In January 2010, I won a competition judged by Andew Duff, Director of the Inchbald School of Design, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show manager, Alex Denman and Dr. Micheal Parmar from The Dalerush Workshop. It was to design a trade stand for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2010 for The Dalerush Workshop who make beautiful, contemporary furniture. My design stood out ‘for its boldness and originality packaged within strong shapes and colours’.
My inspiration came from the bold, clean lines found in Dalerush furniture. This is from the show literature:
‘Sweeping arcs and dynamic junctions are used to create an all-encompassing contemporary, vibrant show-garden experience. Bold bright colours on the background walls embrace elegant resting spaces from which luscious planting can be admired. Texturally contrasting black limestone and Scottish pebble paths invite visitors into the heart of the garden, where plants defy gravity and appear to “float” above the ground.’
I was keen to create a stand that linked two distinct areas to show how well the furniture sits in a variety of garden settings. I wanted to evoke a feeling of warmth and optimism so chose delicious colours for the background walls; Martian Skies – a deep, mysterious blue, and Moroccan Velvet – a sumptuous, rich carmine rose. We mocked up the stand in Dalerush’s workshop and it was good to see the way the light played on the background to give depth and space for the furniture.
Choosing plants was exciting! When I met Ricky Dorlay, the man responsible for top quality plants on Hillier’s stand at Chelsea, he showed me a lovely selection of Acers, all in perfect condition. We quickly picked out a beautiful, well-shaped Acer palmatum ‘Seiryu’ about 3-3.5m high to be my anchor plant. It was good to have an idea of it’s shape and proportions which helped in planning the rest of the planting.
Estimating when a plant will be in perfect condition for Chelsea is a black art, and Sarah Robinson at Crocus is a High Priestess.
We were looking for a balance between plants tightly, but not too tightly in bud – two weeks before the show opened – and those in the early stages of flowering but still with flowers to come. As Sarah wisely said: ‘They’ll carry on growing at Chelsea too and if the weather suddenly turns hot, plants can so easily go over.’ With my plant palette of hopefuls, I visited Sarah on Friday 7th May to finalise my choices. Sample boards placed against the leaves and flowers kept me on track and gave Sarah an insight into the design where contemporary Dalerush furniture and beautiful plants sing out against a background of vibrantly coloured walls.
Trolleys stacked high with plants started arriving in the morning of Thursday 20 May, each plant was unloaded and every leaf and flower inspected. Anticipating the effect of the weather on each plant is still a gamble. Some are flowering perfectly as we plant, and others are still in bud. But as the temperature rose to 25 – 26 degrees C, flowers started to open just as quickly as others faded. A hot weekend was forecast. How would they look on Monday when the judges come round?!
The sun is setting as planting is completed. Gill and Zarifa, two fabulous students from the Inchbald School of Design, joined the team for planting. Everyone was brilliant at helping others out and keeping energy levels up.
Travelling down to London a day before the show opened, I was keen to see the stand again and adjust a window box that looked too ‘leafy’. I was going to add some lilac-blue Brachyscome daisies that I’d already bought and kept behind the stand, but they had vanished! What now?
I had heard of the Chelsea camaraderie at show time and hoped that this was indeed true. But at 5pm on Sunday, while I started my search for plants amongst the trade stands in the Pavilion, most people had finished planting. I piteously explained my dilemma and those I asked were extremely helpful, offering the pick of anything they had to give; I settled on violas from one stand and pansies from another exhibitor. They saved the day and never have I been so pleased to see a box of bedding plants!
It was Monday 24th May at about 10.30am and I was chatting with the Director of Garden Design at the Inchbald, Andrew Duff, when the RHS judges came round. Our conversation quietened as we overheard a heated debate between them as they discussed our stand.
It was apparent that there was definite division, illustrating how difficult it is to be fair to all the entrants in each category. The debate was between the quality of design, level of finish and standard of planting which they thought were very good and deserved an award, and the fact that at the time of judging, there was no signage for The Dalerush Workshop and too many pieces of furniture were displayed. The outcome was that despite a well-presented stand, we missed out on an award.
Interestingly, two judges came back on Tuesday morning and a third visited independently later that day. They apologised for not giving us an award – they want everyone to do well – and talked through their reasoning. Their feedback gave me greater clarity as to how to improve for next time and confidence in my own vision for the stand. We took their comments on board, had a sign made which we displayed during the show and removed a piece of furniture, so by the time the public viewed it, we were up to speed!
I love the play of light on surfaces and took these abstract photos of the background showing the light being stretched and shortened with the curves and planes of the walls. I’m interested in the work of Mexican architect Luis Barragan, and actually met someone from Mexico at the show who recognised this influence and spoke with me about Luis Barragan’s work. Chelsea is truly international!
As soon as the flowers are planted and settle in, the bees arrived. It’s really good to see wildlife in the garden, and even though it was all for show, we fed bees for 10 days! I saw three types of bee: the Honey-bee Apis mellifera, the Buff-tailed bumble-bee Bombus terrestris and the Red-tailed bumble-bee Bombus lapidarius.
So that’s it for this year! I came home with a paeony and some ferns, happily reminding me of my first design experience at Chelsea.
© Amanda Shipman | Amanda Shipman, 14 Corinium Gate, St Albans, Hertfordshire, AL3 4HX | tel: 01727 837 280 | mob: 07787 554 900 | 
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