Chelsea Flower Show last word. Read my stuff at Guardian gardening blog and Telegraph gardening blog.

1. I was interested to see that Alan Titchmarsh and show manager Alex Baulkwill agreed Chelsea was vintage show on the basis that it sold out and some nurseries were happy.

Not great the BBC should spin things this way. Reith would turn in his grave.

2. Met William Notcutt at Chelsea press day. His family garden centre company were not exhibiting for the first time since the show moved to Chelsea. Discussed possible interview in Garden Retail magazine-Notcutts have bought new centres and sold nursery business. Rang him later last week-he was still at Chelsea. Rang him this week. MA: “Hello William. How are you? How was Chelsea?” William: “Stop hounding me. I don’t want to talk to you.” Umm.

3. Showed a delegation of overseas trade journalists around Chelsea on final Saturday afternoon. Went to press office to get a catalogue-they had stopped selling them. Press officer was about to give me six she had packed away, then changed her mind and said as RHS was a charity she couldn’t. They are useless after the show. Jobsworth?

4. Overseas journalists got to meet Ulf, Adam Frost, Mark Gregory, Peter Seabrook, Steve and Val Bradley, James Wong, Patrick Collins etc. Also Ricky Gervais walked by. Me: “Look, it’s Ricky Gervais!” Overseas contingent: “Who, Wer, Kto, Qui etc?”

5. The BBC won’t tell us how much Chelsea cost to televise or why they dropped the People’s Choice award. Just won’t. Don’t want to.

6. Garden hacks rounded on the trade at Chelsea. Dan Pearson in the Observer said: “There seemed to be a lot of distractions this year, there being 14 [actually 13] show gardens, down from 22 in 2008. Paradoxically, the void that they left was filled with commercial stands, which seemed at odds with the times. It left me to think how nice it would be if there was a plant sales area that allowed the small nurseries the chance of plying their wares. It would put the horticultural back into the trade.

HTA consultant Doug Stewart said: “It was a shame to see so many trade stands, where show gardens used to be. It is becoming a biennial show, with a good year and poor year, and this was certainly a poor year.”

FT garden snob Robin Lane-Fox said: “There are fewer big gardens and the supplementary space is taken up by tat and accessories.”

Guardian environment editor John Vidal said:  “Last week saw the biggest ever, most heavily attended Chelsea Flower Show, with unimaginable amounts of gardening equipment being hawked.” He then goes on to make a tenuous point about gardening expenses and patio heaters.

Matthew Appleby : “Not biggest ever. Equal number trade stands as last year. Forty percent fewer show gardens. Same size footprint as last 10 years.Not most heavily attended. Used to get 250,000 before capped at 157,000.
Amounts of gardening equipment-quite easy to imagine there will be some gardening equipment on show at a gardening show."

7. Scotsdales garden centre at Chelsea got a bronze. Sun’s Steve Bradley asked if judge was “Stevie Wonder”. Also talk about gardens judge Michael Balston being ex Chelsea designer for Daily Telegraph. DT won best in show. Doesn’t make any difference I’d say.

8. Lookalikes:

Joe Swift-Phil Spencer. And both boom year Islington media slapheads.

German tree expert Claus Mattheck. Brum/LA rocker Ozzy Osborne

9.

How the media works:

HW interviews Nigel Taylor, Kew cutrator. Taylor says Kew has received £2m bail-out from government. We run story and tell newspapers. They decide to go with ‘Queen and Prince Philip eat cake to celebrate 250^th anniversary of Kew’. Three weeks later Amateur Gardening runs story – fair enough - they have long printing deadlines. The Press Association sees the story. Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail run it next day after contacting me for comment. My comment: “I wrote the f##king thing three weeks ago.”

10. Posh gardeners. Prince Charles was given a Victoria Medal of Honour at Chelsea Flower Show last month by his mum. Charles is Britain’s poshest gardener. Gardening is still a posh pastime. As a northerner I obviously have a chip on my shoulder about this.

