? Do you feel the pressure is on? You have to step

up a level. A ten three here would be like gold anywhere else. We were

chuffed when we saw what we had. You got a ten three or? We did. Your

teahouse came good -- eight Silver-Gilt. Your mate went on

holiday. He needed a holiday but he came back and we got it done.

Clematis mainly come from Japan, is that right? They come through China

from Japan. In 1867 is when they started coming over all stop without

those ones we would not have the beautiful big flowering clematis

today. This one is stunning in bud and it opens up into a big flower?

It is absolutely lovely comet flowers from June to September. It

needs a bit of shelter, it can be a bit fickle but if you look after it

you will be well rewarded. Well rewarded in deed. Marcel, lovely to

meet you. It's wonderful to see

new generations of nurserymen But what has inspired

you this week at Chelsea? Which of our large show gardens

has struck a cord with you? In the BBC RHS People's Choice vote,

you get to have your say. Support Husqvana is a garden which

comes from Australia. This is a design which Charlie says

he would like for himself. A counterbalance to a hectic lifestyle

and this Greenaway sizzled lawn in the centre is so calming and

grounded. At the same time, the design has never tea thanks to these

fabulous hedges which are fantastic trip in a city if you are overlooked

by your neighbours. This is an exotic which we cannot grow in our

borders but plenty which we can. In summary, this is a global garden

created by a classy global gardener. The Telegraph garden designed by

Andy Spurgeon is a captured landscape very much inspired by the

designer's travels. You immediately notice the hard landscaping. There

is a lot of limestone in the garden. It is very fractured. Boulders and

smaller stones tumbling into the water. And here on this walkway,

very geometric sharp edges. The other structures are these things

made of steel, with a bronze finish. They are a backdrop to some of the

planting. And coming forward, low growing Mediterranean style plants

which like and arid landscape. And it'll think poppies there. It is a

very powerful design which encourages you to reflect on the

ever-changing aspects of our landscape. Vestra Wealth's garden is

by Paul Martin and inspired by his yoga workshop in a Scot. Everything

about this garden says be calm, relaxed, and that is despite the

fact that some of the hard landscaping is monolithic. It gets

its lightness because the garden is a series of terraces which go up to

the pavilion at the top. The planting palette is quite

restrictive. It is mainly green. Where there is colour it chimes in

with the hard escaping. It matches the paving. This garden is very open

to the sky and it strikes me that it is Martin's own salutation to the

sun. This garden reflects the different ways in which we approach

gardens in the east, specifically Japan, and the West, British

gardens. The designers have done that by quite literally dividing the

garden into two sections so the east is much darker and coming forward it

becomes brilliant white and this is the western section. In the eastern

section there are typically Japanese plants like bamboo which casts

shadows and in the middle of the pool is a traditional tea ceremony

space. Towards the front section, it is all very English country garden,

lots of perennials giving a nice vertical accent, and it does not get

much more English than having a climbing rose winding its way up

through the pergola. The Winton Beauty of Mathematics

Garden was designed by Nick Bailey. Up on the terrace you can see the

overall design idea. It is based by the figure of eight motive that is

used to describe infinitely. It tells the story of a seed,

represented by a copper water feature, as it sprouts and grows to

fruition, represented by the lush planting by the pavilion. Along the

way, the mathematical equations used to describe the growth are on all

the seat backs and surfaces. It is filled with Mediterranean and

Austral Asian plants. The coppery tones in the benches are there. It

all adds up to a pretty innovative garden.

at the end of the show. and you'll be able to vote

Still to come on the programme, we will also be bringing you

the results of the Diamond Jubilee award, which will be given

to the best exhibit within the Great Pavilion.

Whichever kind of garden or plant you are drawn to at Chelsea,

the variety here means that there is something

Earlier on today, we spoke to the creative force

that is Grayson Perry to find out his initial thoughts

I like the idea of this garden very much, because it is about dyes and

natural colours. As a potter, I often use natural colours, like

cobalt and copper. So I can have a sympathy for these sorts of shades.

I would like to see these gardens in about five years' time, what they

look like when they are a bit mossy, Rusty, dirty and overgrown. I'm not

keen on the shape of the garden. I think the stinging nettles on the

corners is a wise tactical plant, because the wear and tear on this

garden is a problem, so that will keep people away. This amazing stand

of chrysanthemums is a weird kind of alien nest that I find attractive

but spooky. As a creative person, I often think that my job is to have

my own series of mistakes. There's no perfect art. It is marvellous to

see the perfection of nature, because flowers are so transitory.

