Here are my final pictures of the Chelsea Flower Show for 2019. 

Below is the Pennard Plants stand which is all about edible plants and vegetables and set up like a war time garden. 

The two pictures below is a stand where every plant is edible mainly herbs and spices as well as the few plants.

Above is the Memorial to David Austin of David Austin Roses who passed away last year.

The pictures below were all from the Birmingham City Council stand which was developed by Floella Benjamin who has had a very long career working with Children, beginning with presenting “Playschool” on BBC1.  The theme for the stand was to do with re-cycling things and protecting the Earth.

There were several clay figures on the stand and here is Floella presenting the “Playschool” Story with Humpty Dumpty on her knee.

It was a stunning stand with lots of colour.

My bit of information today on my calendar is this :

27 Million: The number of people in the United Kingdom who report participating in gardening activities – more than 40 percent of the total population.

The big message from the Chelsea Flower Show this year was to do with mental health and the benefits that gardening can have for people who are suffering with any form of mental trauma be it ever so mild or a huge thing in their lives. 

Being out in the fresh air and creating something with their hands can help people to focus on wellbeing and ease any trauma.  Thus the RHS are promoting gardening at every opportunity and for everyone from young children to the elderly. 

Our Boys loved gardening with us and had their own patch to plant and grow whatever they liked.  They would spend hours outside in the garden during the weekends and holidays and like Treacle, it would be hard to get them in, in the evening!!!!  I love gardening which I got from my Grandfather when I spent my holidays with them and helping him doing all sorts, including vegetable growing.

I hope you enjoy the last of the pictures, a few of you have commented how much you have loved seeing them.  DH and I are planning on going to the RHS Flower Show at Chatsworth next year which is just up the road from us and perhaps Gardener’s World show in Birmingham too.

Treacle has let me have today’s blog so she will be here tomorrow.

Hugs, Susie xx

Here are a few more pictures of our Chelsea visit.  This display, below, was not judged but a display to represent 75 years of the D-Day Landings in France, particularly the British forces, which began the end of WWII.  After the show the whole garden will be moved to France and rest on the hills overlooking the beach where the British landed.

This is sea thrift from Britain and France, a link with the two countries.

The picture below depicts the men coming off the ships and onto the beaches.

This (above) is the M&G Showgarden which won a Gold medal and also Best in Show. 

There were a lot of retailers showing their wares at the show and some incredible greenhouses.  Of course they also had some fantastic plant displays too.

I loved this one as it was very much cottage garden.

There were a lot of garden sculptures as well and I think this company, which makes them out of drift wood, was cashing in on the Game of Thrones series with the dragon as their main display!

The Eagle was also very good, although DH did not like them at all, he thought them creepy looking!!!

The stand, above, was selling very nice summer buildings as you can see and they had a lovely old Bentley on the stand and it was surrounded by Hostas.  Unfortunately we cannot grow Hostas at home due to all the slugs and snails, they think they are Sunday dinner!!!!

As you may have seen and heard the Duchess of Cambridge helped design one of the Feature Gardens, which are not judged, with the RHS and the queue to see this was long all the time.  DH and I did not go in and see it as it was very hot to stand in line and to be honest it was not very big.  I took a couple of pictures from the edge, the tree house above which was circular.  Below are the trees which were featured.

The above, as you can see, is one of the Fuchsia growers whose stand was a carousel.  What you cannot see are the lights on it, it was so pretty.

Tomorrow I will show you my final pictures.

DH and I had a very busy weekend.  We got into our Garden on Saturday as the weather was warm and not too sunny.  We got a lot done tidying things up after the winter and checking on the new plants we put in last year which are all doing well. 

Sunday and Monday we spent trying to finish the Spring Cleaning!  We got four big rooms completed but still have our Den to do (which is our office) and the kitchen, laundry and downstairs bathroom which are also all big jobs!!!  We are going to get some done this week and if not finish them off next weekend as well as carrying on with the garden.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend.

