This is a guest blog post from Matthew Appleby’s gardening blog and a good first round up of the excitement looking forward to this great annual event.
Chelsea Flower Show blog. Who is bookies’ favourite?
1. Look out for B&Q garden behind Alan Titchmarsh when he’s on TV.
2. If you’re a punter, crane your neck to see B&Q tower, and the bottom of Diarmuid Gavin’s pod, rather than the plants.
3. And watch out for dust-after two months without rain, you may need a mask. It costs £40,000 a year to fix. (Telegraph article link).
4. Been down three times to the site this week. Only other hacks there were Telegraph and Kensington Times. More than 800 will turn up on Monday. As well as 1,200 other media.
5. Betting on the gardens. Cleve West is favourite. I’d have Sarah Eberle higher, as well as The Times, which I hear cost £400,000 – the most in the show. Also Flemings, which cost $500,000 all in. Ulf won a couple of years ago and I set Hill’s odds. They lost a fair bit I’m told, with Ulf 2/1.
6. Definitive story maybe? Sloane Square tube topiary. Needs TLC. William Hill BEST GARDEN – CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW 3/1 DAILY TELEGRAPH GARDEN5/1 TOURISM MALAYSIA GARDEN6/1 M&G INVESTMENTS6/1 THE TIMES8/1 LAURENT PERRIER GARDEN10/1 ROYAL BANK OF CANADA10/1 IRISH SKY GARDEN10/1 ROYAL BOTANICAL GARDEN MELB. 12/1 FAILTE IRELAND12/1 ISHIHARA KAZUYUKI DESIGN LAB.14/1 SKYSHADES14/1 FLEMING’S NURSERIES14/1 PRINCIPALITY OF MONACO16/1 BRITISH HEART FOUNDATION16/1 CANCER RESEARCH UK20/1 HOMEBASE25/1 B&Q25/1 LEEDS CITY COUNCIL 5. Aussie Wes Fleming says winning the show would be revenge for the Poms stealing the Ashes with Oz-style cricket last winter.
6. The Kiwis are there too, raising money for Christchurch earthquake appeal with an acer-themed garden from Tamata, who are importing the trees to Tendercae in the UK. See NZ press. 7. Chelsea stories.
Mail Queen. The Queen comes to Chelsea. Every year. That’s it. 800 words.
8. Evening Standard:
THIS year’s Chelsea Flower Show, which starts next Tuesday, will not disappoint. Expect dramatic designs, innovative landscaping and planting ideas by the trugful. Where else would you see, cheek by jowl, a floating glass viewing platform, jungle streams lined with gold tiger pebbles, a nine-metre tower of edibles and curved garden walls of louvred concrete? Continues…guess who by.
9. Telegraph Diarmuid. Not really anything you don’t know already from old articles/internet. Issue is garden writers can’t interview. interviewers don’t know the subject. There is a better one about DG out there…
10. Did a story on high Chelsea ticket prices:
Indie ripped off and then Mail online ripped off Indie, which begs the question why they didn’t run it originally.
11. What the RHS would like you to write…
1.2.3 Key highlights RHS report 2010: Alan Titchmarsh’s ‘Greatest Show on Earth’ (Evening Standard, S Magazine, 23 May) 7-page feature on the Chelsea Flower Show 2010, Chelsea through the years and why it’s such an extraordinary event. Biodiversity mentioned and other info such as ticket details, website address etc. It’s Chelsea (Pattie Barron piece Evening Standard 19 May) Article previewing the Show and saying what visitors should look forward to. Mentions new RHS book ‘stuffed with ideas’, inc. price. Competition to win tickets to the show. It’s a golden year at Chelsea show (Evening Standard 5 May) Full-page piece about record number of gold medals this year. Bob Sweet quoted as saying RHS are delighted by quality of this year’s designs. RHS judge, Mark Gregory, also quoted. Chelsea Garden Gets the Bird (Sunday Telegraph 23 May) Article about possibility of birds flying into the mirrors of ‘Lights and Colours of the …’RHS comes out well”.
