WILLIAM MORRIS, the great Victorian pattern designer and poet, described his work as the embodiment of dreams.
Today, a garden designer could claim the same motivation - and nowhere is there more freedom for a gardener to dream that at the great RHS Chelsea Flower Show (May 20 - 24). Get a ticket and go along, by all means - you will have a great day out - but there is no reason to miss out on the magic just because you are staying at home.
The highlight of my garden-viewing year, I annually tune in to TV and internet coverage of the greatest horticultural show on earth for an injection of inspiration that ensures I will be in top creative spirits for the season to come.
Serious plant-lovers will be hooked by the mouth-watering floral exhibits in the great pavilion but, for me, the real thrill of Chelsea is its fantastic show gardens, where the bounds of reality are pushed to the limit and imaginations run riot with flowers, foliage and hard-landscaping.
It might be the shape of a sculpture, a combination of plants in a bed, or the innovative use of an otherwise mundane material that strikes a chord and prompts a new project that might otherwise never have occurred.
While cloud-pruned trees, fairytale arbours and classical architecture, as incorporated in some of the more prestigious show plots, might be too big, too expensive or too over-the-top to recreate at home, they may suggest a certain style or invoke a particular atmosphere that could give even the smallest of plots a new twist.
The trick is to be open to the most fanciful of ideas and then to make use of them in your own way, on your own scale, in a scheme that means something to you.
So, turn on, tune in, then get outside and let the inspiration take you....
Article