Hugs, Susie xx

As well as the Big Show Gardens at Chelsea they do have some smaller ones, more like most peoples’ gardens.  These are called The Artisan and Space to Grow Gardens and although they are smaller, they are still packed with plants and other features. 

This is one of the Space to Grow Gardens called “The Harmonious Garden of Life” designed to explore different ways we can help regenerate our ecosystems.

The planting was very natural and quite wild.

Below is “The Manchester Garden” which was designed with plants in mind to fill in urban spaces and make green statements.  All the plants were chosen for their resilience, adaptability and suitability for the climate and space in a city environment.

The gentleman in the tie (below) is Adam Frost, one of the presenters of BBC Gardener’s World and he was doing a segmant on the show about pathways and how they can be used in any size garden to great effect.

One of my most favourite plants is Rhododendrons and they do well in our soil and they are mainly evergreen so really do help during the winter months to provide some cover.  There were many exhibits but this was our favourite in the Great Pavilion.

The one above has quite large bell like flowers.

The peach multi-coloured one was so pretty especially against the pale cream one. 

A little model train was running around in amongst the plants.

I also love the Azalea being so much smaller but a lot of flowers for not a very big plant.

This picture does not do this plant justice really.  Again bell like flowers and it is a miniature Rhododendron.  I have ordered one to put in under the large Rhododendron we have in the border already.  If it likes it I will take some cuttings and put them with our other Rhododendrons.

Along the same vein, I love Hydrangeas too, but again you have to have the correct soil and position for them to grow.  I have put one in our garden to see how it gets on and at the moment it is growing but we shall have to see.  This Hydrangea (above) was stunning as it is actually an arched flower spike so really tall as you can see from the second picture above right.

(https://growbeautifully.monrovia.com)

We have one area in our garden at the right hand side of our patio which is perfect for a small cottage garden area.  Unfortunately the woman who owned our home previously thought she was a marvelous gardener but all she did was put hundreds of hardy geraniums in.  This resulted, because our soil is so wet and does not drain easily, becoming home to every slug and snail in Derbyshire!!!  The first time it rained after we moved in the whole of the patio was covered with slugs and snails! 

We have frogs in the garden and they try their best to keep the slugs and snails down but they are so fat they can hardly hop about!!!  Of course slugs and snails just love cottage garden plants, especially my favourites; Lupins and Delphiniums and I am so tired of buying plants just to feed the horrible things!!!  However I do keep trying!  The displays of these two plants were amazing.

The Lupin display was just stunning.  My favourites are the lighter colours as below rather than the more vibrant, darker ones.

However I love all of the Delphinium colours and would have all of them in our garden if they horrid things didn’t eat them as soon as they are put anywhere near the soil!

If I had to pick a Delphinium colour it would be this blue.

I also love the fox glove and all the colours that comes in and the slugs and snails do leave these alone so I am trying to cultivate more of these! 

I hope you have loved Day 2 of the show pictures.  I still have more to show you.  We are in for a busy weekend with jobs and things to do and hopefully the weather is going to stay nice tomorrow so DH and I can get things done in the garden.  At the moment, as it is Bank Holiday, it is due to rain on Sunday and Monday but that is fine as we have plenty of things to do inside as well.

Have a great weekend, whatever you are up to.

Hugs, Susie xx

Yes it is Thursday and I am doing #TBT to yesterday!  DH and I had a really lovely day and I took 160 photographs!!!  Yeah for digital photography!!!  I will split the pictures over a few days otherwise you may get overloaded! 

Like the Quilt Shows I only took pictures of what I really loved and what interested us otherwise it would have been over 1,000 pictures!!!  The weather was perfect; warm, sunny but some cloud cover so it wasn’t baking hot.  The crowds were not too bad as it was an RHS day so it was not jam packed and you could walk around without any problems. 

