It takes a village to raise a show garden, I discovered this week. From designers to landscapers, growers, horticulturists, craftspeople and volunteers, the immense amount of work that goes on behind the scenes to bring the magical reality of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show to life goes mostly unseen. I was on the showground for the build up, to spend a day in the steel-toe-capped boots of a show garden build volunteer, and see what it's like when the hard graft is underway.
I'd been kindly offered a spot to volunteer on one of the Sanctuary gardens for a day - The Boodles Garden designed by Catherine MacDonald in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the National Gallery. This is how it went - and what I learned.
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How to get work or volunteer placements at Chelsea
There is no one way to find work at the Chelsea Flower Show, or any other garden show. If you've never done it before, the best way is probably to reach out to design studios directly and ask if they need any help or would be willing to have you for a few days. Try to build up a network where you can and put yourself out there. People who have real attention to detail and want to learn are always welcomed on garden builds.
What is it like behind the scenes creating a garden at Chelsea?
The days start early and finish late when you're creating a show garden. I arrived on site at 8am, but lots of the team had been there since 7am. Working on Chelsea gardens together is a skill in itself, and I quickly learned that many of the people in Catherine's team are long-time collaborators. For the Gadd Brothers, the Landscape Contractors on the build, this is their fourth Chelsea Flower Show working with Catherine.
Similarly, from the planting team, Alan Williams, Sophie Philip and John Cunningham have decades of combined experience planting at Chelsea and other RHS shows. Sophie has planted at Chelsea for 12 years. "I must be mad!" she says. It is clear that when a designer finds a safe pair of hands, the door to working on show gardens is always open to that person.
"The team you work with becomes your family for the week, and it's an amazing shared experience and achievement when you look back after judging and see what you have collectively created," says Sophie. "Chelsea is so unique, it's intense, inspiring and exhausting in equal measure! It's a little bit addictive."
It was a little drizzly in the morning, so full waterproofs were donned and I was set to work with another volunteer cleaning up a trolley of Melica uniflora 'Alba' under the cover of a gazebo. It was a relief to be given a task well within my abilities to begin with. Watching the team of gardeners and designers laying out, placing and spacing the plants in harmony with one another, it seemed like total sorcery to me.
The showground is a hive of activity during the Chelsea build up, so if you're thinking you'd like to do some volunteering on a show garden build, don't expect it to be serene. A constant stream of deliveries was arriving on site all day - some in lorries so enormous I could never have imagined them manoeuvring down Main Avenue. Fork lift trucks carrying trees, diggers transporting compost, the beep of reversing lorries, hammers, drills, saws, spades - it all makes for a pretty noisy atmosphere. It is, however, electric. It is a pretty special to see the sheer number of people on site, each working on a different task that will all combine to bring the show to life.
Sorrel Everton, former Deputy Editor of Gardens Illustrated, was also volunteering at the show ground this year on Sophie Parmenter and Dido Milne's show garden for the National Autistic Society, so I got in touch to compare notes.
"Other than being completely exhausted - how they keep up the pace for three weeks I do not know - pre-Chelsea proved even more of an eye opener than I had imagined," said Sorrel.
"The sheer scale and number of people involved on a daily basis is quite extraordinary. And the coordination is mind boggling," she said. "It's only possible because of the utterly determined but ultimately supportive atmosphere that is Chelsea - and the sense that there now really is a legacy to what they are creating beyond the show. The detail is extraordinary but so is the effort."
After a delivery of 16 trays of irises from Kelways nursery ousted us from our spot cleaning plants under the gazebo, it was time to turn my hand to a bit of planting. As this was my first time doing any planting on a show garden, I was nervous, but I found the creativity and the collaboration to be a lot of fun.
Chelsea show gardens contain thousands of plants, and they all have to be combined cheek-by-jowl in a naturalistic way to look just like a real garden would. Every designer is different when it comes to planting plans, and Catherine was keen to try out placing different groups of plants together to see what would work best. John, who has worked with Catherine on many gardens over the years, told me it was a case of building someone's vision, and although it can take a few days to get on the same wavelength, it always comes together in the end. Even though I only had a day to have a stab at it, it was fascinating trying to emulate what the pros made look so easy - though I certainly won't be surprised if none of my combos make it into the finished garden.
That is not to say, however, that volunteers do not have an impact on the end result - they're an imperative part of Chelsea. Two to three volunteers are helping build The Boodles Garden alongside a core team of up to 15 people, though they won't all be there every day. Multiplied across the site that is a huge amount of people-power and the volunteer positions also provide great learning opportunities to students.
After a spot of lunch, I took a wander around the Chelsea site to see how all the other gardens were coming along. When visiting the show on press day, it is always remarkable how established the gardens can look and the sense of place they've been given - so to get a peek behind the curtain at the bones of these spaces is quite a privilege. To see Tom Stuart-Smith's team unloading plants from Dutch trolleys or Kazuyuki Ishihara's gardeners meticulously placing mounds of moss humanises the show and serves as a reminder of the immense attention to detail that is demanded from every person working on site.
At 6pm, I called it a day and headed home. I was the last to arrive on site and the first to leave, and it was still a ten hour day for me. So when you're visiting the show or watching the Chelsea coverage on TV this year, it's worth remembering the beautiful end results are all down to the hard work of the dedicated teams behind the gardens.
I learned plenty on my debut show garden build - to bring clothes for all weather and bring your own tools. But most importantly, don't catch the train home with two pairs of the garden designer's Niwaki snips in your pocket...
For more coverage from the Chelsea Flower Show head to our Chelsea hub.
