At the Chelsea Build

Chilhuly glass on show at Chelsea Barracks

I spent an amazing couple of days at RHS Chelsea helping Naomi with the planting tasks for her Flood Resilient garden. This is what I learned along the way...

  • Have hi viz, will travel! Luckily I didn't need to borrow NAH's heavy duty railworking hi viz jacket and trousers (on standby in case it really poured with rain), nor did I need a hard hat as I was working after the main construction phase. I had to take an online site safety course and test before being allowed on site
  • It's good to travel comfortably and wait until the last moment to don your heavy steel capped boots. Even better when you find a bench at Chelsea Barracks to do so whilst admiring their fab Chihuly glass installation at their Spring Festival
  • Have a spare pair of steel capped boots available when the rubber tread on your day one boots drops off on the way home. Luckily I was by the Barracks when this happened and could swiftly change into my trainers. Even luckier is my shoe size is almost the same as NAH's so I could borrow his boots for day two.
  • Be amazed at the fab workout those steel capped boots give your legs. There's a lot of standing and walking involved when working on the build
  • The key task prior to planting is plant 'floofing'. This involves picking off dead or damaged stems or leaves or dying/dead flowers so everything looks in tippity top show condition. Snip any brown grass stem tips on the diagonal so they look more natural
  • Enormous stacks of bags of peat-free compost provide the ideal 'workbench' with a sneaky seat thrown in for plant floofing
  • There are loads of Danish trolleys stacked with plants crammed onto the show garden's site - watch out when working on the roadside trolleys as you will be inches away from the constant stream of carefully choreographed delivery lorries and works traffic passing by
  • Be completely flexible - fetching team coffees and food is just as important as any actual work on the show garden itself
  • Be prepared for emergency plant hunting duties around the show and set off armed with a list of possible swaps to offer. There's a great show camaraderie and people will help if they can. Plants may also be available to buy from the nurseries exhibiting in the Great Pavilion. The humble ivy turned out to be the most sought after plant during my time there as it's a great background filler
  • Do spend some time admiring work in progress elsewhere on the site and be prepared for visitors coming to see what you're up to
  • Feel ridiculously pleased when the strawberry kokedama you improvised for the fence planters is deemed good enough to stay
  • If the garden design includes a compost bin, use it
  • Be prepared for extremes of weather. My day one was extremely hot and sunny followed by a rainy day two which instantly turned the site into a sea of mud. I'm still getting the mud off my holdall even though I stashed it well out of the way in the secret work area behind the garden
  • After two days collapse at home with astonishment at how the professionals keep up the insane level of work involved for 2 to 3 weeks. And that's before the week of the show itself where several of the exhausted team will be on hand to chat to everyone visiting the show

Here's a pictorial view of all of the above...

Chelsea build collage

I forgot to mention there'll be all kinds of random interruptions for interviews or filming. The collage above shows Naomi and Ed being interviewed and photographed for a feature in The Sunday Times. I've also sneaked in a photo of me with Naomi bottom right to show I was there. Bucket List item achieved √ 😄

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