There was always a lot of people around the Show Gardens, which obviously you get to see all of them on the TV, but what amazed me about them is how on TV they are described as being big but actually in person, not so much!  We did not stop at all of them just the ones we wanted to see and our favourite was the Yorkshire Garden, which won a Gold Medal.

The garden featured a miniature canal and lock gates with the lock keepers cottage next to it and his garden. Above is the cottage.

The path leading to the lock and cottage.

The lock through the trees, above and below.

The lock and water with the planting around it, above and below.

Whilst we were stood waiting to get to the front to see the lock, a bumble bee came to visit the fox glove where we were standing.

We got to the show at 8.30am having driven down the night before and stayed just outside London.  We completed the last twenty miles in the morning, fighting our way through London traffic.  When we arrived we had a walk around the show gardens and then had breakfast.  After we went into the Main Pavillion, which is the size of two football fields and has displays by nurseries and specialist growers and also by associations/companies etc who sponsored a display. 

DH and I liked the Pavilion the best out of all of what we saw.  There was plenty of room to move about between the displays and some of them were absolutely amazing and despite the heat of the day it was surprisingly cool inside.

My favourite display in the Great Pavilion of them all was the National Dahlia Collection stand which obviously featured all the different types of Dahlia intermingled with lots of other plants, fruits and vegetables.  It was a very large stand in the centre of the Pavilion.

When I took some of the pictures I got the names of the particular plant  with it, so we can hopefully add some of them to our garden. 

This display was a large rectangle and the colours flowed around it as you will see and they were stunning and the smell was just amazing.

It started with quite pale pinks and blues with the dahlias, fox gloves and delphiniums.

The above is a native, very small, sweet pea called Lathyrus Sativus and is tiny but so pretty and I defintely am going to find this and add it to our garden.

The pinks and blues are my favourite colours.

As you can see below the stand moved around from the pinks into the fire colours

The opposite end to the where the pinks and blues were was a full vegetable plot and fruit trees.

This was definitely my favourite.

I learnt about plants and gardening from my Grandfather, Frank Knight.  I used to help him in the school holidays in the garden (IF I wasn’t sewing with my Grandmother!!!!).  He loved his garden and it was worthy of Chelsea Flower Show.  He had specimen plants in it, as well as trees and fruit trees and behind a neatly trimmed hedge a huge vetable plot and his greenhouse.  He also had an immaculate lawn where I was not allowed ever to do cartwheels on!!!!!!!

Two of his favourite plants were Clematis and Roses in every variety and there were several growers in the Pavilion with these plants.

Clematis in all shapes, sizes and shades.  Unfortunately they would not do well in our garden and it would mean growing them in containers.

DH and I planted a climbing rose last year at the top of our garden and so far it seems happy where it is.  I love Roses (they are my Birthday Month flower) and the main stand was David Austin Roses.  Mr Austin sadly passed away last year but his company is going strong and they had a large stand in the Pavilion and also there was a main tribute to Mr Austin for all his work over the years.

I have a few more ideas where we can plant some roses in the garden now.

There are still a lot of pictures to see, so I will be back tomorrow with more and what else we got up to on our day out.

Happy Thursday Everyone.

Hugs, Susie xx

I got all my work done this morning and then had to dash to do some grocery shopping as DH and I are going to Chelsea Flower Show tomorrow!  Can’t wait.  We have been watching it on TV and seeing all the gardens being set up and a view of the Great Pavillion, where there are displays of every flower you can think of.

We are going down tonight and stopping half way and then finishing the journey in the morning as you cannot bank on the traffic and we have to get through Central London and across the River Thames.  The weather tomorrow is forecast to be warm and sunny.

The show opens at 8.00am so DH and I are hopefully going to be there when it opens and get a good look round and I have packed our picnic.  I have charged the battery on my camera and cleared the card off so I can take lots of pictures. 

Youngest will be in charge whilst we are out and looking after Treacle for us.

I will see you back here on Thursday with lots of pictures.

Hugs, Susie xx