RHS Chelsea 2019, Plant Heritage, Children’s Gardens, Glorious Flowers

RHS Chelsea 2019, Plant Heritage, Children’s Gardens and Glorious Flowers seems like a bit of a mouthful, but I was trying to find a focus for this year’s Chelsea Flower Show. What felt important to me that you would find interesting?

As well as the usual media hype, there was quite a bit about the Duchess of Cambridge co-designing the RHS Back to Nature Garden. This wasn’t the only show garden or exhibit in the Great Pavilion that had ideas and features for children. National Children’s Gardening Week, NCGW, begins on the day that RHS Chelsea 2019 ends. The juxtaposition may not have occurred to many people, but it was in my mind.

RHS Chelsea 2019 – Children’s Gardens

Unfortunately, I had a few camera issues, but didn’t realise until I uploaded the photos. So I’m missing pictures of some of the gardens and exhibits. ☹

RHS Back to Nature Garden

A child-friendly garden this, with places to play Pooh sticks and scramble through a hollowed-out tree trunk. Plenty of ideas that could be picked out and added to a suburban garden. I do like adding in fun ideas for children in a family friendly garden design; sometimes the adults like to climb into tree houses too…And on hot sunny days, all the shade and water makes for a cool space for active children to play and explore. After Chelsea, some of the planting and landscaping will go to an NHS Mental Health Trust

Greenfingers Charity Garden

I loved the green tiles and green swing seat. But more to the point, this garden is designed as an interactive space for children with terminal illnesses and life-limiting health conditions. A beautiful space.
Greenfingers Charity creates gardens for children in hospices. Plant Heritage is one of their supporters (see below).

Family Monsters Garden

This Artisan Garden celebrates 150 years of Family Action supporting families. A coppice of birch and hazel trees give an enclosing ‘tree hug’.

CAMFED Garden – Giving Girls In Africa a Space to Grow

The Campaign for Female Education, CAMFED, supports girls so they can stay in education. This in turn supports them as women and mothers, as it is African women who produce a significant amount of Africa’s food.
This garden showcases some important vegetables, full of vitamins and minerals for growing children, especially girls. Sweet potatoes, squash, beans, bananas and more are watered by a clever solar powered water pump.
What you could take away from this garden (apart from supporting CAMFED) is the concept of a brightly coloured kitchen garden or vegetable patch. This would appeal to children in particular and may be the encouragement they need to get them started in gardening.

Montessori Centenary Children’s Garden

Another ‘Space to Grow’ Garden like CAMFED. This garden commemorates 100 years of Montessori in the UK. based on the Montessori child-led teaching method, the garden encourages learning through doing. I liked the mix of traditional and modern, with hydroponics and age-old foraging happily rubbing shoulders.

RHS Chelsea 2019 in the Great Pavilion

Helping Children Grow

This year, National Children’s Gardening Week, NCGW, runs from May 25th –June 2nd. The Horticultural Trades Association sponsored the exhibit in the Discovery Zone of the Great Pavilion. Simple projects to make gardening fun are displayed – and there are leaflets to take home with you. Whist the pizza wheel was tempting – and would be a wonderful addition to many gardens – my favourite was the mint tea!
For more ideas on having fun with your children in the garden, see my article in Families South East magazine.

Plant Heritage at RHS Chelsea 2019

Mine was something of a whistle-stop tour. For a change, my main reason for being at RHS Chelsea 2019 was not viewing the gardens as a designer. I was one of the volunteers at the Plant Heritage run cloakroom; this service has been offered to visitors since 2008.

Volunteers work hard to manage the many suitcases, picnic baskets, coats and so on that are left by visitors whilst they enjoy the Flower Show. Plant Heritage aims to provide a cloakroom at all the RHS Flower Shows, and the donations received support the work of the Charity. They mount up – over the years some £54,000 has been raised. And the occasional cup of coffee – thank you to our customer on my Wednesday shift!

Plant Heritage is a charitable organisation, leading the world in the conservation of cultivated plants. If you’ve read other Plews Potting Shed blogs, then you’ll have heard me mention National Plant Collections. These are held and nurtured by volunteers in Botanic Gardens and small private gardens across Britain and Ireland. Maintaining a wide gene bank of heritage and modern plant species and cultivars is critical for diversity. Plant Heritage supports and organises over 600 Plant Collections and the people who care for them.

RHS Chelsea 2019 – Glorious Flowers

Photos to ogle, envy, enjoy – the glory of a flower show in full bloom, from the entrance gates, to the cafes, as well as filling trade stands and show gardens!

If you’d like a child-friendly Garden Design or Gardening Lessons so you can learn how to create your own ‘Chelsea-ready garden’ do get in touch with us at Plews.