Planting a Family Monsters Garden: RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2019

Our Family Monsters garden was designed by idverde’s Alistair Bayford, who talks about his visit our flowers supplier – in instalment number 3 to his series of blogs, in the lead up to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2019.

This is the one thing that has the potential to go wrong. Dealing with a living thing that is influenced by that big yellow dot in the sky and the weather that goes with it, with the added pressure of an immovable deadline means that plants and Chelsea requires nerves of steel and a safe pair of hands. Our plants are being grown by Kelways. We’ve had great experience with Dave and his team before so know that tasked with the Chelsea challenge we’ll get all we need and more.

I took a trip down to see how things were progressing with the stock, totally amazed by the work being delivered by the team for a number of designers at this year’s show; acres of plants at various stages of growth. Matt had the layout of the multi-spans in his head – my plants all neatly labelled and tucked in amongst the others. Since every plant needs something different the chances are it will see all parts of the nursery in its time before the show. Hot, cold, inside, outside and everything in between.