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What makes a successful show garden?

• Message 1. 

  Posted by pootles magnet (U11709665) on Monday, 18th May 2009

  I was watching my recording of the lunchtime Chelsea programme and I was interested in a discussion that Andy Sturgeon was having with one of the garden designers. They were talking about how hard it is to work with pale paving because of how badly it deals with mud and mess.
  
  It seems to me that a paving that looks spoiled at the merest hint of dirt, then it really isn't a good choice of surface for any garden, show or otherwise and I wondered if when the judges are handing out medals they take practicality of materials into consideration, or if they just judge on plants and general artistic impression.
  
  I'd be interested to know what other people think - should show gardens have any basis in reality or are they so far removed from real gardens that it doesn't really matter?

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by Paul N (U6451125) on Tuesday, 19th May 2009

  Show gardens are not about reality, they are just some designers dream of what an ideal fantasy garden might look like. I look after 18 or so gardens and not one looks like a show garden, not anything like one. In fact whilst I enjoy visiting gardens, I've never been in a garden which resembles in the slightest any show garden. It's a bit like a Miss World contest really. Unreal.

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  Posted by pensivepansy (U11060423) on Tuesday, 19th May 2009

  Anyone who could afford the cost of designing and building a garden such as those exhibited at Chelsea probably has the funds to have it maintained professionally if they wanted it to look pristine.
  
  For the majority of us, high maintenance paving is not practical. Our patio was laid with large concrete slabs by the previous owners and now has a lovely weathered look, complete with lichens and sets off the garden very well. It copes extremely well with mud and dirt.
  
  However, our neighbour like his patio to look like new and jet washes it regularly. We're all different!

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  Posted by SilverGalanthus (U13903849) on Tuesday, 19th May 2009

  I think the big show gardens at Chelsea are somewhat akin to events like London Fashion Week. They are fantasy and a free reign on what can be possible in a garden. I think it broadens horizons by creating gardens that are 'unreal' and out of the ordinary. But from that, ideas trickle down to something that is more practical in terms of budget and execution. Like the outlandish creations engineered by fashion designers, particular styles or themes then get translated into high street fashion and something that everyone can afford.
  
  This is my first visit to Chelsea this year and I'm very much looking forward to it. I imagine it would feel very much like a mad jamboree but what's so wrong with that.
  I'm actually more interested in the smaller courtyard gardens such as the one they focussed on last night's coverage, made by the four women in Cumbria. Those are the gardens that, to me, are far more achievable and more beautiful in some ways.
  
  I think the judges above everything else, look at how closely the designers were able to stick to their original brief and you can get heavily marked down for straying too much from the original vision as it shows that the designer didn't think through properly how the garden would translate from paper to reality. So although the sky's the limit in terms of what you want to create, you have to prove that what you imagine is achievable.

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