Here’s my top 17 posh gardeners.

A few post Chelsea items. By the way, my colleague Gavin McEwan has win his first round on Mastermind. Specialist subject: Germanic languages.

1. James A. Wong calls himself ‘suburban shaman’ in his email address. See http://www.hortweek.com/-vote to vote for his for his garden at HW. Just for fun. The BBC has dropped its popular People’s Choice Chelsea vote, which Wong might have won. They will tell me why ‘when they get back to me’. Anyone know why?

2. William Hill bookies: The book I set up on Chelsea best in show winner: “Cost us a few quid as the favourite was backed in to 1/1 with some decent bets.” Started at 3/1. Oops.

3. RHS president Giles Coode-Adams said at president’s lunch at Chelsea: “If you want to be happy for a day, get drunk. For a week, get married. For a lifetime-have a garden.”

4. At same lunch Prof Steve Jones spoke on his new Darwin book. He said Darwin often wrote to Gardener’s Chronicle, “now extinct”. RHS shows dx Stephen Bennett winked at me. Afterwards Wyevale CEO Nick Marshall persuaded me to tell Jones, after he had told Jones he’d missed out referencing Marshall’s ancestor Joseph Hooker in his speech. So I explained to Jones, a cut-price Richard Dawkins or Stephen Hawking, that the Chron was now Horticulture Week. He grunted and walked off. Professors and research eh?

5. More Chelsea marquee exhibitors are threatening to pull out next year because the show 'aint what it used to be'. Dibleys told me they lost money going. Want to sell plants. RHS says no. Was in Sun Telegraph. By me.

6. James May to Marc Rosenberg: "I think Peter Seabrook said he's been coming to Chelsea for the last 150 years"

7. Carol Klein to Marc Rosenberg: "You wrote something rude about me last week" (He’d said he’d watch her on TV with the mute button pressed). 

8. Hardly anyone in the industry watches gardening TV, or admits to it.

Sat next to Chelsea coverage exec producer and Kylie O’Brien at RHS president’s lunch.

Exec producer Gill Tierney went on about cost of TV and having a can-do attitude. She showed a can’t do attitude towards any new gardening TV.

Quite liked CFS TV coverage. Fake debate between James Alexander Sinclair and Alice Bowe aside. Titch is like Terry Wogan-self parody. Doesn’t he look like Patrick Barlow-Julian off Bridget Jones' Diary? Me neither.

Lila Das Gupta was too platitudinal. Lots of bonhomie. Better than Gardener’s World though.

I feel like I did about a dozen good CFS stories since Jan-pull outs, May, nurseries etc. Missed the gnome though (that's the story on front of some papers about how RHS committee meber and herb queen Jekka McVicar had an illegal gnome in her Chelsea garden. My sources suggest it was a set up to get publicity for the show And that would have been the big earner. Times rang me for a gnome quote. Didn’t call back.

9. Met Chris Collins at Chelsea. He said they ditched the plants at May’s plasticine garden against his recommendation but they looked better without them anyway.

10. Brian Donohoe, the All-Party Horticulture Group secretary, said no MPs turned up at traditional Chelsea visit. Doesn't look good as a freebie. Donohoe said he’d been talking to speaker Mick Martin and didn’t want him thrown to the wolves. Thin end of wedge.

11. Top celebs-Floella Benjamin. Dougal Philip intro'd me to Matthew Wilson. The gardening luvvie said: “You are aware of my domestic situation.” He has new twins.

12. Went to launch of Big Trees International Dendrology launch. Great crowd. Giles Coode-Adams, Ian Hodgson, Stephen Anderton, Charles Notcutt, John Ravenscroft. All ok. But also many lordly types. Laurence Banks, Sir Richard Storey, Bt, Lord Aberconway, Hezza a fan, Viscount Ridley (we discussed both being called Matthew), Earl of Home, Vicomte Philippe de Spoelberch,  I went all in brown to look like a tree. Or a whip.

