The green-fingered Glastonbury (RHS Chelsea Flower Show) has arrived, and chatter among the garden girls and “Interior Gays & Co”, as creative consultant Max Hurd puts it, is firmly on which florals are in for spring/summer. “We hold our breath for the opening of the gates,” he says. “In the same way that editors, designers and fashion fans study, then copy, trends from the runway, people like me descend on the Flower Show and drink in (literally, it’s quite the party) everything that it has to offer.”
So, what’s on the menu for 2024? “Thirsty, busty plants like peonies are out — they look like divas and they’re high maintenance, too,” says Ann-Marie Powell, the garden designer and a former Flower Show gold medal winner who is currently in trowel-dug pits preparing for this year. “Lupins, which have been all over the shows recently, have given way to irises — that was a trend set by Sarah Price and her beautiful garden last year.” Hurd agrees: “For months afterwards not a single party or table I attended was iris-less”
The temperature check for this year’s show reads stripped back, as designers focus on climate change and future proofing our gardens for hot, dry summers and cold, wet winters. “We’ve got lots of different types of birches, Tom Stuart-Smith has the most massive, amazing hazel shrubs I’ve ever seen on the site and there are a lot of resilient, city trees,” Powell says. Her tips for trendy plants this year are “‘Catherine Deneuve’ geraniums, which are a fantastic one for shade with a really delicate, beautiful flower. But Baptisia ‘Burgundy Blast’ is my favourite — it’s a sumptuous, deep maroon colour and a spike of bloom that floats above grasses, which are also having a moment.”
As for the all-important tablescaping, Hurd says: “Like the food, flowers should follow the season. Using very obviously seasonal flowers (tulips, dahlias, etc) that are very specific to certain months at the wrong time is a big, big no-no akin to asparagus at Christmas — bleurgh.”
Google to find what’s in season (now? Irises!), and whatever you do, do not add hydrangeas — plonking handfuls of them in stubby, crystal vessels (seen at not a few smart lunches in the city recently) is a lazy trap. Needless to say Madonna loathes them, “and they are too big and one tone to offer much in a vase. Much like orchids in vases, they can look cheap and tacky,” says Hurd. “I do love them on a bush — they belong in the garden, not on the table.” Jury adjourned.
