The Daily Telegraph Garden 2013

The Telegraph Garden for the Centenary 2013 RHS Chelsea Flower Show is designed by the renowned landscape and garden designer, Christopher Bradley-Hole, who returns to the show after an eight-year break.

The 2013 Telegraph garden is a contemporary and contemplative composition inspired by three ideas: the making of the English landscape, the Japanese approach to garden making and by modern abstract art.

The garden is a representation of England as a wooded landscape from which openings were cleared to allow settlement, civilisation and cultivation. 

English native trees and shrubs are used in a graphic way to create an understory which expresses the way a field pattern has been superimposed on the land. The humble hazel, symbol of the working forest, is shown in a new ‘designed’ form. Oak is shown as a structure – a colonnade of columns crafted from English green oak.

The garden will have an overall palette of subtle tones emblematic of the atmospheric composition of the landscape on a misty day.

The garden is partly inspired by the book 'In Praise of Shadows', by Japanese writer Junichiro Tanizaki, and his observation of the calm and depth of meaning, such as you would find in handcrafted objects, houses and landscapes.

 

Plant list

Corylus avellana
Fagus sylvatica
Buxus sempervirens
Taxus baccata

Melica altissima Alba
Sesleria autumnalis
Briza media
Deschampsia cespitosa
Luzula nivea
Hakonechloa macra
Carex muskingumensis

Amsonia tabernaemontana salicifolia
Angelica archangelica
Anthriscus sylvestris
Aquilegia ‘Ruby Port’
Astrantia major ‘Hadspen Blood’
Astrantia major Large White
Baptisia Purple Smoke
Cenolophium denudatum
Chaerophyllum hirsutum
Cirsium rivulare Atropurpureum
Convallaria majalis
Cruciata laevipes
Digitalis ferruginea
Digitalis parviflora
Euphorbia amygdaloides robbiae
Euphorbia martinii
Galium odoratum
Geranium phaeum
Geranium ‘Sanne’
Hesperis matronalis White
Heuchera cylindrica Greenfinch
Heuchera sanguinea Alba
Iris germanica ‘Warrior King’, ‘Sultans Palace’ ,’Cable Car’, ‘Dutch Chocolate’
Knautia macedonica (dark red)
Ligusticum scoticum
Lunaria rediviva
Lychnis flos cuculi White Robin
Mathiasella bupleroides Green Dream
Myrrhis odorata
Nectaroscordum siculum
Paeonia Buckeye Belle or Chocolate Soldier
Paeonia Crinkled White
Paeonia japonica
Papaver nudicaule
Rosa moyseii, Rosa moyseii Geranium
Rosa ‘Tuscany Superb’
Selinum carvifolia
Sidalcea candida