THIS week is Chelsea Flower Show, and with this glorious sunshine it seems everyone is in the mood to be out in the garden — including the team at The Garden House in Buckland Monachorum. Here, The Garden House team reflect on how Chelsea influences garden fashion and the rare plants in the garden.

IT is Chelsea Flower Show time again and this year it seems that the Himalayan poppy (Meconopsis) is going to be a star.  Each year a ’vogue’ plant appears in show gardens and gardeners rush to buy it and have a bit of Chelsea for themselves.

The Garden House at Buckland Monachorum has a long history with the Himalayan poppy and it is one of a number of eye-catchers that help thread streams of blue flowers through the garden in early summer. 

Lionel Fortescue, who bought The Garden House back in 1945 and proceeded to create what was to become one of the finest gardens in Britain, was well known for being fanatical about colour and ruthlessly removing any plant that wasn’t performing well.

In 1961 he was being interviewed for Country Life magazine; as the interviewer stopped to admire a large clump of what were then, extremely unusual poppies, Lionel leapt into the bed, hauled out an offending plant and threw it over his shoulder for a gardener to pick up.

The interviewer was stunned and Lionel was quick to tell him, ’sorry, but they are the wrong shade of blue.’

Back to today and after five decades, the blue poppies share the blue limelight at The Garden House in May and into June with wisteria, camassia and iris.

Within the ten acres of The Garden House there are many rare and unusual plants; Camassia ’John Treasure’ is a particularly rich blue that has made its’ home amongst the peonies by the tea room.

It’s not just Chelsea that influences gardening fashion. Monty Don tends to mention camassia on the Gardener’s World TV programme. Each year when he does, sales of the plant go through the roof!

Irises are always popular at Chelsea as they flower in late May and into June and thanks to new hybrids there is a kaleidoscope of colours. The fashion for irises is gathering pace, so that’s certainly a plant to include in your garden if you want to keep up with the neighbours.

For inspiration you can see irises in a number of places through the garden, from drift planting in the summer garden to marginal planting at the lake and all the borders in between.

Wisteria is always a show stopper. Perhaps you saw that wisteria was voted one of the top five best-loved plants by Gardener’s World magazine readers?

Visitors to the garden are always stopping in their tracks to take photos of the huge mature wisteria that drape over ancient walls and buildings.

We’re lucky to have such a colourful, plant-packed garden to give us gardening inspiration. Who knows, maybe one year a garden designer will create a Chelsea garden that is inspired by The Garden House?!

The Garden House is an RHS partner garden. It is at Buckland Monachorum, near Yelverton and is open every day.

 

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