Chelsea 2009 – What did you learn?
Anne Wareham asks what did you learn at the Chelsea Flower Show 2009
Chelsea 2010 – Do Chelsea gardens benefit from having “themes”? by Anne Wareham
Anne Wareham, editor: I got an email from Graham Rice, responding to my interest in theming (ie. making gardens based on a theme) at Chelsea: “Just been watching the video of Chelsea on the Guardian’s website… And my question is this: Why do all these...Chelsea 2008
Three of the thinkinGardens Group made a short film recording their thoughts.
“But for me, when I look over an edge and down into a space, I want to be rewarded and uplifted ….”
A Tribute to Linnaeus designed by Ulf Nordfiell reviewed by Anne Wareham
“The light echoes of Swedish countryside were one thing, but the effort to bring the Swedish botanist into the picture was the usual over literal, over ‘spelt out’ stuff…”
A Tribute to Linnaeus designed by Ulf Nordfiell reviewed by Stephen Anderton
“It might not be a bad for any garden to start from a default position of absolute simplicity. Only then would certain elements be expanded and explored, as and when the design required them.”
Amanda Patton on “Yes, Gardens can be works of art”
“Anne Wareham states that conceptual references “only evoke a feeling response if they draw on images and ideas which are already part of the psyche”. I would agree, but I also think that the best of our contemporary creativity draws heavily on our long tradition of the Arts without us necessarily being aware of it,…”
Leigh Hunt on “Yes, Gardens can be works of art”
“I certainly feel that we have lost the familiarity of looking for meanings in landscape and for understanding the language of ornament, and this hampers us from moving forward.”
Anne Wareham on “Yes, Gardens can be works of art”
“Indeed, I do invite intellectual engagment and I would love that discussion to begin. So far it hasn’t – and perhaps that might once been for lack of a place to have such discussion. But now we have thinkingardens, where uninhibited debate and discussion can and does happen.”
Andrew Wilson on “Yes, Gardens can be works of art”
“As an assessor and judge for RHS show gardens for the last 12 years, I found myself perplexed by Germain Greer’s response to this year’s Chelsea Flower….”
Germaine Greer: Yes, Gardens can be works of art – but you’d never know it from the Chelsea Flower show.
by Germaine Greer.
“Most of our best-known, most-visited gardens are merely pretty, or, worse, picturesque…”
with responses by Anne Wareham, Andrew Wilson, Leigh Hunt, Amanda Patton.
Recent Posts from: Veddw
Favour the Ferns
Many years ago The Financial Times sent me to do a feature on the RHS ‘Flower Show’ at Tatton Park . I was totally naïve and had no idea what I was supposed to do or to write about. So my excitement was tempered by acute anxiety. The term ‘imposter syndrome’ could have been invented for me. […]
Snowdrop mania is coming…
In the UK, right now, the horticultural world is about to drive us all mad with snowdrops. Pictures of. Articles about. Gardens with them. Anything people can think of to bash us over the head with snowdrops.
Brilliant Brecon
Recently we made a visit to Brecon. This is not far from us, in case anyone was getting over excited about the possibility that I might have been travelling again. It’s in Wales, in the Brecon Beacons, recently re-christened Bannau Brycheiniog.
You should have been here Next Year
Charles made a complaint recently when we were walking in the garden.
When I complained about him complaining he told me that it was good for me to have complaints about the planting.
Garden Seats – to make and sit on.
I am discovering more and more often that it is important to have a great many seats in the garden. In fact there should probably be one every three feet or so.
