Goodbye for now....

It is a long time since we started planning for Chelsea 2009 and it is now finally over. It's been a great year with 2 Gold Medals and Best in Show and we have all really enjoyed working with Luciano and Ulf. It is always slightly sad when it's all over but it comes round again very quickly - we are already looking at detailed plans for next year although I have been sworn to secrecy about who it is....
Because it is the first time that we have done a blog, I would really like to hear from you about what you thought of it and how we might be able to improve it for next year. If you would like to, you can leave a comment by clicking on the comment tab underneath each entry.
Thanks again for following us along our Chelsea journey - see you again in 2010.
Mark

Open Day at Crocus - Saturday 30th May

Lots of people ask us what we do with the plants from the Show after the gardens get taken down. Well, this year we have decided to have an Open day at our nursery on the 30th May. It starts at 9.30am and we will be selling all the plants from both the Telegraph and Laurent Perrier Gardens. At our last Open Day we had over 1,000 people so we are hoping that lots of people will come and see how we run the nursery and prepare for Chelsea. The tea is even free! Here is a link to the details about the day.

http://www.crocus.co.uk/openday/

Ulf Wins best in Show

We were all over the moon that Ulf won Best in Show. It was a wonderful result and well deserved. I thought that it might be nice to show some of the detail shots of the garden.

If you click on this link, you can see the moment that Ulf received his Best in Show award.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/chelseaflowershow/5348223/Chelsea-Flower-Show-2009-Daily-Telegraph-Garden-wins-Best-in-Show.html

Luciano gets Gold

Luciano's garden for Laurent Perrier got a Gold Medal which is a fantastic achievement for a first time at Chelsea. I don't know but I bet that he was seriously considered for Best in Show. The design is very strong and the garden looks magnificent from all angles. It's been a real pleasure working with him - my money is on him coming back to Chelsea soon.

The Judges decide

It seems a very long time since we started this journey, building the Daily Telegraph and the Laurent Perrier Gardens. But it is now over and we can all get some rest. The judges have been and gone and I am really pleased to say that we won Gold Medals for both gardens. They only awarded three Golds and we got two of them! I always felt that both gardens could be Gold Medal winners but you can never tell until the piece of paper arrives. The other really exciting thing is that Ulf's garden won Best in Show, which is a wonderful achievement. I would imagine that it was a close decision between Ulf's and Luciano's garden but sadly there can only be one winner of Best in Show. Anyway, a great day - we are all off to the Swedish Embassy tonight to celebrate.
Ulf has spent most of the day in front of the cameras but spent some time with Mark Straver, from Crocus, who was responsible for growing the plants and getting them absolutely right for the show.

Alan Titchmarsh visits the Laurent Perrier Garden

Alan Titchmarsh came round the Laurent Perrier garden this morning as part of the BBC filming. Luciano gots lots of coverage on the BBC Chelsea Flower Show programme last night so it looks as if they might be more to come over the next few days. In this photo, he is discussing the garden with Inge Grimsey, the Director General of the RHS.

The Judges arrive...

I find that the only time I get really nervous at Chelsea is for the ten minutes before the Judges come round. It seems to bring together all the energy and work that has gone into the garden over the last year and focus it on just a few minutes. Their decision means everything and it will only take a small mistake somewhere to make the difference between a Gold and a Silver-Gilt medal. We will only find out tomorrow morning but it would be nice to be put out of our misery and to be told the result.

We say goodbye to our new friends from Sweden

Chelsea is such an intense couple of weeks that friendships can be made or broken quite easily. We all get fairly tired and it doesn't take much for tempers to fray. But it has been a real pleasure to work with Ulf's colleagues. They have all come from various parts of Sweden and they have got really stuck in to the work. And I believe that they really enjoyed themselves. Some of them left today and it was a sad moment when we all had to say goodbye.

The BBC start filming

We had Alan Titchmarsh and Joe Swift on the garden this morning. They were filming for the BBC which is likely to be shown this evening. It will be interesting to see what they have to say about the Telegraph and Laurent Perrier gardens. There were lots of film crews around today from all over the world but the main Press Day is tomorrow.

The Judging starts

Most people focus on the judging that happens on Monday morning when the full collection (about 15 people) of judges go round the gardens. However, in my opinion, the assessing that happens on the Sunday (today) is the more important. The photo shows the three assessors (Andrew Wilson, Bunny Guiness and Tom Stuart-Smith)sheltering from the rain in Ulf's building. It is their recommendation to the full panel of judges that starts the whole process and culminates on Tuesday morning.

The rain comes and some gardens are not quite finished.....

It had to come at some stage, but when it did, it really chucked it down. The rain hit the Flower Show hard this morning and we were lucky not to suffer any serious damage to the plants. The irises and paeonies are particularly vulnerable to wind and rain but they managed to survive. It certainly did not help the gardens that are still not finished.

The wind causes us some problems

It has been very windy on site this morning and it has had quite an effect on some of the taller plants - especially the irises. However, the plants that could have suffered badly are the enormous eremurus joanna that we have been growing at the nursery. They normally don't flower until June/July time but we have been really pleased with their progress this year. Several of them are two metres tall and are looking magnificent. This will be the last plants that Ulf places today and then it's time to sweep up, tidy up all the beds and paths and then go and have a drink. The judging starts tomorrow morning so we shall have to see what happens.....