Chelsea media watch. Bit of a lack of imagination this year I feel.

1. Bunny Guinness Sunday Telegraph 'sneak preview': She missed out on designing at Chelsea this year after losing out in a competition. Not mentioned. Instead, reviews of a few gardens.

2. Andy Sturgeon quoted in Sunday Telegraph saying the show will still be great despite lack of show gardens. He chose to design for the Future Gardens show this year rather than Chelsea but is still presenting Chelsea TV coverage.

3. Cleve West in Independent: Fewer big gardens at Chelsea means more opportunities for newcomers. Doesn't mention his Chelsea sponsor dropped out leaving him without a garden. It would have been more interesting to hear about West's garden, if it had happened. West is good on designer Tony Smith though-at least he talks to designers.

4. The Times: Uses my story on James May and how there has been some outrage at Chelsea allowing plasticine garden.

5. Telegraph (again): Could the piece with the show gardens runners and riders theme have been inspired by my effort in getting William Hill to do a book on the show gardens best in show favourites, which ran on DT website?

6. The Sun: Uses a photo of Sun garden builders reading the Sun during a break from Sun garden building.

7. Sunday Telegraph mag: Rachel de Thame: "Doing a garden show is not like being in a nice, warm studio." Also: "I love walnuts" and "often it's just motorway service station sandwiches".

8. Sunday Times: Carrie Donald: There are no women show garden designers at the show.  Designer Kay Yamada is female. 'Absence of big guns gives opportunities for newcomers'. RHS press release: absence of top designers gives opportunities for new designers. Independent: Cleve West: pared down Chelsea chance for new faces.

9. Times: Joe Swift: 'Filming Chelsea is the toughest work of the year.' Also on BBC: "I'm going to stick my neck out and say Ulf's garden is going to be best in show.' Ulf is hot favourite.

10. FT Robin Lane Fox: Since 2007 Chelsea has been sponsored by Marshalls "based in the North of England".

11. BBC news: 'The perfume garden by Laurie Chetwood highlights the plants used to make perfume.'

12. The Times Alice Bowe: 'Chelsea gets criticism but its meant to be aspirational. And it is!'

Chelsea Flower Show blog-15 things you didn't know.


1. RHS launched a campaign at Chelsea 2008 to favourable press to get VAT dropped from 17.5 per cent to 5 per cent on ornamental plants and seeds. Head of comms Lynn Beddoe says the campaign was 'parked' ie dropped before Christmas because of the recession-Gordon Brown needs all the tax he can get.

14. Cliche of the show: "It will be interesting to see what happens next year."
 

15. The book grow your own fruit by Chelsea presenter Carol Klein will not be promoted by the RHS or BBC. Beeb says it doesn't promote presenters books. But it did with Klein's GYO veg, which sold 300,000 copies. Chelsea bizarrely, is now produced in Birmingham. The only person with enough gardening outside broadcast experience to do Chelsea's 11 hours of coverage was former GW producer Rosemary Edwards. So she had to move shows. But Chelsea production staff had to move to London.  

Eagerly awaited pre-RHS Chelsea Flower Show blog. Read my stuff on Telegraph gardening website please.

1. The concluding edition of The Highgrove Florilegium of botanical art launched this week at The Garden Museum, London in conjunction with the opening of an exhibition of botanical art from The Highgrove Florilegium at the Museum. Guests to the event included Lord Heseltine, Lady Getty, Fay Ballard, The Hon. James Ogilvy, The Dowager Marchioness of Salisbury, The Viscount Cranborne, Martin and Flappy Lane Fox, garden designer Arabella Lennox-Boyd, and Debs Goodenough – Head Gardener to HRH the Prince of Wales. But not me. I was invited to the midday press launch.

2. How to write better gardening journalism part (2)

Ask follow-up questions. The first answer may be PR guff.

Find out how they really feel.

http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/gardens/article6257269.ece

This piece by Carrie Donald asks Sarah Eberle about Marks & Spencer pulling out of sponsoring her Chelsea garden.