What these things are screaming at us in many ways is a kind of

beautiful, psychedelic vision of mortality. The joy of a garden, for

me, is it is my private space, where I can have a beer and watch the

birds, and watch the sun go down. For other people, it's like an art

gallery. These headdresses that are made out of flowers... Firstly, they

are amazingly well crafted and the colour schemes are beautifully put

together. But what screamed out at me is that they are on male torsos.

That made me think about the whole nature of flowers, which are the

symbol of femininity in many ways. Looking at the crowd here at

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

female here today. You think about the traditional horny handed son of

the soil being a man. But I suspect that most gardeners are now female.

Men do like convenience, and maybe gardening is too much like hard

work. I love this garden, and I think it is my favourite one so far.

I spent some time in Japan, and for me, Japanese gardening, with the

attention to detail and the overwrought aesthetic of it... What

I love about Japanese Gardening is this kind of implicit ageing about

it. They do like a bit of moss, and every single detail has been made to

look artificially natural. I am kind of drawn into this one, because I

kind of match. That immediately sets of sorts in my head about taste.

Taste is something I've been fascinated with all my life. When

people say, I like something, that is a huge, complex thought. What

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

when you say you like something. Your class, education, job, age,

gender... Everything comes to bear on why you like this thing. One

person's horrific vulgar naffness is another person's sublime beauty.

Taste is just another way of signalling to people in your tribe

that you belong. There's no such thing as bad taste. Maybe... What

was that like? Did you enjoy it? I am always fascinated by new social

experiences. Just wondering about and seeing the sort of people who

are here... I am always looking for the cultural patterns in any event.

What drives this culture, what is their taste like? What are the

dynamics of the relationships between the audiences and the people

presenting? To me, it reminds me a bit of the Venice, the showcase for

the avant-garde. I wonder if people take away ideas from this place. One

doesn't normally think of Chelsea being to do with any kind of

avant-garde. But there must be an avant-garde. Varies, and some of it

is encouraged. There is no suppression of that, but I wonder if

the culture of Gardening encourages avant-garde, or whether it is trying

to go back, dig town and discover things? In many things, what we are

seeking in gardens is beauty. And an element of beauty is freshness and

surprise. So I think there is an expression called maya which is most

advanced but acceptable. Somewhere like Chelsea, they are pushing to

the limits of that. What did you particularly like the look of? What

would you really take away? I am a sucker for anything Japanese when it

comes to gardens. I love the detail, and the kind of incredibly tightly

choreographed nature of it. As an artist, are you tempted to make a

Show Garden? Yes, I am. Having been here, I think it is a really

interesting exhibition space. I always liked the look of things like

moths and things growing, changing, rusting and grading. I have always

been a of that. They are visual symbols of things like age, solidity

and time passing. A garden would be a perfect place to express things

like the look of the love it age, which I am a great fan of. I am sure

there are garden makers who would love to work with you. I would be

excited by that. Do you think that it matters if one doesn't know

delaying which? A lot of people are inhibited by this. If you don't know

the vernacular, the Latin names... Is it inhibiting? My tool as an

artist is myself, so I have to be responding to the world all the

time. I can do that to gardeners as I would do to anything. I listen to

the vibrations of a space which I have from listening and experiencing

the things. I have an opinion, but it is just my opinion. Thank you for

coming. I will hold you to that. I am looking forward to seeing Grayson

Perry's Show Garden here at Chelsea in the not too distant future. I

hope so! It's no secret that the natural

growth of many of the plants here at Chelsea is teased or tamed

so that they look To get these in flower for Chelsea

week, the process started in August last year, when they were planted

exactly three weeks before the show opens to get them exactly right.

However, there is one man who takes a very different approach

No frills nurseryman, Graham Blunt, applies some tough love

We are in the south-east of England, on the Kent- Sussex border. We'd

been looking for years for a plot of land to develop into a nursery, and

we found this one in 95. It was a field full of looks. Since then,

we've built the nursery, house and office, and created this out of

nothing. We are totally off grid. All our power, we create ourselves.

We put in solar panels, which is how we survived. We are sometimes a bit

short in winter, that we never have power cuts. The only things we are

missing is a fridge and freezer, because they use lots of power. I

don't miss a fridge, because we eat fresh all the time, but I do miss a

freezer, because when we have a glut of vegetables, it would be nice to

freeze some. Hopefully, we can bypass that problem. For the

nursery, we don't have cooling or heating units. As I went to

agricultural College, I wouldn't know how these things work. I just

know how to grow things. The way we grow our plants, we want to grow

them tough. It's not about the beauty of the plant. My plants might

look a bit brutish and rugged, that they will grow. Dig a hole, stamp it

in, and don't the watering them if rain is forecast. They just grow.

