Chelsea selection
We received notification that our application had been successful and that we had been allocated a background site - now we had to decide what to show and how. Unfortunately, due to the late arrival of warm spring weather we were forced to reconsider our carefully laid plans, but we were happy with the results:

Our design focused on different ways to grow hostas:
in flower beds, hosta walks, in pots and terraces

Mel's impressions
How on earth the RHS and their contractors manage to squeeze so much into such a small area of London astonished me. On arrival we had to shoehorn our lorry into the main Pavilion entrance to unload it. Forklift trucks, vans, lorries and trolleys were constantly on the go around the site whilst exhibitors and contractors weaved in and out of everything like day-glo worker ants. This is my fourth season of shows, so I know the work that is involved in getting a show up and running. In my previous career I did some event planning and organising, so I also have an appreciation of what it takes to logistically create a show. Therefore, my first impression was one of awe. The space we have at other shows is immense in comparison to Chelsea, so a huge amount of credit should go to the event team for the smooth running of it all.
I was also amazed at how many visitors come from overseas to the UK for the show, or who arrange their vacation to coincide with Chelsea.
It is easy to become a little jaded with the show circuit as tiredness can make us question which show we are at, or even what day of the week it is! But as every wave of visitors washed up at our stand I was delighted to hear so many different accents and languages. I was even more delighted how many people from East Anglia visited the show and looked us up as local to them.

Chelsea is the only show in our calendar where we cannot sell plants, other than those we wish to part with from our displays on Saturday. Visitors find it more than a little perplexing that they have to order plants at what is probably the greatest Flower Show on earth. Therefore, they use their visit as an opportunity to gather ideas. With this in mind we decided to focus on promoting our nursery to encourage people to come and see our extensive collection. Our display of 50 plants ranged from miniature to giant varieties with as many colours and shapes as we could fit in. The result was very successful and we look forward to seeing lots more of you at the nursery over the coming few months.

H. 'Raspberry Sorbet', h. 'Dragon Tails' and h. 'Medusa'

H. 'Frosted Mouse Ears' and h. 'Holy Mouse Ears'

Coming up
With Chelsea now fading into memory, our attention has turned to Gardener's World at the NEC.
In two weeks time we will be setting up our Floral Marquee and Plant Heritage exhibits so we have a lot of work to do. We will be processing all our Chelsea orders during this time too, but visitors to the nursery are always welcome.