Rosie Fyles, Head of Gardens, at Chiswick House and Gardens, writes about gardens, nature plants and people every month.

This month, a special RHS Chelsea Flower Show edition, a personal take on this blockbuster international festival that’s closely connected to Chiswick.

Written for The Chiswick Calendar

The (Royal) Horticultural Society takes over west London, again…

Many people today won’t be aware that the Horticultural Society’s first garden was in Chiswick, starting in the grounds of Chiswick House and Gardens and stretching across the now A4 well into Chiswick.

In 1822, the RHS opened its first garden in the London ‘village’ of Chiswick, land leased to the RHS from the 6^th Duke of Devonshire for a rent of £300 per annum. The Society’s gardens extended from the ‘cherry orchard’ at the back of the current kitchen garden almost to Turnham Green. The Society was granted its royal charter later, in 1862 and the lease arrangement continued until 1904, and the move to Wisley.

It’s a recent history one day that the Chiswick House & Gardens Trust would like to make more of: the RHS gardens are responsible for some of the majestic trees in local gardens and their high soil quality.

Visiting the Chelsea Flower Show building site

With steel-toe boots and high-vis jacket, I was permitted to enter the grounds of the Royal Hospital even before the royals and the media as a volunteer on the The Plant Heritage Missing Collectors’ Garden, in the All About Plants category.

It’s a garden sharing immediate space with the King and David Beckham’s garden (no pressure!), and it’s a celebration of the dedicated, expert team of National Plant Collection Holders, volunteer heroes, who ignore the harsh winds of plant fashion and trend and keep collections of future plant heroes thriving, offering diversity, climate-proof answers and limitless enthusiasm. This garden tells genuine stories of the love of plants.

The volume of activity on site was breathtaking at times – infinite management of detail in every action, from leaf polishing with cotton pads and ear buds to in the distance, the suspension of a skip between the famous avenue of plane trees.

My estimation of the professionalism, dedication and commitment of garden designers, gardeners and their small city of volunteers became even higher as I walked around. Surrounded by trolleys of perfect plants – cosseted and ready for show – I tried to experience the show gardens as the designers intended. Blocking out the choreographed, intense work-rate, the kit, the traffic, the conversations, I found myself able to still get a bit lost in gardens and plants.

My favourite garden? The garden I would most like to have sat in was The Children’s Society Garden. It was airy, with beautiful, thoughtful, planting, clever use of materials and a sense of peace (on a building site!) It highlights the need for a focus on teenagers’ mental health and well-being, authentically, with character and calmness.

Colour of the year? Yellow.

Plant of the year? I couldn’t tell among the hundreds of thousands despite trying very hard. I loved seeing one of my under-stated favourites, Verbascum, wafting at that ‘difficult’ mid flowering height and catching my eye in many places. And there many superb irises.

What does the future hold?

I felt a sense of privilege to be there and take part and observe, but also conscious of the questions surrounding the Chelsea Flower Show. These are interesting times with sponsorship challenges and questions about sustainability, exclusivity and climate impact necessary and unavoidable.

Gardens designed to herald and publicise permanent, future public and charitable spaces and contribute to them seem to hold the key to the future to the show gardens. The Tate Britain Garden is an example of confidence in future use, permanent plant choices, lasting character and heft, a genuine garden in the making.

The Plant Collectors’ Garden, in its much smaller way, points to future answers too. Designed by three friends, early in their garden design careers, it’s a result of volunteering, charitable giving, donation and goodwill: it looks to provide suggestions for how gardens can be shaped differently, with shared vision, more diverse plant choices, promoting real gardeners’ stories and teamwork at its core.

It’s important to stress that the future also needs to retain and nurture the ‘art of gardening’, the creativity and drive for perfectionism that gardening encourages and shares. I spent many minutes feeling thrilled in some small way to be connected to the sincerity and the perfectionism of The Tokonoma Garden – SANUMAYA no NIWA. The minute care of moss with tweezers created a landscape on the ground-level of rolling, perfect green. I watched as double-sided tape was used to remove dust from the tiniest of leaves: the art of gardening was on show.

What I’m doing in my own garden this month:

With a burst of Chelsea-related inspiration, I am cutting roses for small indoor vases. The tiny front garden’s peony rose, The Alnwick Rose, is now a beautiful, magnificent monster, outgrowing its suburban space. It can spare me the flowers.

What to look out for in Chiswick House & Gardens:

The Rosary will be at its scented, colourful best in the last week of May. Spare some time to sit, reflect and take in Chiswick’s ‘rose show’. It’s also a Silent Space.