This little beast comes all the way from Madagascar. It is a lovely

little plant, lovely flowers, flowering until the end of November.

Easy to grow. Shove it in a pot. It isn't hardy, but it is easy to

overwinter. Ring it into a garage or shed, don't water it throughout the

winter, but in spring, bring it out and it re-shoots. But don't eat it!

It is poisonous. Another call plant is this. Not because of the spines,

but because it is as hard as nails. It comes from North America, the

Rocky Mountains, as tough as old boots. It can snow on it, rained on

it, it doesn't care. Really beautiful cacti. Like everything in

our nursery, we grew this plant other cells. It was born here from

seed seven or eight years ago. Nothing is brought in. We grow

practically everything ourselves. My medal record isn't brilliant. I

would own up to that! I would love to have loads of golds, but I stick

to my principles. I would like to show how, if you grew the plant, how

it would look. They'll not perfect, they are not unblemished, so when I

come to judging, I do get critique. And the judges would be the first to

admit it. It has been a hard struggle getting here. Myself and my

wife lived in a mobile home for five or six years. I don't know how she

put up with it! But how we got him makes every little morsel so much

tastier. I love it, and I wouldn't swap it for the world. They look

yummy. This is the life! Growing plants we love, showing the plants

we love, with the person I love. Exhibitors here will use every

possible trip, resource and high-tech gizmo to make sure their

plants arrive absolutely at the peak of perfection. But Graham, with real

due respect, that isn't you, Graham. It isn't. I do grow plants outside

if they are hardy. I believe plants should be hardy and make it easy for

people to grow them in the garden. I know it's Chelsea, but I am pretty

brutal with them. You got into some trouble, didn't you? Yes. There were

certain things I didn't want to bring along. They didn't quite open

in time. Some of the flowers I wanted didn't flower in time. But I

had lots of different options. I heard you were a good six weeks

behind. Yes, it was a cold spring. But you arrived here. You have a

basic story. What is that story? It is to get the message over that

gardening is good for you and gardening is fun. It is to be

enjoyed, but it has to be done. Not everybody grows plants like these.

Tell me about them. I love these plants. Behind me, the plant from

South Africa. Their re-easy to grow, fast-growing. You have a lavender

and put it in the middle of the forest, and it would never survive

in winter. Reasonably route hardy means that the top will die down but

it will re-shoots from the base. It becomes fleshy, and the leaves will

get bigger. It builds up a big root system. It can lead to big leaves as

well. Have you tried it? I haven't tried that. Then you have a shrub at

the back of this pregnant lady. What is it? It is like a 50 foot melting

Carreno. It is quite amazing. It is it flower -- it is in flower now.

Fascinating plants that most people will not know about. At anybody can,

should garden? Absolutely. I make the plant is tough and Hardy. Dig a

hole, put them in, walk away, done. Thank you.

After this programme, at 9.00, voting will open for the BBC RHS

There are 17 large show gardens to choose from.

Here is a look at the final four gardens that you can vote for.

The brewing -- Brewin Dolphin garden designed by Rosy Hardy takes

inspiration from the chalk streams. There is a wide stream running

through the heart of the garden. A sinuous path flows around the river.

It is like colour flowing through. These extraordinary sculptures are

based on the remains of the tiny creatures which make up the chalk

itself. On the one side the planting is very naturalistic, there are wild

flowers here and a backdrop of Hawthorne. On the other side, plants

where Rosy" is her love of colour and perennials. -- indulges her love

of perennials. The Chelsea Barracks garden by Jo

Thompson is quite an usual for a Chelsea design because it is scented

with the huge lawn. If you are gardener who likes to be busy

pruning and weeding, grass is a good surface. This makes this garden is

very practical space. But the primary purpose is for people to

come together and spend time, and there are three bespoke benches

which tie and lock the whole garden together, and a huge wall of water

which turns into a Serpentine stream which runs through the garden. There

are plants for summer and autumn colour and even evergreens which

provide interest in winter. No matter what time of year you spend

in this garden, there will be something to look at.

This is the Cloudy Bay garden designed by Sam Ovens. It is a very

gentle soft space where it is all about reconnecting with nature and

being contemplated. The garden evokes a heat and setting like might

find in Cornwall or the Isles of Scilly. There is a broad boardwalk.

Here it is all about the water. The planting very much reflects that.

There is movement through the grasses and there are native plants,

things like ragged robin and Heathers. Not native are the plants

from South Africa. One of the key plants I think are these trees which

lend a sculptural quality to the garden.

