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Chatsworth garden wins top prize at Chelsea flower show Chatsworth garden wins top prize at Chelsea flower show
(about 1 hour later)
This year’s Chelsea flower show has rewarded the sheer scale of ambition on show in various forms, giving top prizes to one garden incorporating 300 tonnes of stone shifted from Derbyshire and another that aims to explain dark matter and deep space through horticulture. The large crowds around Dan Pearson’s ambitious Chelsea flower show re-imagining of the grounds at Chatsworth House would be advised to enjoy his creation while they can: immediately after winning the award for best show garden Pearson said he might never return.
Related: ‘The day I uprooted Chatsworth and took it to Chelsea’: Dan PearsonRelated: ‘The day I uprooted Chatsworth and took it to Chelsea’: Dan Pearson
The award for best show garden went to the Chatsworth garden, designed by the Observer columnist Dan Pearson, which had as its starting point the small matter of recreating in the Chelsea pavilion elements of the famous garden at the Chatsworth estate in Derbyshire. “There won’t be a next time. I really don’t think I will come back,” Pearson told the Guardian from amid his rock-strewn, naturalistic site, which includes 10 truckloads of stone shipped 160 miles from a quarry in Derbyshire. He then paused: “I might, you know. I’ve said that before.”
Drawing on two parts of the original garden – the Joseph Paxton-designed rockery and the trout stream – the design involved intricacy, artistry and some serious heavy lifting. The stones were brought 160 miles from a quarry on Chatsworth, the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire’s estate. But it could be a while. Pearson’s Chatsworth Garden, an amalgamation and recreation of a rockery and trout stream at the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire’s estate, is his first appearance at Chelsea for 11 years, and he said it will be years before he thinks of trying again.
At one point Pearson’s plans were almost undone when Thames Water engineers said the design could place too much strain on a Victorian sewer running under the pavilion. The Observer gardening columnist said: “I think I’ve said something about the way I’m planting at the moment, and where I’m looking at space, and I won’t come back for some time, if I even do come back. I feel you need some time to recharge with some new energy.”
“This is just what you have to do: design on the hoof,” Pearson told the Observer. “It’s just the usual Chelsea madness, albeit on a slightly bigger scale.” The garden, which took two years to plan and 18 “very intensive days” to build, at one point almost never happened when Thames Water engineers said the plans could place too much strain on a Victorian sewer running under the site. Pearson said it was his most testing creation yet.
The award for best fresh garden went to a design involving fewer diggers but just as much brainpower. The Dark Matter garden, designed by Howard Miller for the National Schools’ Observatory, an educational trust led by Liverpool John Moores University to interest children in the wonders of the cosmos, is meant to represent the effect of dark matter on light. “It was quite ambitious, yes,” he explained. “At certain points we felt very intrepid. One of the planters arrived and saw the site on the first day and she said to me, ‘Dan, what were you thinking?’. So we had T-shirts with that on printed up for the whole team at the end.”
“From here we’re looking back in time, 13.7bn years, to where the light first originated,” said Mike Bode, a professor of astrophysics at John Moores University, who co-designed the garden. “It’s mind-boggling really, but we hope it’ll help enthuse youngsters about space and astronomy.” Even inside a hugely packed first public day at the central London event on Tuesday, one punctuated by heavy showers, Pearson’s huge, triangular creation was a clear highlight.
The final gold medal, for best artisan garden, went to the Sculptor’s Picnic garden, by Graham Bodle, featuring a woodland theme including oak branches shaped like stag antlers. “It’s so impressive, especially the way he recreates nature,” said Judith Glover, once tender of a small north London garden but now transplanted to a bigger plot in Suffolk. “It’s really hard to do – it’s not just knowing what to plant, it’s knowing what to leave alone,” added Linette Ralph, her friend and former London neighbour.
Equally innovative was the smaller creation which took the award for best fresh garden, the grandly-titled Dark Matter Garden, which has as its aim nothing less than to explain the secrets of the universe.
It was designed by Howard Miller in conjunction with Professor Michael Bode, who heads the Astrophysics Research Institute at Liverpool John Moores University. Bode is involved with the National Schools’ Observatory, an educational trust which aims to interest children in the wonders of the cosmos.
Bode, whose previous gardening expertise was mainly growing vegetables, began by advising on a prize-winning galaxy-themed garden at the Royal Horticultural Society’s sister show in Tatton, Cheshire, two years ago.
“We sat in the tent on the last day in the rain thinking, what shall we do next?” Bode explained. “I said, ‘What about Chelsea? And what if the theme was dark matter?’ I didn’t know how we would interpret this.”
The eventual design is based on a European Space Agency diagram of how dark matter – which cannot be seen but is believed to comprise most of the universe – can be detected by the way light bends round it.
In the garden, light is represented by long metal rods which curve elegantly around plants, standing in for something more grand than usual. “This giant bamboo represents a cluster of galaxies,” said Bode, pointing at one element.
The final top prize, for best artisan garden, went to the Sculptor’s Picnic Garden, by Graham Bodle, featuring a woodland theme including oak branches shaped like stag antlers.
In the show gardens category, a garden created by Prince Harry’s Lesotho-based charity Sentebale had to be content with one of the silver gilt awards.In the show gardens category, a garden created by Prince Harry’s Lesotho-based charity Sentebale had to be content with one of the silver gilt awards.
One of the more predictable elements of the day’s prizes came when a Hampshire-based nursery was handed one of the gold medals in the pavilion awards, its 70th consecutive such prize. Hillier Nurseries in Romsey is the most successful exhibitor in the history of the show.