This year, like many wanna-be Vita Sackville-Wests, I joined the pilgrimage of gardenistas from around the globe to the mother of all garden shows – the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show. Famed for its beautiful show gardens created especially for the last week in May and vast collection of stalls containing anything even slightly connected to gardening, or a picture of it, Chelsea features annually in luscious images in garden media world wide.
The English heritage of collection and study of botany was evident in the myriad, immaculate stalls of the plant societies as well as the thoughtful and delicate selections of plants in the display gardens. Climate change and the recession meant that home grown vegies and water-wise gardens were prominent themes, and there were lots of great ideas.
What I hadn’t quite appreciated however, was exactly how popular gardening was…and what kind of creature gardeners actually are…
At Chelsea, the true viciousness of the species came out to play. There’s nothing quite like admiring the finesse displayed in the subtle blending of plants forms and colours displayed by some of the world’s best designers as you desperately cling to a rope fence to avoid drowning in a sea of fellow garden fanatics. Held back by the ropes surrounding the show gardens the crowd grasped at brochure wielding attendants with more determination than a redneck at a naked lesbian cage fight. And at the many stalls, demonstrating a truly British pedigree in pillaging the world for rare and exotic plants, the garden-show-going public weren’t about to skimp on steely determination not to let anything stand between them and a specimen not held in the collection of the Joneses.
By the time I narrowly missed a trampling from bouncers for the BBC telly crew by crashing into a glammed-up tweed and wellies stall staffed by what looked like thoroughbreds (as in horses. Expensive and high maintenance horses), the images of the serene display gardens of my imagination had faded into oblivion. I realised that somehow my crowd phobia and I had ended up at the garden equivalent of The Big Day Out. Firmly instructing my anxiety to get a grip, I waded my way to the exit, stolidly ignoring the sniffer dog inspecting people for illicit cuttings on the way out.
Somewhat thankfully back home, I was delighted/grimly optimistic upon discovering that a sunny May in Perth had neatly cleared my own garden of plant life. Uplifted by the heady waft of delusions of grandeur, and fortified by my induction to the ranks of the garden warriors, I determined on a systematic approach to my new grow-your-own-to-save-the-world-while-skillfully-blending-colour-and-form-vegetable garden. Cunningly thwarting pigeons and slaters, I started with seedlings to avoid the crushing disappointments of past ventures with seeds.
It seems, however, that the lessons of Chelsea take a while to sink in. As the chilly June rains drew slugs and snails to pulverise my aspirations, I realised that I have a whole bunch of ‘toughen up princess’ to acquire. So, as July kicks in I’ve been snuggling up to the heater with a Milo and uggies and flicking through the tonne of catalogues I dragged home from Chelsea. I also made a big decision. This year I’m going to toughen up and become a proper gardener. In Spring. Just as soon as it stops raining.
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