Is gardening becoming too elitist?

I think this is a very old argument. Prosperous Victorians were into all kinds of pompous garden ornamentation and loved expensive novelty flowers, the blowsier the better. A generation before that, Lord Elgin took things further than most when he brought home rather a lot of bits from the Parthenon, allegedly to decorate his garden and ancestral pile. They ended up in the British Museum when he ran short of cash. At the other end of the social scale, outside spaces, if they were tended at all, were used to grow food and maybe the odd flower here and there.

Leaving aside the vexed question of the Elgin marbles, I see no problem with either approach, really.

 

I don't think it is true that just anyone could come up with a winning design. It is not too difficult to learn how to raise nice plants. It is not much harder to learn how to combine them in various pleasing ways. A good handy person can put good hard landscaping in place.

But what a really great garden designer can do is combine all these elements into something new. They can visualise garden spaces in a way that is fresh, new and has not been done before. It is easy to copy ideas that we have already seen and almost all of us have gradens that may be beautiful but are also derivative and firmly based on exisiting traditions. We all use plants that are pretty common and combine them in ways that are repeated year after year in gardens across the land.

It is infinitely harder to create the new and Chelsea showcases the best of those that can. It is elitist in the sense that it is the cutting edge, but very few people can be at the cutting edge! In twenty years time, ideas that seem wacky today will have filtered into gardens and garden centres across the land - but the cutting edge will be somewhere very different by then. I wouldn't have it any other way.

It is easy to be scathing about wild and wacky new ideas - but very difficult to produce new ideas yourself. And if new ideas are not produced, culture does not move on. It stagnates.

That is why people like Laurence Llewelyn Bowen can pontificate on how terrible fuschias in a basket are; they are a stale idea that is hackneyed and overdone and they need a fresh eye. They are Out of Fashion. Never mind, give them 20 years and they will be rediscovered as the great classic of British gardening, arf, arf, arf, much like dahlias have been, and my tip for coming in from the cold, gladioli.

I also predict that a lot more of us will be having outdoor kitchens fitted as in the Guardian article, but B&Q will sort you for £300 not £30,000.

I'm not unduly bothered by the middle-class brayings of Clytemnestra and Piers Ponsonby-Withers. Generally they have to pay someone to get creativity and good taste because they haven't got it themselves.

 

So what's next? Plasticine flowers for whom we have James May to thank? or rusting ironwork and huge cranes in the back garden á lá Diarmuid Gavin - idiotic and grossly expensive tosh, not only endorsed but positively encouraged by the RHS who actually gave him a gold medal for it.

A bit harsh Fidgetsmum! Both James May's plasticene garden, and Dermots "flights" of fancy provided brilliant publicity for the RHS.

As a one time modelmaker, I didn't like the plasiticene garden because it was neither one thing or the other. If it had been totally realisitic, it would have been admirable ir if it had been completely Disney it would have worked but I felt it fell between two stools.

Dermot's suspended pod may have been a gimic, albeit a clever one but his planting was exquisit, hence his first gold.

Chris

 

Am longing to hear whar Fidgetsmum has to say about the RA's Summer Exhibition! If Hampton Court is 'elitist' then where does the Royal Academy stand?
The beauty of this forum is that all and everyone can have their say on almost all topics. I find that getting old only serves to increase our critical senses and why not??

 

Oh dear I feel a bit sad reading this thread!!

It's very interesting to ponder about the subject, but I think maybe it's a non-starter.

I understand completely about some of the big shows or designers coming across as elitist but I think maybe it's in their very nature. Anything which is a big event is expensive, as are concert tickets, theatre tickets.. anything.

I feel rather defensive of the rhs! My hubby and kids bought me membership for mother's day. We always struggle for money, so it was a real treat present. We have been four times since march to Wisley. There are families in huge numbers every time we go, often a real mix of generations too. Young children and families are thought about throughout, with a whole area of the restaurant given over to toddlers with soft play equipment and tables all around for parents. The food available is excellent, with by far the best 'lunchbox' selection I have ever seen for kids. And the price is really very average, compared to the extremely over priced Eden Project, where the entrance alone is £20 and the food choice very 'exclusive' and marked up. We went to the celebration of summer a couple of weeks ago at Wisley and they had loads of activities for children, with free prizes for all who took part. I feel they have really made an effort to be inclusive, and provide excellent value for money. I have three boys and it is one of our favourite days out.

