Spirit of George - at Chelsea

From Life to Life, A Garden for George

Perfect weather for the Chelsea Flower Show today. Back in the 1980s and then again in the 1990s, I happened to be working with charities, each of which had a garden at Chelsea. Apart from all the work before Chelsea, it meant going along on press day, usually with a celebrity in tow, and hoping that we would a) get a gold medal and b) wake up the next day to find that our garden was featured in every newspaper. And on Gardeners' World. It won't surprise you to hear that, as far as the newspapers were concerned, the likelihood of this was far more dependent on who the celebrity was rather than the garden design. Generally speaking, the more minor the celebrity, the more they behaved like a prima donna. No surprise there then.

Fundraising directors always expected us to produce A-list celebrities, just like that.

"You've got contacts," said one particularly pushy chap. "Get Frank Sinatra to come over; tell him we'll get a rose named after him."

"I don't have contacts like that," I muttered.

"Well, get Joan Collins then."

Amazingly, we did manage to get Joan Collins, who agreed to come along at some ungodly hour and dazzle the photographers. We rang all the newspaper picture desks, the picture agencies, magazines, televison news and anyone else we could think of and prepared dozens of press packs. And then the day before, Joannie pulled out, clash of engagements and all that. At the last minute, a singer and dancer who was appearing in a West End musical agreed to take her place. Lovely woman although, sadly, not in the same celebrity league as Our Joan. One or two photographers wandered up to the garden and took a few shots in a rather desultory fashion and wandered off again; they had better pickings elsewhere. Needless to say, our hoofer did not make the front pages or any pages come to that, although the garden did pick up a medal.

Chelsea is hard work for everyone involved and after a few days - whoosh - it's all gone. I don't miss it, well not much; however I would love to have been there this year to see From Life to Life: a Garden for George, designed by Yvonne Innes as a tribute to George Harrison. George was a passionate gardener and a regular visitor to Chelsea and the designer really has captured something of his spirit. And although it's not obvious in this picture, the garden is full of colour and joy - and flowers, yes! - unlike so many of this year's über-cool winning gardens, which are very linear and muted. I do like a bit of wildness and exuberance in a garden, especially in England, where we have so many days when we are covered by a grey lid. I like being able to stick my nose in great big old roses and being surrounded by masses of scented plants. More cottage garden than stately home. (I know my place.)

But the garden for George - that's something special. Shine on, George.

(BBC2's day-by-day coverage of this year's Chelsea Flower Show starts here.)

Comments

[Jay]

Oh, isn't that lovely! I'd like to have seen that. I was very fond of George. Sweet man.

[Janet]

I've always enjoyed Kipling's poem The Glory of the Garden -

http://www.poetseers.org/the_great_poets/british_poets/kipling_poems/glory_of_the_garden

especially the couplet -

"Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing:--"Oh, how beautiful!" and sitting in the shade"

[Barbara]

Apparently, the Queen told Olivia Harrison that George was 'fondly remembered'. How true. He was always my favourite Beatle.