Memories of Rex - A Chelsea Courtyard Garden (part 1)

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Back in 2001, the RHS were still inviting amateurs to exhibit at the Chelsea Flower Show. This is the first of two blogs explaining how we were invited to enter and the work involved in staging an exhibit.

I had joined the local Garden Club in Bracknell two years earlier and quickly been invited to join the committee, probably because of my relative youth (one of the few members not of retirement age), my plant knowledge and my enthusiasm. The Club is affiliated to the RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) and at one committee meeting, under ‘Any Other Business’, the secretary read out a letter she had received from them, inviting us to apply to stage a courtyard garden at Chelsea the following year. The committee were dismissive of the idea because of the work involved but I persuaded them the members should at least be consulted. It was agreed I would ask at the next Club evening whether anyone was interested and, if we were to attempt the project, we would have to raise all the funding for it ourselves so there would be no cost to the Club .I would also run the project and report back on our progress at committee meetings.

We had arguably our most disappointing speaker ever at that Club evening; it was like hearing someone read from a guidebook in a monotone. I am surprised anyone was still awake by the end of the evening. But I said my piece and four members, G, C, L and J came forward – we were off and started.

A week later we met at G’s house for the first of many discussions in getting the project off the ground. G’s husband, Rex, the Club’s founder, had motor neurone disease so all the meetings were held at their house as G was still caring for him at home. The most important decision we took was to think of themes for the garden which we then whittled down to three or four to be researched and discussed at our next get-together. Chelsea is held in the third week of May and as we did not have the facilities or expertise to get things to flower out of season, we were going to have to use plants that naturally flowered at that time. The more we thought about it, the more obvious it became that many of them were shade-lovers and the germ of an idea began to grow. G and Rex’s garden was mostly under pine trees and it would be a fitting tribute to him to replicate those conditions and name the garden in his honour – ‘Memories of Rex’ was the title we chose. We also decided to play to our strengths – we were not designers, we were plants people. We would not go for any fancy layout or outrageous construction; a simple plan and a garden stuffed full of plants for damp shade was our idea. This would make it educational for anyone who thought damp shade meant you could only grow ferns and hostas.

By early October, we had drawn up a rough plan of our design and listed some of the plants we hoped to use, added an explanation of the garden and posted it to the RHS; they would let us know by 1st December whether we had been accepted. They asked for more details on the planting but we heard no more from them. In mid December, I rang and they promised a response before Christmas but still we heard nothing. It looked as if our garden was staying on the drawing board. On 2nd January the phone rang. The lady on the other end of the line was from the RHS. Could we cope with a smaller plot – four metres by three and a half instead of four metres square? Yes, we could. “Then we would like you to build your garden at Chelsea.” We were in!

I rang G, C, L and J. We were all astounded to have been accepted but now somewhat disconcerted by the amount of work involved to turn our idea into reality. We had still not addressed the problem of finance so G and I arranged to meet the head of Landscaping at the Council. While not able to give us any money, he offered us storage facilities in a polytunnel at the Council nursery, free compost (from recycled garden waste) and transport of everything to and from the show grounds in London. With Rex’s condition deteriorating rapidly, G was getting increased advice and assistance from the MNDA (Motor Neurone Disease Association), a charity to help and support sufferers and their families. We approached them, explained the project and they immediately offered us £1000 as long as they could take over the publicity for it. We agreed and the finance was in place.

Bracknell is six miles north of the M3 motorway and on the southern side are several wholesale nurseries; these also welcome private customers who are prepared to buy plants in bulk. We visited several and came away with plant- and price-lists to choose from. By buying our plants in January and growing them on in our own greenhouses, we spent less money and also got the plants we wanted. Several other Garden Club members had our plants in their greenhouses and we bought a cheap canvas gazebo and erected it in G’s front garden for extra storage. We asked if anyone in the Club was willing to lend us plants from their garden for the show and I spent many hours looking at tatty rhododendrons and massive acers as well as dubious seedlings in pots that were possibly rarities but more likely weeds.