“I would have thought less of them if they hadn’t,” says Eberle. Pathetic. After a year's planning the 2007 show winner is happy her sponsor pulled the plug at the last minute? Ask her how she really feels.

3. Simon Thurley, vanity project, English Heritage Kenilworth Castle. An anecdote: I was once at an event and Thurley was holding court. Architecture reporter wannabe Beatrice Galilee. I intro'd her to Thurley and he noticed she was secretly recording what he was saying. He was quite good about it considering.
People of Kenilworth, where my sister lives and where visited last week are v pleased with new castle garden, however fake and however much of vanity proj for Thurley it is. National Trust do this sort of thing all the time. But not Government-funded.
 

4. Was at Karen Liebrich’s Family Kitchen Garden Frances Lincoln-published book launch at Wholefood Market in Kensington this week. She is English Heritage’s Chiswick House’s kitchen gardener. Liebrich said the book was 18 months in planning, had gone to a second printing, that English Heritage had to be told where to look for old paths and then did not reinstate paths wide enough for push/wheelchairs. She’s glad wasn’t on the recent ‘English Heritage’ TV programme, whuch mae the quango look a bit silly, but loves EH head of gardens John Watkins, who didn’t come across as well as he should have on the programme.

5. My allotment friend Tony Hewitt says good allotmenteers don't have wildlife on their plots. His plot at Cottenham Park in Wimbledon is going through the same debate as mine down the road about turning overgrown 'wildlife areas' back into plots. Hewitt is leading a working party to cut down the brambles.
 
6. Some *** has stolen my hanging basket. Was it a drug addict, delivery man, neighbour? We're on a cul de sac. Was a wedding present. Chain it down. Reward available if you find it. Hang ‘em. Etc.

 

7. On the same issue a correspondent says:

Congratulations on your new column! So good to read it. I have just got my next allotment in the small Dorset village. Just about to turn the earth (currently docks) and put up rabbit wire. But hope to be cropping veg very soon! The family has had an allotment on the same site for 60-70 years, then one night someone broke into dad's shed a stole a 25 year old rotorvator (worth nothing to anybody else!). This meant my Dad had to give up the family plot because he was fearful that replacing the rotorvator would only mean that it get stolen again. He is around 75, so he is now unable to dig huge areas of ground and certainly not strong enough to lift a rotorvator into the back of the car each time he needs to use one. So sad. Anyway, he has another plot on the same site, so can at least spend his weekday mornings tending his vegetables and flowers.

8. What to do by Toby Buckland and Alys Fowler:

plant courgettes in your hatbox
seed your handbags with curly kale
French beans-where else but in an old beret!
grow mushrooms in your footwell
sedum your car roof and take it off road
grow gladioli in your back pocket-morrissey did
grow runner beans in your paniers
after knitting class, use your bootees as planters for sweet potatoes
plant tomatoes in your teeth
herbs grow well in granny's old fur coats

hebes in your hunters

9. Why is it that only poshos skipdive-Alys Fowler (Bedales) /Hon. Kirstie Allsopp (also Bedales-£8,547 a term)? Also Emma Townshend (St Paul's). The arty public school has replaced GCSE’s with 'outdoor work' courses, which sounds good to me. Alys said at the allotment at anti- Heathrow expansion protest with Richard Briers thing this weke she only flies to US every second year and doesn’t drive. And promotes green living.

10. An hour of Gardeners World at Malvern and no mention of a commercial company. Chatting to Tom Sharples of Suttons Seeds at the event he reiterated that BBC GW researchers don't pick up on new ideas because they can't/won't mention commerical companies. Only the one man bands of garden designers and kitchen table nurseries are allowed to be mentioned. Several mentions of Chris Beardshaw’s scholarship-wouldn’t have happened without Bradstone-but no mention. Also Hillier-GW went to Hillier, talked to Jim Hillier about plants they’re providing-but no caption of Jim Hillier-because his name would have flagged up they were at a commercial nursery. The point of the scholarship is to make uncommercial garden designers commercial by working with industry-pr-mentors, suppliers and thus developing their careers.
GW missed this completely as it desperately tried to look at the ‘journey' of one designer. The look of disappointment as Joe Swift presented her with a bronze was a picture.
 
