First things first, the organisers of the Bella awards for blogs (http://herbalmatters.blogspot.com/2009/05/bella-blog-award.html) have asked me to announce that my previous blog “Wong Footed” has won one of their awards. As if I could keep quiet about it even if I was entirely sure what it’s all about, which I’m not. However, being a naturally shy and modest person, I will now get on with the next one.
People who don’t know me very well say “why don’t you blog
The answer is because it would inevitably be seen by those who know me better as a bad case of sour grapes. After all, it is more than forty years since I learnt as an art student that your average embalmed lizard is far better at turning its aesthetic visions in to hard reality than I could ever aspire to. Nevertheless having pre-empted the snotty comments by writing the above, I told Jenny “I am writing a
You can’t” she replied, “people will see it as sour grapes”. But then she’s a gardener and, as everyone knows, I hate gardening. You can tell the difference between us, last night I asked her “Do you think the garden in front of my house is a tranquil natural paradise or a chaotic tip?” and back came the answer, quick as a flash “a chaotic tip”
It’s not just the repetitious weeding and the hard slog of turning over clay that I loathe, it is the mangling of nature, the pummelling of soft flowing lines into artificial formal shapes and the breeding of new varieties of plants unrecognisable by bees, and devoid of scent. Not surprisingly my favourites at
Out they all trundled on to our screens then, the Quirky Northerner, followed by the hyper-enthusiastic geyser-gushing horti-heavyweight with genuine mook oop her fingernails (Go on Dear, surprise us, say something’s crap for once instead of raving over every damn petal). Too heavy for you? She is counterbalanced by The Dancer whose sole purpose is apparently to adorn the posters tacked up by sad old men behind the doors of their allotment huts. Then there’s Jolly Joe. Actually I don’t know what Joe does except, according to the writer of another blog, feature in the fantasies of lonely housewives. My theory was that after Tatton, the Beeb stores them away, wrapped up in tissue paper in shoe boxes. Then, during March they are all warmed up with hair driers and start practising their “spontaneous” jokes like a lot of cheery Blue Peters. However, avid telly watchers tell me that they are on the box all the time and don’t really hibernate at all. This year, they’re joined by a new one, a touchy-feely blonde, I am not sure whether in real life she’s a soap star or a footballer’s wife, but she does what she’s there for quite adequately, - to provide an element of vox pop. Although I find that this self-conscious eschewing of “elitism” sits curiously alongside the acclaim given to gold medals, that’s what it’s all about these days
At first sight this can not be a bad thing, more subs revenue for the RHS and a wider market for our plants, but sadly a tangle of mixed weeds on an abandoned industrial site is often more environmentally friendly than what the conservationists call “the desert of over-manicured suburban gardens”. It was therefore good to see Jekka who has an undeniable popular appeal promoting “weeds”. It reminded me of one of the first Chelseas I ever attended when, as I was walking past Beth Chatto’s stand, one of her builders plaintively said to me “ someone has just called all our plants “weeds”, you don’t think they are weeds, do you?” .In those days, I barely knew a “Weed” from an oak tree, but I did know that Beth Chatto lived with other deities on Mount Olympus and I was so flattered that one of her staff should ask my opinion that I have been all for an element of demos in horticulture ever since. Not that the poor old Beeb has quite caught on to the difference between popular appeal and dumbing down, so we had the Quirky Northerner explaining to us that x acres “to you and me” is the equivalent to yy pitches. You speak for yourself mate, I have no idea how big a football pitch is, but it seems to be the standard unit of area in chav-land. All a far cry from the days when the agenda at Arab Horse Society’s AGM was rushed through so that we could all meet up again in the Floral Pavilion shortly afterwards. In those days the only difficulty experienced by those attending, would be in visualising so small an area as an individual acre.