God's own county, a garden for Yorkshire, is the garden designed by

Matthew Wilson. It is dominated by what Matthew describes as a garden

retreat which is this huge building and it is inspired by the east

window of York Minster Cathedral. The ecclesiastical theme is repeated

throughout the garden. The edge of the beds are like the tops of church

windows. The colours of flowers have been chosen to match those in the

stained glass. The plants in the borders are those which do well in

Yorkshire and believe me, there are a lot of those, thanks to rich soils

and long summer days. This is a picture postcard of a very

proud county. So now you've seen all 17

gardens, and you can let us We will be telling you how to vote

at the end of tonight's programme. Now, from the large show

gardens to the small ones. There is a new face

in our line-up this year. Horticultural lecturer

Zephaniah Lindo has been finding out more about the stories behind

the Artisan gardens. Every step of designing a garden

here at Chelsea throws up its own challenges. First of all, where'd

you find your ideas from and inspiration? I will speak to some of

the designers and find out they got started.

Steve and Alison, a fantastic looking garden, a gold medal, where

did it all come from? We got together around the kitchen table

with a glass of wine and Allison said, we are 50 next year. She is a

florist, I am a landscape architect. She is a brilliant one. She said,

before we are 50, we will have a go at Chelsea. Over that glass of wine

we cemented our friendship and our dream of working together. It is not

the case of a landscape architect working and a florist coming in,

this will be pair of us at the outset, sitting around the table,

both scribbling on a piece of paper, coming up with the design and the

layout and worked together trying to make sure that the skills of a

florist and a landscape architect are optimised. The hard landscape

was my container. In that container I was able to use the same

principles of floristry, and keeping your eye moving throughout the whole

garden. So, we see lots of gardens which have tactile plants, bright

colours, yours has a particular element of sound that has been

featured. Where did the inspiration for that come from? When I was

introduced to the Papworth trust, the disability charity in

Cambridgeshire, we spoke about the possibilities of what they wanted to

achieve, and the idea of a sensory garden evolved into something

stimulating and more interactive and absorbing. We wanted to challenge

the basic idea of landscape, introduce something more and bring

this sonic layer into landscapes which I think has been neglected.

A beautiful strong garden, it is your third garden here at Chelsea,

in support of a meningitis charity. Where did you come up with the idea?

I had the idea of figures passing through a wall. Meningitis and other

diseases are like figures encased in stone, it represents the trauma

which people and families go through. These are the ambassadors

of the charity. You have ideas of sculpture, how you want it to look,

and in doing this process you have to adapt to each individual person

and what they are capable of doing. It turned into something different

from what I intended. You have the children immortalised in the garden.

Have they seen it? They saw it on press day. To see their doppelganger

staring at them as they came down the pathway was amazing. Little Liam

is the youngest, he is seven. He has had meningitis four times. He could

not make it but his parents were here and it was very emotional. It

must be very proud? Brings it home, the medals, and then you see how

important it is for his parents. It is quite humbling.

Well, it's my great pleasure to say that we have with us now

on the famous Chelsea terrace, the winner of Plant of the Year.

It has a pretty unpronounceable name. Part of it is Amber.

It flowers in spring. It is beautiful. Apparently, there is no

other parameters with that colour at this time of year. It is from

Taylors Nursery. I see this as the plant of the show. It is the canary

Island foxglove will stop. It needs really good drainage. You

could grow it on a pot and put it under cover for winter. I have

chosen a plant which is not fully hardy.

I grew it in London for quite a few years and sadly a very hard frost

wiped it out. What you called a harsh frost in London is what we

call a day which is fresh at Long cap Meadow! What I love about it is

it has beautiful arching strands. It gives it a lovely architectural

quality. Today, we have focused on plants which is good. Do you think

the plants have had a particular character this year, or we get used

to it, everything will be here and it is all great? I think there are

more plants. We have such a huge range of plants and with James

Basson there is a more diverse range of plants than ever. The hypatica

exhibits. He won the award for the best exhibit and rightly so. Talking

of awards, it is your birthday today, isn't it? Don't go on about

it! I have got you a birthday cake. Here is, for you, made especially by

the winter Beauty of Mathematics garden by Sebastien Davies, this is

a cake. Please take a piece and eat it. RU Sirius? It is a key? I

thought you were introducing a new plant. Enjoy your day. You certainly

had me going. I thought you were introducing a new plant at Chelsea!

And don't forget the People's Choice Award.

This is the moment you've been waiting for.

You've seen all 17 of the large show gardens

All the large gardens are available to vote for online so all you need

to do is go to our website where you can find

Voting closes at 9.30pm tomorrow night and we'll be bringing

you the results of that award on our show on BBC One

Once upon a time, there was a great and glorious king.

But they would all see him destroyed.

MUSIC: Kings Of The Wild Frontier by Adam The Ants