Modernist gardens won the top awards at this year's Chelsea Flower Show as the credit crunch heralds in a return to simple designs
Photographs: Kay Montgomery
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The annual Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show, which takes pace in London every year in May, sets the latest international gardening trends, features the newest and most desirable gardening products and creates an explosion of colours and scents.
From the scale of the impressive show gardens, designed by leading international landscape architects, to the innovative and intimate urban and courtyard gardens, there is inspiration for all. In the huge tent that comprises the Great Pavilion, there are international exhibits from across the world and the best collection of world-class blooms, fruits and vegetables to be found on the planet.
The 42 gardens created at Chelsea in 2009 were divided into three sections.
- In the large 'show gardens', leading international landscape architects typically set new trends that are emulated throughout the world.
- The 'urban gardens' present designs suitable for small townhouses and each year designers come up with an increasingly remarkable array of clever solutions to the restrictions in space.
- The 'courtyard gardens' present designs suitable for small spaces located in a rural or semi-rural setting. Very often they act as a platform for up-and-coming landscape designers.
Trends at Chelsea
What directions will the garden designers of the next decade follow? Clear patterns and concerns were evident at Chelsea this year. The recession forced many designers to offer a host of realistically low budget 'credit crunch' gardens and the continuing concern regarding global warming encouraged many designers to incorporate recycling, carbon gardening and eco-friendly ideas into their gardens.
This is a guide to the trends found at Chelsea Flower Show in 2009:
Neo-modernism
The credit crunch is making simple garden designs more desirable, which is why modernist and neo-modernist gardens, which are by definition simple in structure, took the top awards at this year's show. Modernist design typically comprises a garden laid out to an asymmetrical plan, with low plantings or clipped hedging en masse interspersed with architectural plants, and hard landscaping in modern materials.
In neo-modernist gardens, the plantings are more abundant and luxurious, and have a distinct naturalistic ambience. The hard landscaping materials often tend towards the industrial, such as steel or rusted metal. The resulting contrasts of texture are highly stimulating.
For his best-on-show neo-modernist Daily Telegraph garden, Swedish designer, Ulf Nordjell used very strong, but simple lines to create a black steel patio overlooking a water feature and grey-white garden. Organic modernism - seen this year in The Cancer Research UK Garden - is less common and features curvilinear organic shapes.
Environmentally responsible gardening
Global warming, sustainability and gardening for nature were themes seen in many of the show gardens, emphasising the current concern for reusing, recycling and reclaiming items in and for the garden. There were also exhibits in the Grand Pavilion dedicated to sustainability, water recycling and environmental education.
Nature gardens continue to be popular, with one designer even raising human footfall above ground level to minimise impact on the ecosystem below. Global warming is inspiring garden designers to create gardens with water smart plantings and places to harvest water.
Green roofs planted up with wildflowers to help reduce surface water run-off, pools that retain harvested water from the roof, beehives built into garden walls, nature-friendly habitats and drought-resistant plantings were all to be seen at Chelsea this year. New exhibits included wetland gardens, as well as a garden designed specifically to soak up excessive rainfall.
Gardens of remembrance
Against a recessionary background, many of the garden designers chose to look back in history as if to remind everyone of the influence and importance of plants to society. This was particularly true of a very large perfume garden which was recreated using all the plants that were incorporated into one of the earliest perfume recipes used by Queen Elizabeth 1, nearly 400 years ago. Her interest in scented plants was to launch an industry that has since thrived over the centuries.
The importance of medicinal plants to society was also honoured in the Alchemists garden which included centuries-old plants used today by pharmacists and traditional healers across the world. French, Swedish and Japanese gardens also reflected therapeutic rustic visions of gardens influenced by the sunny Mediterranean, the lakes of Scandinavia and the minimalist Zen gardens of Japan.
Home-grown
Sales of vegetable seeds in Europe and North America are up between 300% and 500% this summer. Against a background of the credit crunch, growing your own herbs, fruit and vegetables has never been more fashionable. Whilst there were more vegetables to be seen at Chelsea than ever before, the most socially influential garden was a joint venture between a government agency for the homeless and the Eden Project, a horticultural ark in southwest Britain. A group of ex-prisoners, homeless people and those excluded from society grew over 10 000 plants for this decorative vegetable exhibit.
The underlying theme of the garden was to promote the regenerative power of plants as they echo the journey of life for so many people. A far more upmarket view of food gardening was taken in the Freshly Prepped by Aralia garden, an outdoor kitchen, common in Australia and North America. A wall of lettuces, a lemon tree, strawberries hanging in colanders and herbs for tea offered the ultimate space for entertaining and preparing food. Having fun outdoors by growing veggies and herbs was an educational theme that appeared in many gardens, reflecting the Royal Horticultural Society's current campaign to introduce school children to the joys of gardening.
Living walls
Vertical gardening is very fashionable in Europe where space for gardens is limited. Living walls afford more room for edible food and a greater range of plants in the tiny urban spaces of today, or a carbon sink in polluted towns. Walls of lettuce or cherry tomatoes were used in vegetable gardens, whilst a carpet of different coloured textured ground covers provided the backdrop to at least six gardens.
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Tutu Peace Garden
Every garden at Chelsea this year had to formally declare what would become of it after breakdown. Many of the bigger exhibits will be relocated into the gardens of wealthy patrons, whilst others are being donated to children's homes, hospices or horticultural colleges. Of particular interest to South Africans is the garden named, Dawn Chorus. Built by the Chris Beardshaw Mentoring Scholarship Team, the exhibit celebrates the vibrancy of a garden at dawn and follows the first rays of light as they strike a prismatic water sculpture.
In August 2009, Dawn Chorus was transferred to a community in Lewisham to become part of the newly build 'Tutu Peace Garden' to be opened this summer by Archbishop Emeritus, Desmond Tutu. A 'feel good' link to the Chelsea for gardening enthusiasts in South Africa.
