The Chelsea Flower Show 2023
This week, some of the Beth Chatto Team headed to the Chelsea Flower Show- the highlight of the horticultural calendar.
With so much to see it will be difficult to share everything, but here are a few of our highlights from this year's show.
Heroines of Horticulture
It was wonderful to see Beth celebrated in the Heroines of Horticulture installation, recognising her contribution to horticulture and her influence on the show.
'Her naturalistic planting and wildlife friendly gardens were considered unusual at the time, with one judge reportedly wanting her disqualified saying her plants were all weeds. She won ten gold medals at Chelsea and now her legacy can be seen throughout the showground.'The Future of Horticulture
Production Assistant Megan spotted herself on the 'Future of Horticulture' wall in the Great Pavilion which features those who are making an impact within the industry. Megan has only been with us for a few months but has already made it her mission to research and adapt our propagation techniques, making the process as efficient and sustainable as possible. Megan is a fantastic addition to the Beth Chatto Team and we are excited to see what the future holds for her.
Benton Irises
A garden that we were all extremely excited to visit was Sarah Price's Nurture Landscapes Garden, inspired by plantsman and painter Cedric Morris. The garden was influenced by Cedric's paintings and his home, Benton End in Suffolk. The key flowers featured throughout the Garden were Benton irises, bred by Cedric himself and the subject of many of his paintings.
During their long friendship, Cedric gifted many plants to Beth including some of his distinctive irises. Unfortunately after Cedric's death, many of his irises were lost from his garden and thought gone forever. Sarah Cook, who was previously the Head Gardener at Sissinghurst, made it her mission during retirement to find all the missing irises and bring them back into cultivation. Over the past few years, Production Senior Marc has also made it his mission to build up our collection of Benton Irises adding to the few gifted by Cedric to Beth. Many of the irises featured in Sarah's show garden have been propagated from our collection by Marc. After the show has finished, the plants and materials will be relocated to Benton End and used in the restoration of the house and garden. It is very fitting that these special irises will be making their way back to Cedric's garden so long after they were gifted to Beth.
To find out more about the Benton irises in our collection, CLICK HERE.
Read about how to propagate and care for bearded irises HERE.
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