CED Stone Excited For The Return of The RHS Chelsea Flower Show
Post date: 09 Sep, 2021
It's been a long two years since we last delivered materials to the Royal Hospital Chelsea after the cancellation of last year's show due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Twenty-eight months to be exact, taking account of the change in date and the show taking place in September for the first time in its history!
There has been much talk about the shift from May to September and the resulting change in plants. We cant tell you much about that. What we can tell you is - the change in season means nothing for stone suppliers, and this year, we are supplying the same beautiful natural stone materials we have done for the last 30 years, from 7-tonne boulders to footpath gravels.
Here are the gardens and trade stands our materials will feature in at this year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
The Yeo Valley Organic Garden
This garden takes inspiration from Yeo Valley's own six and a half acre organic garden in Somerset, one of only a few certified organic gardens in the UK.
Designed by award-winning garden designer Tom Massey, supported by Yeo Valley's Head Gardener Sarah Mead, and being built by Landscape Associates, the Yeo Valley Organic Garden promises a nature-filled experience incorporating plants and habitats familiar to Yeo Valley's family-fun organic garden which opens to visitors from May to October.
The garden features a perennial meadow bursting with scent and colour and a woodland thick with fruiting and flowering trees such as quince and native species like hazel and silver birch representing land that could be used for woodland grazing.
Walls of biochar logs and rammed earth divide the garden, representing soil health and the importance of keeping carbon in the soil. An egg-shaped, steam-bent oak hide, also representing soil fertility and health, hangs above a fast-flowing stream that runs through the garden connecting the different spaces and providing a place to relax and observe the surrounding nature. CED Stone has supplied CEDEC Red Footpath gravel for the garden which will be used to create pathways, stream edges and as a mulch to some of the planting.
The hope for Yeo Valley's first-ever show garden at RHS Chelsea is that it will encourage visitors to the show to put nature first and 'dig into organic gardening'.
Psalm 23 Garden
The Psalm 23 Garden sponsored by the Bible Society is based on the familiar Psalm 23, 'The Lord is my Shepherd' and The Bible Society hopes that this show garden will inspire churches, schools and communities nationwide to create their own Psalm 23 garden in their community, places for people to come together as the pandemic conditions ease.
Multi award-winning designer Sarah Eberle has interpreted this psalm as a journey through the garden using visual cues from the psalm in the design: the green pastures, still waters, and the valley of the shadow of death, ultimately leading to a place of restoration and sanctuary.
For this design we have supplied over 40 tonnes of materials including several large boulders sourced from the Scottish Highlands with help from our Boulder Hunter, find out more about Sarah and Mark Gregory's trips to find boulders here.
RHS COP26 Garden
This November, the UK will host - the 26th UN climate change conference of the parties (COP26). An event many consider to be the best last chance to get climate change under control. In recognition of this event, the RHS is presenting the RHS COP26 garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower this month.
The designer of this garden is Marie-Louise Agius, Balston Agius landscape architect with Swinburne Horticulture Ltd on the build. The garden splits into four quarters, Decline, Adaption, Mitigation and Balance, each of which can be explored by following a curving pathway made from recycled timber. A 'Universal Window Box' features at the centre of the garden.
Decline
The 'Decline' area focuses on gardening and construction practices that harm the environment. It demonstrates poor design and construction methods such as a lack of pollinating plants and paved over gardens and driveways.
Adaptation
This quarter of the garden shows how we can adapt in the face of climate change and become more environmentally aware when designing and landscaping gardens. In this area, you will find a drought-tolerant meadow and drought-tolerant desert plants able to stand up to the extreme weather climate change will cause.
Mitigation
Offering ideas for individuals and communities to support the environment when designing outdoor spaces, the mitigation area is a garden to inspire change and exhibits features we can incorporate into our gardens that encourage wildlife.
Balance
The final quarter, 'balance', is a modern cottage garden with a wide range of plants suited to withstand the severe storms and high temperatures expected in the future. It demonstrates how we can create beautiful and environmentally-friendly gardens by working together with nature.
Our West Drayton - London West Depot are supplying bespoke cut Grey and Buff Sovereign Sandstone Paving for this design.
BALI Trade Stand
As an award-winning BALI affiliate member, we were more than happy to help with the BALI trade stand.
For those of you who don't know, The British Association of Landscape Industries (BALI) is the UK's leading Trade Association representing all landscape professionals - from design, build and maintenance to supply, training and education. Over 900 accredited members represent some of the best businesses in the landscaping industry.
Olivia McCullough, Marketing and Communications Manager tells us,
"We are very much looking forward to attending RHS Chelsea Flow Show to promote the services of our Accredited members. We have teamed up with a number of Association members to create our trade stand and we are hugely appreciative of their support."
