dead wrong

[BUFFS]

I have been watching the BBC coverage of the Chelsea show and I cannot believe a stuffy cemetery and cenotaph was awarded gold and best in show. It is supposed to be a flower show but you could count the flowers on your fingers with some to spare...the lunatics have really taken over the asylum, what's next? All plastic flowers as the posers think that's cool?, the coverage was really tedious, rehashing the same things day after day, BORING..this may be on the wrong page but I'm not sure which to put it on..

[veggiechicken]

I haven't watched any of the programmes but I did see the photos of the winning garden. When mine looks like that it needs serious weeding. https://www.rhs.org.uk/shows-events/...-g-garden-2017
Most of them aren't "gardens" they're stage sets. Its King's new clothes

[Cadalot]

I have to say I have no interest at all in the Chelsea show, but some of the Pinterest Pins I get sent are really interesting

[Baldy]

Guess we don't understand... by the looks of that winner I think my plot is in with a shout next year:
'Cardboard covering conceals cantankerous curmudgeons creative constructive cucumber's climber'

FFS

[craftymarie]

It certainly wasn't to my taste, but then a lot of modern art isn't to my taste either!

I was put off art for life when someone at art college was awarded the top mark for a box of sand with foot prints in that took them all of 5 mins to make after they had lazed around for weeks doing nothing but came up with some nonsense story about how meaningful the footprints were.

Meanwhile a fellow student who'd been labouring over a beautiful oil painting for months just managed to scrape a pass. It made me realise just how fake and pretentious the whole art world is and Chelsea is now starting to grate on me the same way.

[Martin H]

I've watched ALL 15 EPISODES of the BBC's Chelsea coverage.

Having been round a disused quarry in Malta, I can say that the winning show garden is very expertly done. But I wouldn't want it at the back of my house and I wouldn't want the job of maintaining it either.

Too many of the show gardens are just landscapes not gardens. A slice of Yorkshire here, a bit of Canada there and so on. Don't like. And don't get me started on the modern, conceptual "Fresh" gardens either.

Only Chris Beardshaw made a "proper" garden, and even he rather spoiled it with some arty-farty narrative about Fractals and the relation between Music and Gardening. Enough to cost him a gold medal, I convinced myself!

But the lovely flowers on show made me put up with the irritating presenters and the pretentious garden designs.

Mods, you can move this to the Rant thread if you need to

[veggiechicken]

You rant away here, Martin, and we'll all join in the chorus

[jonny the plant pot]

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'It's not supposed to be pretty': an in-depth look at RHS Chelsea's Best Show Garden

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James Basson's garden for M&G, winner of Best Show Garden at this year's Chelsea Flower Show
James Basson's 'monumental' garden for M&G, winner of Best Show Garden at this year's Chelsea Flower Show
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How to grow your own Mediterranean garden
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Stephen Lacey
23 MAY 2017 • 1:13PM
The award for Best Show Garden at the Chelsea Flower Show 2017 went to James Basson for the M&G Garden, a monumental evocation of a Maltese quarry where nature and a gardener of exceptional talent have worked together to heal the scars of excavation. Stephen Lacey takes a close look at the winning garden...

James Basson's garden for M&G Investments is one of the boldest and most arresting seen at Chelsea for many years: a great chunk of limestone quarry with exposed walls and scattered stone blocks, infiltrated by wild plants and presided over by gnarled old trees and broad stone stacks soaring up to 26ft.


It is from Malta that James has taken his inspiration. Since childhood, he has immersed himself in the Mediterranean and its ecology. His English parents moved to Monaco when he was a teenager, and he spent his school holidays sailing the coastline and exploring the hills.

After a garden design course at the University of Greenwich and a spell learning about Mediterranean gardening in Grasse, he set up business in the South of France, “labouring, putting up fences and digging pools, until gradually I developed from being a garden maker to a designer”. At the same time, he and his wife, Helen, who runs his office, were bringing up three young children.


Now in his mid-40s (he turns 45 this week), James has become well known internationally for his naturalistic and sustainable Mediterranean evocations both at garden shows and out in the real world. His 2013 Chelsea garden, After the Fire, which showed native plants regenerating among blackened soil and tree trunks following a wildfire, had me and many others awestruck. The meticulous research behind the design was obvious, and the realism electrifying. “We funded this garden ourselves, and are still paying it off,” he says. “But it won Best in Show in the Fresh category, and put us on the map.”

The quarry is not supposed to be pretty. It is stark and monumentally brutal
James Basson
Since then, he has twice scooped Chelsea gold for his previous sponsor, L'Occitane: one garden set around a dry stream and lavender field, and another around the wispy herbs and grasses of an old country goat path.

[jonny the plant pot]

Whatever that means

[rary]

As stated in a previous post I recorded the Chelsea Show to save having to listen to all the idiotic comments that always comes with this show, but I am sure they are not aimed at people who enjoy gardening it for the people who play at gardening, thats where the money is, what person keen on gardening would put the rubbish thats on show in their garden, there are some interesting parts to the presentation but they are few and far between.

[WPG]

I really enjoyed watching all the Chelsea coverage, but then I'm a big Monty fan so that was part of the lure. Wasn't particularly wowed by any of the show gardens this year, though my top two were Chris Beardshaw and the winning Maltese quarry (which didn't resemble a garden, but at least it was understandable).

My overall favourite was Sarah Raven.. maybe not cutting edge, but it was so very pretty. I rather liked the mexican themed garden too, with it's turquoise pool, and also the Poetry lovers garden (can't understand how it only got a silver, when a rusty old wharf crane got a gold).

I'm surprised that Chelsea seems to be having sponsorship problems given that it's such a crowd-puller and gets so much TV coverage. Hope it's back on track next year.

[happyhumph]

A lot of how the points are awarded are down to how well the garden fits what was on the submission entry - so it can be beautiful but if bits are missing, or there are extra bits you loose points. Also, points are available for construction which in this case appears to be very well done.

Can't say I'm particularly keen on it myself, too stark for me, but it has presence. James Bassons garden 'after the fire' a few years ago however was stunning.

Liked Chris Beardshaws garden a lot.

[Guest]

I actually like it and would happily take aspects of it, but it is not a garden. I do like watching Chelsea but the balance really did seem to be wrong this year and it did seem to miss the pushing the boundaries/ quirky/ nutty element - the vibrating water was as far as it went this year I think they should bring in a rule like lotties where a % has to be flowers/veg etc.

[Mitzi]

I have been watching the BBC coverage of the Chelsea show and I cannot believe a stuffy cemetery and cenotaph was awarded gold and best in show. It is supposed to be a flower show but you could count the flowers on your fingers with some to spare...the lunatics have really taken over the asylum, what's next? All plastic flowers as the posers think that's cool?, the coverage was really tedious, rehashing the same things day after day, BORING..this may be on the wrong page but I'm not sure which to put it on..

We said exactly the same things. The winning garden looked like nothing so much as an overgrown Commonwealth War Graves cemetery, but without the nice plantings that the War Graves Commission put in place.

[DannyK]

Too many pseuds, not enough real gardeners.

Scruffy male presenters. Is it supposed to be cool to wear jeans and waistcoats?