Then there is the business of chatting to “slebs” rather than showing plants. I know this thoroughly irritates the garden fanatics but gardening is a fairly solitary activity and many beginners yearn to discuss their ideas or get endorsement just as I did from Beth Chatto’s bloke. I admit to getting a bit tetchy when the phone rings before breakfast and during dinner rather than just every five minutes in between, but I remember that great entrepreneur, Reg Peplow’s remark when he was running the BHTA in the seventies that there are many lonely people who just want a chat. It’s not being cynical (Oh all right, yes it is) to say that the trick is to see the lonely people as a sales opportunity. At least this year, in addition to the usual unrecognisable “d-listers” we have been regaled with Lumley, Mirren and Havers whose articulacy is genetically programmed in. We all know that thesps who can string two words together without a script or an autocue are as rare as bananas in the penguin pool and so it was good to see them even though they had nothing particularly interesting to say about gardens.
On the gardens themselves, those that seem to have drawn the most comment are the winning “Daily Telegraph” garden by Ulf Nordfjell and the Plasticine garden. Without explaining how or why, people including the designer himself, claim that the Telegraph garden is inspired by Botticelli, perhaps they are just trying to get us to discuss it? True Botticelli painted on a rigid geometrical framework,- take the multi-triangular arrangement of "Mars & Venus” in the Nat Gal as an example, but being a very clever artist, he concealed the scaffolding under some very exuberant and seemingly informal floral arrangements, which wasn’t apparent in Nordfjell’s design. I rather suspect the comment may have been based on something to do with the planes and lighting in “Primavera”. Anyone else got some ideas? On second thoughts, does anyone really give a toss? Then there is the plasticine garden which has predictably caused squeals of horror from the blue rinsed brigade. However unlike the ghastly tellytubby garden perpetrated by that Irishman last year, wax-modelled plants have an honourable precedent and those nineteenth century examples created for teaching still hold treasured positions in the collections of Italian botanic gardens. Again, scarcely beautiful, though undeniably clever.
A bit of shock and awe can’t be a bad thing, although one exhibitor (Hart Nurseries) said that when they had changed their formula last year they dropped a medal so now they are back with their established gold-winning set-up. To what extent this ossification is the fault of the media or that of the RHS is debateable, but, like a 1940’s sergeant, (or a channel five documentary) the wretched media tells us what it’s going to show us, shows us, repeats it and eventually tells us what it has shown us. Worse, it’s always the same exhibitors doing the same thing Yawn, yawn!. Surely I am not the only one who, faced with yet another permutation of carrots and leeks against a black cloth, goes away to top up his whiskey? A colleague reminded me yesterday that Ted Riddle of Cheshire Herbs won endless golds for his stunning designs but rarely got a mention on the box, But Ted, rather than being an obsessive self-publicist, was an edgy bloke who lived for his displays and allowed them to do the talking for him. Thus by Friday, it was with some relief that I turned away from Chelsea to “Acis and Galatea” on BBC 4; the little androgynes from the Royal Ballet hopping around in their thermal underwear, were initially a bit disconcerting but de Niese came over like a golden Greek Goddess, and then there was THAT duet.. The irresistible “Happy, happy, Ha-a-appy”. I have seen a well known soprano apparently on the point of wetting herself with sheer ecstasy prior to performing it. The urge to join in really is almost over-whelming though of course, one wouldn’t want to do it in front of the servants nor indeed unless one was tanked up on at least three large whiskeys. So I did and then turned over to “Have I Got News” where, lo and behold, there was Borage, Jekka’s celebrity gnome. If she isn’t careful, the blighter will upstage her.
The preceding paragraph prompts a momentary thought about the back ground music, In the past it has been of the sort used by British forces to extract confessions from alleged terrorists so I wonder whether the Beeb has taken on board the public’s criticism and muted it this year. Either that or I am getting even deafer Given that the R3 early morning programme has been turned into a no-go area by the music being constantly interrupted by all-too-easily-heard poets droning on in thick regional accents, I suspect the former. Oh well that’s Chelsea dead and dusted away for another year and now on to Hampton Court where this year we have a presence not just in a show garden but also in the palace grounds.