I think like most activities, gardening needs a place and a time to 'show off'. A time to get your best gear on and show everyone what you can do. I love watching Chelsea on the TV, and one day I'd love to go. I know it'll be busy, and I probably won't see as much as you do on the TV, but I'd just like to experience it. To soak it up and say I've been. There are always things I write down when I watch, or ideas which inspire me for my own garden.

Most of all I think the wonderful thing about gardening in all its forms is having a patch if this earth and caring enough about it to do something with it. Whether it be garden gnomes and busy lizzies or astrantia and rustic arches, at least someone is doing something outside, tending the soil and taking care of it.

I think there are elitist gardeners, but there are elitist everythings!!!

 

You're not - believe me, really you're not!!

Two words - 'Brian' (and) 'Sewell'. Need I say more?

 

I like this post. I can't think of one thing that I disagree with in it.

If people didn't push the boundaries, then everything would be so uniform. Now there's nothing wrong with people being uniform and doing what they feel comfortable with but variety is the spice of life.

I remember seeing coalmen delivering coal in through hallways of terraced houses, pushing past enormous bunches of Michaelmas Daisies out the back: the soil of the back garden covered with a layer of soot. Those gardens were "honest" to the people who delved in them and I thought they were "special" to the people who tended to them. They loved their gardens.

But on an opposite train, I'm going to try and grow desert plants in a maritime climate against all the odds. Who's right and who's wrong? No-one! We're all into creating beauty in whatever way we see fit.

(Sorry for wittering on; wandering away from the original subject of elitist! Blast those working classes. )

 

Well said, an excellent well balanced post.

I love looking at gardens but I'd soon get bored if they were all a carbon copy of my own. The more variety the better as far as I'm concerned. I love the shows even if the gardens are well beyond my pocket or ability, I also enjoy visiting the RHS gardens and feel the cost of membership is good value for money.

 

I am also a member of the RHS and think it's money well spent - I enjoy reading the Garden magazine although I find it full of advertising for expensive garden paraphelalia. It's nice to know what's available should funds become available.

The fashion for plants and plantings comes and goes and it is up to the individual what they take on board. Everyone has different tastes and I find that's the real joy of gardening. I think a garden, like a home, should reflect the personality of the owner and that's why I would never let a designer near mine (even if I had the money).

Something abhorent to me i.e. non native plants, busy lizzies and anything orange may be adored by others and so be it. Viva la difference.

 

I'm tending to think that the big point that is being missed here is that the gardens you see at such places are not just impractical but totally impossible to reproduce.

They are a staged effort that can only last a week or two at the most.

Trouble is its put over as being possible in your own garden.

I'm not actually knocking garden designers, as I'm sure there are many out there that come up with some very good practical designs for real gardens.
its just a pity that those people have to go through the theatricals of producing something totally stupid in order to become noticed.

 

Yes, they are impractical but as their main purpose is to provide visual impact I'm not sure that it matters. They make the impact - or not - no matter how impractical they are. They are a form of art as much as a form of gardening.

Even though we could not reproduce them in a domestic setting we can copy the overall mood or theme of a garden, just using more sensible combinations of plants. And often, it is the hard landscaping as much as the plants that set the tone of the Chelsea gardens.

I don't know why everyone's deriding poor Diarmuid Gavin's crane. I'd love one if I could afford it, how cool would that be? The idea is more important than whether Homebase is going to be able to stock a DIY version in 5 years time. Though I somehow suspect they'll pass on that one.

 

I think show gardens are a bit like fashion shows. Hopefully, unless you're the Duchess of York or one of her unfortunate daughters, you won't look at the day-glo orange duvet thingy that the supermodel is wearing and think 'I having one of those. Just the thing for a trip down to the shops'. Some while later, however, you might end up wearing something from the high street which has been subtly influenced by what's been going on in the design world, just as you might use a small idea for planting or landscaping in your garden.