BONUS extra

http://www.soilman.net/?p=1388

Have been pondering Matt Appleby’s excellent post about the Chelsea Flower Show.

Now as you know I don’t ‘do’ personal, ad hominem attacks. This is an allotment blog, not a fish market.

So what follows is out of character. But I’m moved to say it, because I’m… well, moved. The RHS Chelsea Flower Show is an annual wanker-fest that sums up everything that’s wrong with the RHS. In my humble opinion.

Bolly-gobblers

I’m sick of the bandwagon-jumping, expenses-claiming, braying, Bolly-gobbling, name-dropping, royalty-fawning, sleb-spotting, arselickan bullshit of the jeunesse (and vieillesse) dorée who frequent this annual wank tank horror show.

It’s a parvenu’s dungheap. A social collective enema masquerading as a horticultural event. To ‘get it’, you need a Babel-fish ear translator with ‘Universal Translation’ turned off, and ‘Pure Tosser-ese’ selected.

Gibbet on the lawn

Lest you think the Flower Show has any kind of appeal to anyone under the age of 40 with a normal working cerebellum, consider that this is an event that rates Diarmuid Gavin an ‘enfant terrible’.

Er, hello? This is not Geiseric the Vandal we’re talking about. Gavin’s a mildly paunchy, chirpy, middle-aged bloke who happens to like a sequinned gibbet on his patio. If this is dangerous and ‘risqué’, I’m Russell Brand.

Look, I want to love the RHS. I really do. I’m a serious and committed gardener. I massively admire the RHS’s gorgeous gardens and respect its staggering and incomparable wealth of expertise. We should have much in common.

Proctologist

But my name isn’t Apricots, Godfrey or Kenneth. I don’t live in a thatched house outside Tonbridge Wells, a footballer’s mansion in Cheshire, an über-chic Soho studio or a converted beach hut in Brighton. I hate Werther’s Originals. I don’t require regular, clandestine whippings to get off. And even if I could afford the several hundred quid required for a Chelsea ticket, I wouldn’t buy one.

Why? Because I may be 40 – but I’m not (yet) a mindless suburban drone, a Bufton Tufton fuckwit, a too-cool-for-school TV sleb, a merchant wanker or Paris Hilton’s London proctologist.

And I know most other RHS admirers/members aren’t, either. We’re just gardeners, who want to hear about growing ***. So RHS: Please reduce the price, get rid of the ponces and Ponzis, and give us back our London Flower Show.

Quotes of the week:

“More assumptions! I thought journalism was about facts. If you had any rapport with your colleagues you'd know" (continues)...

OBN: addressed to Peter Seabrook: “Welcome to the world of blogging!”

Hi Matt, Love the blog posts. Can’t wait for the next installment of industry inside info. Janine Pattison MSGD.

I've branched out into doing garden stuff like this in Telegraph and Guardian. Have a look. If you want.

1.

I see in Private Eye in the Pseudo Names letters strand someone has been puzzled by the appearance in his garden of yellow flowers which he had no recollection of planting. Any help appreciated in identification." from DAN D. LION.

It’s funny because I got a letter asking me: “What colour are the leaves in your garden?" from TERESA GREEN.

Any correspondence of this nature appreciated.

2.

Gardeners are one of the last sectors of society that still respect the royals. The Queen visited Royal Botanic Gardens Kew this week to help celebrate the garden’s 250^th anniversary. Forelocks were duly tugged. This was an event in itself: ie the Queen turned up. My recent piece on Buckingham Palace opening to the public is a work of much interest. Princess Anne is opening Gardening Scotland. Ribbon-cutting by royals is great for the industry. But why does the outside world only want to knock the Windsor these days?

3.