The product we are supplying for the stand is WILD Stone tier cladding, not currently stocked at CED Stone Landscape Depots, but we will be bringing it to our customers soon.
The Guide Dogs’ 90th Anniversary Garden
The Guide Dogs' 90th Anniversary Garden is designed by Adam Woolcott and Jonathan Smith and is being built by Conway Landscapes. The garden celebrates 90 years of the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and tells the story of the first guide dogs, German Shepherds and their owners who were veterans blinded in the First World War. The garden is set in the 1930s and illustrates the emotional journey of someone with sight loss and the joy and liberation a guide dog can give.
The garden has lots of sensory elements, tall grasses and a small stream provide sound, and there will be lots of scented flowers. The planting will also have bold blocks of colour that are an element that also helps partially sighted people enjoy the garden.
Two metal sculptures feature in the garden, one of a veteran, sad and isolated. And a second of a veteran now liberated by their guide dog.
For this garden, CED Stone supplied Slabby Sandstone Rockery.
The BBC One Show and RHS Garden Of Hope
The BBC One Show and RHS, Garden of Hope, illustrates how gardening and growing plants provides a sense of hope and joy as we look forward to enjoying the fruits of our labour as our plants flourish and grow.
The garden's designer is award-winning garden designer and TV presenter Arit Anderson, who has embraced the show's change of date and selected plants to celebrate the season. There will be trees showing autumnal colours, and the planting will have a natural feel, with rich green planting turning more colourful as you travel through the garden. We are delighted to have supplied Golden Buff Footpath gravel for the garden, not a product we stock as standard but a product that we felt fit Arit's requirements.
A sculpture commissioned by Charlie Whinney is a centrepiece of Arit's design. The beautiful steam-bent wooden sculpture will twist and flow through the garden incorporating seating areas and a child's swing, creating the feeling of a big hug.
The BBC One Show viewers are also invited to contribute to the garden by submitting a word that sums up just how important their gardens have been to them over the past year. Some of these words will be inscribed in the wooden sculpture.
Most importantly, after the show, the garden will live on at the Mother and Baby Unit Rosewood (part of Kent and Medway NHS Social Care Partnership Trust) to provide a place of hope for the woman and their babies to spend time. Mark Gregory and his team at award-winning Landform Consultants will be building the garden both at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and the Rosewood Mother and Baby Unit.
The 60° East: A Garden Between Continents
The 60° East: A Garden Between Continents, sponsored by Bodmin Jail, is designed by two designers, Ekaterina Zasukhina, based in Russia and London based landscape architect Carly Kershaw.
Ekaterina lives in Yekaterinburg, a city at the foot of the Ural Mountains on the border between Europe and Asia. The garden celebrates the beauty of this local landscape.
Photo Credit: www.todiscoverrussia.com/ural-mountains-divide-russia-into-europe-and-asia/
The garden, being built by Cube1994, captures the magic of the Ural Mountains, with lots of stacked rocks and cascading falls flowing into a pool. Ekaterina has chosen our Irish Urbalreagh Blue for the pathways and pond in the design. This aggregate blends well with the colourful mix of European and Asian planting palettes and the mica quartzite brought from the Ural Mountains for the garden.
Three figurative sculptures by artist Penny Hardy, made from rusting metal parts, including machinery from places around the Ural Mountains, will also feature. And a bridge engraved with a quote that references the gardens core message. “It’s about the passing of the generations, and the fact that that we are transitory. We all come and go through the world, and it’s easy to forget about nature and the bigger picture – but the Earth remains forever.”
And from show garden sculptures to sculptors trade stands.
CED Stone are delighted to be supplying the trade stands of some highly acclaimed sculptors this year.
John O'Connor Trade Stand
Personal, emotional and often poetic, John's works see the blending of the physical with the emotional in the exaggeration of the figure. His works manage to reveal an intimate examination of our reflective self.
John has requested Black Basalt Aggregate to dress his trade stand.
Matt Maddocks Trade Stand
Matt Maddocks, much like ourselves, has a love of stone and draws from its natural form to influence, inform and inspire his pieces. He chooses each stone for its natural affinity with his designs.
Matt Maddocks has also opted for Black Basalt Aggregate for his pathways.
Powderhall Bronze
Edinburgh based Powderhall Bronze team are experts in sculpture, metal working and engineering specialising in Scaling and Casting of models and also in high quality Metal Fabrication.
Scottish Beach Pebbles and Cobbles are being used to dress this stand.
We would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone the very best of luck for 'the judging' and we look forward to seeing your wonderful creations next week.