Interview with Bob Sweet
Shows Organiser Bob Sweet is the man charged with making the RHS Chelsea Flower Show pass off without a hitch - just two weeks after staging the first five-day show at Malvern.
The Bradstone 2006 Chelsea garden, designed by Sarah Eberle, is a truly inspirational garden with a clever combination of structural planting and tactile hard landscaping.
Sarah was inspired by the quirky approach of two architects, César Manrique (in Lanzarote) and Antonio Gaudi (in Barcelona), both of whose work has a close affinity with nature. The garden is organic in form and the use of environmentally friendly products was an important consideration.
The garden’s ecological credentials utilising Bradstone’s sustainable drainage sysstem demonstrates how varying water availability, stored within the structure of the garden, re-uses collected rainwater to create a sensory contemporary garden for relaxation.
The garden’s boundary walls incorporate rain water collection channels which run into the storage tanks incorporated within the walls. It is then used to balance the water levels within the ornamental pool.
To the rear of the garden is a small cave-like garden room, accessed when the water level in the pool has fallen exposing a causeway, and allows one to ‘dabble one’s feet’ in the water. The ornamental pool is constructed of moulded, rippled concrete with an overlay of gravels and boulders. The causeway features the paving, with adjacent gravels providing a sensory and visual warning of deeper water. The materials have been chosen to stimulate the senses when walking barefoot.
Inspired by the volcanic landscape of Lanzarote, the paving comprises individual cobbles randomly laid. The paving is manufactured using up to 85% recycled and reclaimed aggregates, emphasising Bradstone’s commitment to the environment.
Sarah has selected the plants, using a limited colour pallette, for their texture and foliage rather than flower and to provide a contrast to and enhance the hard landscaping. This manifests itself in greens, blue-greys, the occasional acid yellow, blue and white. The scheme contains a high proportion of grass or grass-like foliage to soften and give a blousy effect. Plants have also been selected for their habitats which are varied within the garden to give a wide and varied horticultural collection. Trees provide vertical emphasis and define the space, and add further textural interest via bark and foliage.
The varying levels surrounding the pool provides habitat for marginal plants, whilst the deep areas in the pool allow aquatics to thrive.
Old Town Chelsea Cobble
Sustainable Drainage
Giant monolithic natural stone boulder from Bardon Aggregates' Bardon Hill quarry
High quality concrete from London Concrete to create the seating, coping and render for the walled areas