I’m pleased queen of garden writing Ursula Buchan has been reading Horticulture Week. In the latest issue of RHS mag The Garden she says show gardens will be cut from 22 to 13, Diarmuid Gavin and Geoff Whiten have pulled out because of lack of sponsorship, Flemings have pulled out because of “disastrous” bushfires and Notcutts has pulled out. Sorry we broke the bad news in Feb/March-but we had to-because it is big news in the industry. You can guess the rest of Buchan’s piece: “sharp elbows” (fewer punters is good), “element of surprise” (fill-in exhibitors are good), “media attention more onto Great Pavilion”(another Chelsea clichés). Best of all: “I am not sure that the Society (or the designers who cannot find a sponsor) will thank me for this but I’m looking forward to a scaled down" etc. They RHS asked you to write this guff! All the news elements have already been well-aired in the national media over the last few months. Even RHS members would have noticed.

5.

6.

Garden designer and Association of Professional Landscapers vice-chairman Adam Frost is a keen Tennyson reader according to this recent QVC publicity shot. Charge of the Light Brigade I reckon.

 

7.

Did Toby Buckland used to work in PR? Or is it just that the BBC’s PRs brief him v thoroughly. What are GW viewing figures? Will BBC say? He answers Stefan Buczacki's criticisms.

TB: Dumbing down? “Well, I just think it comes down to this idea of people being a bit frightened of change. Gardeners’ World hasn’t changed. It’s exactly as it always has been – timely tips, what to do in your garden on the weekend and inspiring people as well.

“Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I think it’s a shame that he, or some people, don’t like it. But they’re very much in the minority because we have to look at the facts.

“And the facts are that we’re reaching a wider demographic than ever before. The appreciation of the programme by the audience is higher or as high as it has ever been and the viewing figures are great. If it was the other way around, I would have to agree,” he laughs. “But it’s not.”

No relevance to real gardeners? “I think if you’re dipping in and out of a programme and don’t watch it in its entirity, or don’t watch part of a run of programmes,, maybe you don’t get the complete picture.

“There is so much in the programme, it is absolutely packed with information. Just because it’s not an impenetrable journey through the language of Latin does not mean that the said content isn’t high or higher than before.”

As for claims the new team of presenters, also including Joe Swift, Carol Klein and Alys Fowler, don’t get on, Toby shoots back: “It’s funny, really. We’ve had so many letters and emails of support, saying they’re just really enjoying the new camaraderie of the programme.

“I’d suggest – give it a watch, have a look. We certainly have a great time making it.”

8. Saw Nicolas Anelka in Wimbledon eating Pizza Express half price pizza-the one with salad in the middle. He was wearing large sunglasses and did not speak to his wife, nanny or child. Excuse for this-Chelsea has a pitch similar to Wembley-overhanging stands make it difficult for grass to grow.

9. Gardeners and their cars (3) Alan Titchmarsh drives a Jaguar XK sports car with private plates that look like 'Gardener'. Carol Klein has a Land Rover, Sakata's Ian Riggs tells me.

10. Gardener’s Click website says Monty Don is doing a smallholding programme as revealed in this column in March. My Dream Farm C4 spring 2010.

Duty mental:

Brighton Argus reports: “Arsonists started a string of blazes across east Brighton overnight - including a large fire in a Wyevale garden centre car park. Firefighters are working to contact and educate teenagers in Whitehawk about the dangers of arson following the night of fires.” On the comments below: PETE OF QUEENS PARK, BRIGHTON says: “If you catch them put them in labour camps don't slap there wrist and give them community service because they only seem to do that when it suites them.”

If you catch them put them in labour camps don't slap there wrist and give them community service because they only seem to do that when it suites them.” Hugh Rinall, Brighton says: “One of these days someone in power is going to have the bright idea that perhaps painful CONSEQUENCES might be a more powerful persuader than a telling off!!!!!!!!!”BN1, Brighton says...”They all deserve a cuddle and some sweets. Scum.”