Chelsea...no pressure

It’s that time of year, after months of ear marking, raising and doing the Hokey Cokey (in out in out) with certain flowering hopefuls for this year’s Chelsea display, crunch time is upon us! What has made it on to the short list? The hundred or so Allium contenders are out, having peaked around late April which were to be the absolute pièce de résistance around the ancient olive tree, the weird thing is and this makes no sense at all, we have Achillea and Cephalaria challenging for position, at this time of year? All the Iris have flowered too apart from Iris ‘Stepping Out’, of which the flower buds have been carefully wrapped in kitchen towel to supress any urges to flower (they look very sanitary!)    

No rain to speak of for 2 months now but I bet as soon as the Iris are out in a fairly sheltered position today on a Dutch trolley, the heavens will open and there will be a mad trolley dash, let’s hope ‘shaking it all about’ doesn’t promote flowering.

We have cornered off a part of the nursery for all our beautiful candidates, so in the next few days they will be prudently groomed to perfection (who wants to do the Stipa gigantea?) We are always asked if we have finished the design, but really if you want to remain innovative and use ‘fresh’ designs each time you do a show you really can only wait and see what’s flowering on time and then decide on the style the design will take, of course there will be backbone of the scheme and the shape of the stand, but just like completing a painting the overall feel cannot be achieved until the palette is in front of you. Wish us luck!