Swedish look and ‘Fen tigers’ strike Chelsea garden gold

A DESIGN combining Swedish modernism with an English cottage garden, and a display inspired by “Fen tigers” who lived off the landscape, are among the winners of the top awards at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show.

A garden based on a perfume created for Elizabeth I also scooped a top award at the show, which opened to the public yesterday.

And dozens of gold medals were handed out by the judges, including ones for a herb garden with a hidden gnome and an underwater exhibit with piranhas.

The award for best show garden was given to the Daily Telegraph’s architectural garden designed by Swedish landscape artist Ulf Nordfjell.

The best courtyard garden entry went to Giles Landscapes’ Fenland Alchemist Garden, which designers Stephen Hall and Jane Besser said was based on the lives of traditional Fen dwellers who practised alchemy.

Mr Hall said many of the materials used to build the exhibit had been reclaimed from his own home as he was doing it up – from the kitchen window right down to bricks, screws and hinges.

An “Eco-Chic” design aiming to green unloved spaces in cities won the best urban garden prize for Helios, while the most creative award went to Laurent Chetwood and Patrick Collins’s Perfume Garden filled with plants for creating scents.

A “green escape” garden for sitting in won the most creative award for Fenchurch Advisory Partners, Winchester Growers scooped the President’s Award for their dahlias, and the President’s Most Creative Award went to the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism and Newington Nurseries.

For their design the Cayman Islands entry had created an “underwater” garden, with planting to look like coral amid sand, rocks and shells.

Among those receiving gold awards for their exhibits was Jekka McVicar, despite the appearance of a gnome – a banned garden ornament at Chelsea – on her herb garden stand.

Some 157,000 visitors will come through the doors to see the wide array of gardens, exhibits and products on display at the event, which runs until Saturday.

TV presenter James May, whose entire garden – from its sculptures and flowers right down to the fish in the water feature – was made of Plasticine, did not get an official gold medal from the judges.

But in recognition of the exhibit’s “innovation and creativity” and the involvement of schoolchildren in its creation, the Royal Horticultural Society presented the display with a special award – a Plasticine gold medal.

The Chelsea Flower Show’s organiser, Bob Sweet, said that, as the garden was entered as a normal exhibit, it had been judged under the usual criteria.

The judges give up to 30% of points for the plants, with the remaining 70% achieved on other aspects.