Chelsea Flower Show, Part 2

Back with more from the CFS! After the show gardens, the Great Pavilion is probably the main attraction of the show. For true gardeners, this is the heart of the show, since it is in fact a flower show despite being better known now as a garden design show. The Great Pavilion is the place where nurseries and various societies from around the world get to showcase their plants. Everything from hundreds of roses in the David Austen Roses display, to fungi from the British Mycological Society, exotic cacti, japanese maples, bonsai, grasses and many, many more. The most amazing part is just incredibly perfect every single plant is. There is not one flaw on any of them - including the carnivorous plants below which were very interesting and were put to dramatic use in the wetland show garden I showed in the last post. It must take an incredible amount of work and planning to have all these plants ready for just one week in spring.

There were several impressive displays. I really loved the Kirstenbosch, South Africa display - they had some amazing plants (again grown to perfection) that you don't get to see every day.

The Cayman Islands Dept of Tourism and Newington Nurseries had a very creative display designed as an underwater landscape but obviously just using regular non-aquatic plants. They did great job with plant selection and lighting - not sure that the picture really does it justice. I think this one got a Gold Medal.

Some nurseries put together really elaborate displays featuring hundreds, if not thousands of plants, like Roger Platts Garden Design and Nurseries.

Jekka's Herb Farm also did a great job using only medicinal herbs for their display.