Landscape & Urban Design Issue 37 2019 | Page 44

BUILDING A CHELSEA GARDEN Getting these right is ultimately As many as 45 people might be what brings the designer’s vision to involved in creating a show garden life, so as well as carrying with it an behind the scenes in the months enormous amount of responsibility, it leading up to the show but you will can take ridiculous amounts of time only see about 12 people on site for the working out the best ways to construct 20-day build. them. By Dan Riddleston, Managing Director, Bowles & Wyer It’s over 25 years since I built my first RHS Chelsea garden and in that time I’ve been involved with about 15 gardens from large Main Avenue Show Gardens to the smaller artisan plots. It doesn’t matter how big or small they are, building an RHS Chelsea garden is a unique experience and completely different to building a domestic garden. Show gardens have to embody a sense of theatre and often involve incredibly complex structures and techniques that no-one ever sees and that would never be built in a domestic setting. 44 Landscape & Urban Design Issue 37 2019 This year I’m working with designer Building an RHS Chelsea Garden Helen Elks-Smith on the Warner’s begins months before we arrive on Distillery Garden. It features a site. The task of building a garden central pavilion created out of from scratch, on site, in just 20 days is drystone walling but, with two large very challenging so like most Chelsea cantilevered roofs and a series contractors, we build a lot of the more of complex water features, one complicated elements off-site where that brings with it its fair share we can trial them with specialists of challenges when it comes to to ensure quality and accuracy. Our construction. aim is always to shorten the time we spend on the hard landscape elements on site, so that the planting can be completed ahead of time and can have a chance to settle and establish before the garden is judged. Building in advance not only ensures the best quality of build, but it saves valuable time later. As the contractor responsible for making sure the garden is ready on time, we treat it as a military exercise. We have a strict programme of works that sets out the sequence and timing of all operations, from those that take several days to those that can be done in a couple of hours.