My take on Chelsea this year

Tom Massey’s garden for Wateraid

Hello all, a quick bonus post today as I’ve been at Chelsea all weekend and wanted to share a few highlights with you. There is always so much to see, and I find I have to go round several times to make sure I get the most out of it. The show is so huge, there are always things I miss. There’s such a sense of excitement about being there on the first day that there’s a temptation to rush around too quickly, so the number one rule for me is to take a deep breath and slow myself down, to stand and contemplate, and really take the details in. A couple of trends this year: trees, shrubs and woodland-edge planting is very much the dominant theme, with many of the gardens demonstrating how you can create atmospheric, beautiful gardens in partial or full shade. Leading on from this is a new focus on foliage planting, using contrasting textures and shapes to create drama - nowhere better demonstrated than in Tom Stuart-Smith’s garden for the NGS.