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32 <strong>Style</strong> | landscaping<br />
Trends from<br />
Chelsea<br />
Landscape architect Craig Wilson takes<br />
us through the top trends from the UK’s<br />
RHS Chelsea Flower Show.<br />
It would be hard to argue there’s a more influential event<br />
on the international garden design calendar than the Royal<br />
Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show. The <strong>2016</strong> event<br />
was no exception, and now is a good chance to catch up on<br />
what was trending and what ideas could be applied to our<br />
Antipodean gardening and landscape context.<br />
Commentators have pointed out the following design<br />
elements as key markers of the <strong>2016</strong> Chelsea garden aesthetic.<br />
Large rocks were used to create both structure and feature<br />
in many display gardens. This was in both natural and altered<br />
forms, and included a 44-tonne granite cube – with an almost<br />
completely hidden internal rejuvenating woodland – in the ‘M<br />
& G garden’ by Cleve West. Catherine McDonald used large,<br />
perfectly rounded smooth stones in the middle of her ‘Hartley<br />
Botanic Garden’ to contrast her selected delicate perennials.<br />
Many of the designers employed the trusted use of clipped<br />
evergreens to create a link between the built structure of the<br />
displays and the often naturalistic plantings. An element of<br />
formality was also noted with the use of ‘pleaching’ (entwining<br />
branches to form a hedge) to elevate the clipped forms and<br />
create strongly defined spaces.<br />
Garden sculpture was used in many displays to great effect.<br />
While looking amazing, it is hard to surpass the ability of a wellcrafted<br />
garden sculpture to communicate its artist’s message<br />
and elicit an emotional response in the viewer. John Everiss in<br />
the ‘Meningitis Now Futures Garden’ beautifully creates a sense<br />
of empathy for sufferers of the disease by depicting a wooden<br />
figure caught in the middle of a stone wall trying to break free.<br />
Responsible plant selections were also well represented with<br />
an ‘arid’, low-water garden, which took out Best in Show. ‘The<br />
Telegraph Garden’, designed by Andy Sturgeon, made reference<br />
to geological processes, climate change and the possibility of<br />
garden design being responsive to the environment.<br />
ABovE<br />
‘The Telegraph<br />
Garden’.<br />
These elements can, and have, all been successfully applied<br />
to landscape and garden design in our Canterbury context. A<br />
show garden is never meant to be real and in reality only lasts a<br />
few days, but if well-conceived the underlying principles may be<br />
timeless in their relevance, regardless of setting.<br />
ABovE<br />
‘M & G<br />
Garden’ by<br />
Cleve West.<br />
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