The Chelsea Diaries: Spring at last

With warmer sunny days the plants are now romping away. I am feeling much happier that we shall have a good range to choose from once planting commences in a few weeks time. The lavenders and roses are showing flower bud and these were the varieties giving me most concern a few weeks ago.  Lots of bracts are forming on the Cornus too though they will be variable due to the last years wet summer – yes even now this is having an effect on flowering plants.

Thankfully we can now ease up on the heat and light for the small numbers that required it and provide as much ventilation as possible to ensure the growth is sturdy enough to withstand the trip to Chelsea.

This week has been even more packed than usual with interviews, last minute plant sourcing and sorting the plant stock on the nursery. Without fail, every day Shane and I monitor each group of plants and agree whether it should be moved to another growing house, spaced, potted on, given extra feed and so on. One of the keys to success is to move them around as soon as necessary and this is dependent on the weather conditions.

I managed to find time to visit suppliers of perennials, roses and trees in East Anglia this week to check progress. Apart from some grasses everything is well under way. The general feeling in the nursery industry is that the season is several weeks behind but I have every confidence that we shall catch up by mid May with perhaps a few plants lagging behind.

Excitement is building for the centenary celebrations at Chelsea and as this is the theme of the M&G Garden there has been considerable media interest. Next week will see me visiting two beautiful Sussex gardens with a film crew. It will be pleasant interlude for me be completely away from the office and nurseries for a couple of days. However the pressure has been on to see that everything is under way back at the nurseries. At least I shall be leaving it all in the good hands of my team.

With only just over a week to go now before we load all the materials and head for the show I shall be very pleased to get started on site.

For more information about the sponsors of the garden visit www.mandgchelsea.co.uk