Site and specifications…

The observant of you would have already seen little snippets of information on our garden from as far back as February. This is extremely unusual for a show garden (even for the likes of Chelsea) which spring up and disappear in the period of a month, or less.

So, what on earth was Jim and his crew doing digging up the showground in the still snowy depths of winter?

This garden is a whopper – around 650 or so square meters. To put it into context, around double even the largest of plots at Chelsea. Large areas of the scheme were to be dedicated to turf, but even still, the footprint is immense.

Construction is always a bit of a bone of contention for show garden exhibitors. There is definitely something to be said for ‘temporary structures’ and frugal construction methods, but there is a fine line between building something economical and using a material to the best of it’s advantages and simply ‘mocking up’ too much and hoping it lasts even the five or so days of a show.

But this garden was to be a little different. This garden was to be built for public access and to survive not only the Malvern Spring Gardening Show but also the Three Counties Show and possible visits in between.

This garden will be alive and kicking from May until the end of June.

This is positively light years in the world of show gardens, and the construction has to be robust enough to cope with its long life, so Jim and his team began the initial construction in February, working odd hours around the wintry weather to get the garden on its way.

Back in the warmth of the offices, we were also looking at materials, albeit on screens and in catalogues. I cannot stress enough how important it is to request samples of materials before you specify them – something that looks lush on the pages could be rank in real life, and so a few little bits of paving were posted to us for approval.

The selection was made and the order placed.

Plants, done. Materials, done. Just got to build the thing now.

If only it was this simple…

Thanks for your latest Claire - not long until we see this for real folks!