Chelsea, How do they do it?

Off to Chelsea this week but how do they get these gardens and flowers so good? must be greenhouse crops until the last minute I bet it's a lot of work too. Anyone else going this year?

 

Is it that time already ?

I guess the plants would have to be hardened off beforehand, esp. with the winds we've been having.

Don't forget your camera Lad

 

If anyone saw the Chelsea programme last evening they would have heard the owner from Avon Bulbs say that plants are selected and tagged when out in flower and then are dug up and taken to their cold storage area where for this show they had at least 1,000 pots full of flowering bulbs stored waiting for the transportation and building on their show site at Chelsea.The owner was saying that they have even had to borrow the cold storage area from the Asparagus growers I think it was to house even more flowering bulbs.Usually they have loads of daffs to show off but because of the weather this spring they all came and went so he only has one to put in to the show

It is lovely to visit Chelsea and see all the exhibits but if I was a grower I would never be able to stand the stress of growing,storing and building of the exhibit site just to try and win a laminated gold certificate:DFor me it would take the pleasure out of being a gardener or grower

 

I know a great many people are going disagree with me for this, but - for years we made, what almost amounted to a 'pilgrimage', to Chelsea then, a couple of years ago, we decided we'd had enough. Every year there were the same stands, displaying (certainly in the case of the bonsai growers) the same plants in exactly the same configuration as in every previous year and every year you'd go home and watch the TV where you got a much better view of the show gardens than is possible from the back of a crowd 20 deep.

Of course, we'd all love to see perfection on our own plot and it's very nice to see a host of golden daffodils alongside chelone, or chrysanthemums next to primroses, but for me this 'forced perfection' is just, well ..... slightly boring. I love my garden even with all its faults and imperfections, but keen as I am, I'm not about to go round my chrysanths with a cotton bud and a pair of tweezers, teasing the odd petal into perfect alignment with its neighbours just to win a medal which says 'I've grown the perfect flower', in fact, all it says to me is 'At unimaginable expense, with the aid of innumerable glasshouses, hundreds of man-hours, and hundreds of thousands of plants in computer controlled environments, plus cotton buds and tweezers, I've managed to manipulate nature .... and I got a medal for doing so.'

 

I went last year to Chelsea for the 1st time and waether was fantastic but if it had rained not so good.

But it was amazing and so glad we went and along way to go from Scotland.

Hoping to be able to get down again next year.

And if we do get next year would do the same be there early and go straight to and to see all the show gardens before the crowds which worked for us.

 

I think it would be nice if the show gardens remained in place for a few weeks to enable more people to go and see them with fewer crowds.

The trade nursery stands can be seen at Malvern or other big gardening shows - with less hassle.

I do admire the skill and dedication of the garden creators and their support teams. I imagine it must be an incredibly stressful few weeks, or months., even.

The phenomenon of Chelsea says a lot about the British as a nation - does anyone else take gardening so seriously? I love it when my hobby is suddenly national news for a week.

 

I shall be booking my place in front of my gogglebox with a brew this evening to see what delights there are at Chelsea this year, was thinking of going but Mr GCK and I are discussing a visit to Tatton instead as I went up there last summer and was blown away by how lovely not only the gardens were but the grounds too!

 

I think the long answer will be as others have already said, controlled growing conditions etc.

However there is a simpler answer to your question I suspect. They've found an unlimited source of money.

Just imagine how much it must cost just to build one exhibit to Chelsea standards, and they only expect it to be just right for a very short time.

 

That's "show" business...

 

Not going to disagree at all! My wife and I go about once every 3 years. We see the things that are new, but we don't suffer from Chelsea-exhaustion!

But the wall-to-wall TV coverage . There i no programme (or even a pair or three of programmes) where you can see the gardens. Hours and HOURS of TV mostly filled with tripe. Lots of celebrities standing in show gardens being interviewed for 5 minutes about their gardening interests. If they are skilled gardeners then fine, but if they know less than you or I, then Please! put them on a special Famous People Talking About Gardening Standing In Chelsea Show Gardens program.

If they are worth interviewing there will be a short video of their gardens too. Otherwise "Shove off"

The thing that rather puts me off is the waste. Mature plants / trees / materials all just trashed at the end of it. Those that are replanted are so stressed, and so poorly handled, or so massively root-pruned, that they rarely survive.

Crowds used to be a problem years ago, but in the last few years they have limited the number of people entering and I haven't noticed a significant problem. There is a queue for the show gardens but assuming you are going to be at the show for several hours anyway, half an hour to queue for the show gardens (and I'm not sure it was even that long) didn't seem too tiresome to me.

But, yeah, 30 years ago it was dreadful. My Mum, a regular, took my Father for his first visit one year. After five minutes of jostling he told her he'd had enough and left her to it! (and I am sure he would have loved the exhibits)

 

What annoys me with the TV coverage is that (so far), all we've seen is the show gardens or, as Kristen so eloquently puts it, 'Famous People Talking About Gardening Standing In Chelsea Show Gardens', and usually saying something inane into the bargain.

When the 'celebs' have had their 'I got my face on TV ... thank God', moment, what I'd like is a 'man with a camera' walking around the marquee showing us some of the other exhibits - Carol (what the hell am I wearing) Klein may, for all I know, be a world expert on pitcher plants, but I'd much sooner see the whole display rather than a close up of one or two of the 'flowers' or worse, another close-up of that 'thing' she had on.