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Chelsea Flower Show 2010: Places of Change

Monday at the Chelsea Flower Show is an odd day. There are plenty of celebrities (or people wearing enough make-up and expensive looking clothes to masquerade as them, anyway), plenty of very important people (Michael Heseltine spotted wandering past the M&G garden), and one really important person (who has the whole showground cleared for Her Pleasure).

But standing among the crowds of incredibly important people were a couple of homeless men, staring at a garden.
This wasn’t just any garden: it was a garden they had created. It was the largest garden in the whole show, and as they watched camera crews clambering past the vegetables they had planted, and flowers they had sown, I’d like to think these men felt prouder of themselves than any dolled-up-to-the-nines TV presenter.


It seems only right to start F&F’s Chelsea week coverage with the Places of Change garden. This huge, sprawling garden, designed by homeless people in discussion with the Eden Project’s Paul Stone, is one of a kind. It isn’t encrusted in £20 million worth of jewels. There is no Indian sandstone. There are very few unusual plants. You won’t find this sort of show garden anywhere else in the grounds of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea.

When I chatted to two of the homeless service users who had worked together on different parts of the Places of Change garden, I realised just how different this project was. This time last year, they were stuck. There didn’t seem to be any future for either of them. But both broke out into broad smiles as they told me that ‘things were definitely on the up now.’ One of them had been offered a job today. The other hopes his experience of tending the plants will land him a stable job in horticulture.

There are many different zones to the garden, but threaded through them all is a commitment to biodiversity and renewal. Most of the plants are perennials, and are still in their pots, ready to be taken back to gardens at the end of the week. There is a beautiful shelter made from offcuts of timber, a shed made from old plastic bottles, and a huge wooden spine that runs through the whole garden. Service users and their key workers have pinned wishes for the future onto a lime tree, planted an enormous vegetable patch, and painted a message of hope onto an old door.


This raffish garden brims with character and is a million miles away from the gardens that surround it. I’m not sure I could compare it to the Daily Telegraph garden, or that beautiful M&G garden, and I’m not sure I should. Because while I adore those high-end, beautifully-manicured and incredibly clever gardens (and will be gushing about them for the rest of the week), I love this sort of gardening too.

2 Responses

  1. Carolyn Hopper

    Oh My Gosh ! What an inspiring story . I so miss being able to get to the Chelsea flower show. Will make plans to get there from Montana , U.S. next year. Last went 15 years ago while part of a garden tour.

    I live and garden in Montana and have had gardens in Connecticut and Maryland. I think your site is awesome and will visit often. I can’t wait to check out the recipes.

    Check out projectirisgarden - a group of students at the University here are restoring a garden created in the 1930′s. I can’t wait to help them

    It’s a bit different gardening here in a Zone 4 than England. We have a great magazine though called Zone 4 which helps as well as local gardeners of course.

    good luck!
    Carolyn

    Reply
    • admin

      Hi Carolyn,
      Yes it was so inspiring, and a real privilege to talk to the two service users as well. Sounds like you’ve got a lot on your hands - and the project looks brill!

      Isabel

      Reply

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