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August 2005
Wednesday 3rd
I go out to spend a few days with Phil and his partner Anette at their home in Sweden. We spend a lot of time discussing sculpture and Phil shows me a CD of some sculptures in glass by the American artist Dale Chihuly. An exhibition of these sculptures has been mounted in the glasshouses of one of the big botanical gardens in North America. The sculptures are amazing, inspirational and very surreal, but would they fit in the soft natural dreamy habitat we are creating at Chelsea in 2006? The quest for sculpture continues.
Monday 8th
We have confirmation from the Chelsea panel that our garden has been accepted for Chelsea next year and that we can have a Main Avenue site. Everyone is overjoyed at the news.
Monday 15th
I spend the day going over the plant list for the garden with Colin with a view to preparing a production schedule. This is a very important first step in the production of a Chelsea garden as the plants we need have to be sourced before we can start growing them onto 'Chelsea standard'.
Tuesday 16th
I spend the day at Deepdale Trees with David Houghton who is helping me this year to source all the trees that we will need for the garden. David has many years of experience in the tree industry. We choose some spectacular oak trees, ash, lime and alder. I will still have to find some of the smaller shrubby species that I need, like willow and gulderose. I also need to grow 23 metres of hedging in boxes which will screen the side of our exhibit from the adjacent marquee.
Friday 19th
I spend the morning discussing the website for the garden with Steve Cannon who will once again be responsible for publicising the garden on the world wide web. Steve comes up with the idea of doing a virtual 'walkaround' for the garden. We decide to suggest it to Michael at the next meeting.
Thursday 25th
I have a visit from Colin who drops the bombshell that he will be unable to undertake growing for us this year, for personal reasons. It means that I will have to undertake the growing myself. Colin has offered to do the plant husbandry for me, making sure that the plants are well fed and kept healthy throughout the growing season, but his nursery will have to be closed down by the end of the year.
Friday 26th
I visit Amanda at her home in Longstanton, about 8 miles from my home. Amanda has been working as my PA since Chelsea this year, studying for an RHS diploma in horticulture. Amanda originally volunteered to help us at Chelsea and very quickly became an invaluable part of the team. Amanda has an overgrown walled vegetable garden which she said we could use as a nursery for the Chelsea plants this year. We had a look around the site and I felt that its sheltered position was ideal for growing the plants we needed.
Monday 29th
Phil is back and starting the drawings which are needed to produce the watercolour of the garden. Amanda, Phil and I are discussing sculpture when Amanda produces a postcard of the MudMaid sculpture she had seen at the Lost Gardens of Heligan a couple of years earlier. Amanda had loved this sculpture and had bought a postcard which she had kept on a desk in her office. She knew that we were still struggling with finding the right sculpture for the garden and thought that perhaps 'something like this' might be appropriate. I immediately knew that this was what we were looking for. The organic nature of the sculpture, its ability to blend in and become part of the landscape had just the right feeling, so we decide to show this postcard to everyone at the meeting the next day.
Tuesday 30th
This is our first 'gathering' of the garden team for Chelsea 2006. Everyone is present and those who haven't seen it are excited by the drawings and the concept of the 4head Garden of Dreams. We discuss all the potential problems associated with a Main Avenue site. We have three days less to build the garden and know that there will be problems with our webcams as we won't have access to the facilities we normally enjoy on the rock bank. However, once all these problems have been addressed we are still left with a decision to make about sculpture for the island. We show everyone photos and drawings of the bronze, glass and carved sculptures. No one seems convinced that any of these are exactly perfect. Finally I drop the postcard of the MudMaid sculpture on the table and the reaction was instant. This was what we were looking for. The question was, could we find who made it.
Wednesday 31st
Heather has managed to track down the sculptress responsible for the MudMaid at Heligan. Her name is Sue Hill and we find that she is the Artistic Director for the Eden Project, and she built the MudMaid in concert with her brother, Peter. Michael agrees to contact her to see if she will be interested in producing a sculpture for the Chelsea Flower Show.
I spend the day, once again, looking at sources of plant material and order the bulbs needed for Chelsea. I contact Jacque Armand who will be growing bluebells and wood anemones, but I also decide to grow some bluebells myself. I did this in 1998 for the Quarryman's Garden and we were successful with these bulbs, which can be quite tricky as normally their flowers are almost over by the time Chelsea starts. We need about 3000 to make any sort of visual impact, so I decide to have 2 people growing them in the hope that one of us will succeed.
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