The RHS would provide fencing around three sides of our plot but we still needed some sort of barrier at the front to keep the crowds from invading, plus some hard landscaping. Bracknell had several brickworks in the nineteenth century and the field where G’s daughter kept a horse was beside the remains of one of them. In one corner of the field was a pile of old, misfired bricks, covered in moss, mud and other ‘substances’. We asked the owner of the field if we could have them and he agreed. There was one slight problem – he was a highly suspicious character and on one occasion he came to see what we were doing, armed with a shotgun! He also took a shine to G and she had to politely refuse several offers of a cup of tea inside his house. We dug out a few hundred bricks which we then took away and cleaned of dirt but we left the moss intact; recycling became a secondary theme in the garden. We had enough bricks for the paving but not enough for a wall along the front of our garden. E, another Garden Club member, offered to make us some trellis from recycled tile laths. If the trellis he had built in his own garden was anything to go by, this would be perfect. Not only did he build the trellis, he carved simple finials for the posts supporting it and, by painting it all green, it blended perfectly with the finished garden.

One slight problem remained with the paving – who would lay it? I had had some landscaping done in my garden a few years earlier so we approached the company concerned to see if they would be interested in helping. “We used to do Chelsea but haven’t done it for several years,” announced the manager at our meeting. “We’d like to do it again so we’ll do it for free if you like.” We liked a lot. As we were not supposed to sub-contract any of the building work, we arranged to make his staff honorary members of the Garden Club for the duration of the show – problem solved.

A requirement for a shady garden is something to provide the shade. We decided to use a small tree in one corner and visited a wholesale tree nursery. A silver birch provides light shade and they had a good selection of them – in fact they had a field full of them! G and I spent an hour wading up and down the field (it was a very wet winter that year) looking for a tree that was not too tall, had a good shape and with white bark. It is amazing how all the trees can look the same after a period but eventually we chose one and I tied some string around its trunk to mark it out as ours. The nursery staff then lifted it and grew it on in a large pot, ready for transporting to Chelsea in mid May.

Every self-respecting Show Garden has a water feature. But I had concerns – a water and electric supply at Chelsea would have to be paid for, eating further into our slender budget. Also, we had never staged any sort of exhibit before and I didn’t want to be too ambitious with our first one. We visited a small, garden artefact firm near Maidenhead to see what might be available. In one corner stood an old-fashioned pump and trough from a farmyard. If we stood the trough under the pump and filled it with water, we would have our water feature with no need for running water or electricity. “We’re doing an exhibit at Chelsea,” we began. “What would you like to borrow?” asked the owner. As well as the pump and trough, we borrowed a small wrought-iron table (without a top) and chair for our display.

Our next port of call was another wholesale plant nursery near Henley which supplies plants to many of the top designers of the large Show Gardens. At one end of the nursery was a large barn structure and inside was a lady making ornaments from recycled glass. We went inside, looked around, told her what we were doing and she not only lent us a glass sculpture for our garden, but also made a top for the wrought-iron table from recycled beer bottles pressed flat.

Why did we get so much free assistance you may ask? Each exhibitor is encouraged to have a leaflet about their display. We were no exception and our leaflet listed all our sponsors on the back page; effectively everyone who gave us free help received two thousand copies of publicity on our leaflets.

While G and I had the most spare time, C, L and J were also making valuable contributions to the project. C worked as an office administrator and dealt admirably with the huge amounts of paperwork emanating from the RHS. She also looked after the finances for the project (we had opened a second Garden Club bank account to keep all the money for the project separate from the main Club finances). Health and Safety paperwork was L’s area of expertise and a cut’n’paste job during a couple of lunch breaks enabled her to produce the bulky manual necessary for our project to the satisfaction of the RHS. Meanwhile, J.acquired numerous crates which were invaluable for moving the bricks and plants around and also drummed up some more financial assistance.

G had some conversations with the MNDA who were building their story about our garden. Meanwhile, I had approached our local newspaper with the story. “Bracknell Garden Club has been accepted for the Chelsea Flower Show,” I began. “What’s the Chelsea Flower Show?” asked the young lady on the other end of the phone. Eventually they did write a couple of pieces about us during the planning phase as well as a report and picture on the finished garden in May.

On 9th May, after four months of planning, hard work and worrying, we started to build our courtyard garden at Chelsea.

To be continued.

• 16 Feb, 2010
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