What is a (Chelsea) Garden?
Ox-eye daisies and Red Campion
Imagine someone were to ask you the question “what is a garden?”, how would you answer? If you were sat at home you might point out the back door and say “that’s a garden you twit, pass the biscuits”. Alternatively, if you were slightly more inclined to engage with the question, you might say something along the lines of “that space outside with the grass and flowers”.
On the face of it, both of these are fairly reasonable answers. But what if the space beyond the backdoor is an astroturfed playground, with not a growing thing to be seen? Surely that could not be considered a garden? Alternatively, and more pedantically, what if the outdoor area features no grass or flowers, but is bedecked with ferns, grown to perfection and displayed with the utmost artistry? Most of us would agree that this is a garden, albeit a rather unique one.
Obviously it’s not difficult to find problems with off the cuff definitions of what constitutes a garden. Equally obviously, we all know what a garden is, so why am I making such a big deal about this, and where are the biscuits?
At this years Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show there was a garden designed by Lulu Urquhart and Adam Hunt, ‘A Rewilding Britain Landscape’. It was a representation of a rewilded British agricultural landscape. The planting consisted exclusively of UK native plants, it had a stream, a dry stone wall and a timber walkway leading to a hide for wildlife watching. The water feature included an artificial beaver dam (this animal has been reintroduced to the UK after centuries of absence). It did look like a little slice of countryside, and on medals day it was awarded the coveted RHS gold medal, and later in the week it gained the (even more coveted) Best Show Garden award.
I quite liked it. Television gardening guru Monty Don quite liked it. The RHS judges quite liked it. Lots of people quite liked it.
But, Monty Don wasn’t totally convinced it were actually a garden. He wasn’t keen on the beavers, and suggested that they should be taken out (bit harsh). He also suggested that the RHS could create a new category of “landscapes” for non-garden installations like this one. Monty’s co-host Joe Swift was also unconvinced on the garden credentials of ‘A Rewilding Britain Landscape’. There wasn’t time for Monty and Joe to have proper debate on the subject, which was a shame, because I think it could have been interesting. M & J were not the only members of the UK horticultural cognoscenti who raised this question. The consensus seemed to be that it wasn’t a garden. I disagreed.
Most commentators said something like “but it’s not a garden”. Similar comments have often been made about the more unique show gardens over the years. I remember the ‘Welcome to Yorkshire’ garden in 2019, which featured an authentic canal lock gate, and really did look like a section of canal. The further critique of the less conventional show gardens is that they are less garden and more stage set, or scenery. But is this a fair criticism? What about all of the grand gardens up and down the UK (and elsewhere) that feature mock ruins, fake Greek temples and reproduction Italianate bridges? No one doubts that the Chatsworth rock garden is a garden, but it is surely also a supreme example of horticultural scenery construction. Gardens pretend to be other things all the time, isn’t that the point? Of course, the main difference between this years show gardens and various historical gardens is age. We don’t question a nearly 200 year old garden pretending to be a mountainous pass, because we’re used to the idea, there is no shock of the new.
Also, although no one mentioned this, I think there is a some reservation about gardens using only UK native plants. Picture a similar Chelsea show garden planted up exclusively with the flora of South Africa, which would be easy to do, would we debate whether that were a garden? Or would it show us a novel way to use familiar garden plants in a new setting? Alternatively, imagine ‘A Rewilding Britain Landscape’ showcasing British flora at a gardening event on the other side of the world, where our wildflowers are unknown exotics. We find it easier to see ‘garden plants’ when we look at somebody else’s wild flowers, when we look at our own wild flowers we often see weeds. Just remember, there are parts of the world where Echinacea and Rudbeckia grow on roadside verges, yet we have no problem considering them as ‘proper garden plants’, so why not use our own roadside Ox-eye daisy?
Ultimately I think any definition of ‘garden’ needs to refer to plants. Native or exotic, flowering or non-flowering, neat and tidy or wild and exuberant. The other vital element is the involvement of people, and their role in deliberately introducing and maintaining the plants, according to their preferences. By this yardstick, it seems obvious to me that ‘A Rewilding Britain Landscape’ garden was a garden.