I had actually decided last year that 2019 would be the year for me to visit the Chelsea Flower Show but – we went on that Baltic cruise instead. Luckily we did get home just in time to enjoy watching Chelsea on TV. I have to say though that this has been the least impressive year that I can remember. I adore trees and there are certainly a lot of them at Chelsea this year and I love lots of different shades of green but for me that should be balanced by beautiful colours.

Whether the flowers are what some people would regard as genteel and muted tones, or a more exuberant explosion of colour is a matter of taste, I’m a bit greedy and love both styles, but I feel a bit colour deprived having viewed the show gardens this year, admittedly I haven’t managed to view all of the gardens as I’ve been trying to catch up with post holiday clothes washing and getting stuck into my own garden.

If you haven’t been able to see the TV coverage you can still see many of the gardens here.

I did love the garden that the Duchess of Cambridge helped to design it was obviously a winner with children, but I didn’t like the M&G Garden by Andy Sturgeon, I hated all that burnt wood. I do like the Welcome To Yorkshire garden, probably because of all the stonework and the cute wee house.

Do you have a favourite?

Yes it’s that time of the year again RHS Chelsea Flower Show and I’ve been watching it all on TV, a bit disappointed that this year it seems to be much smaller than previous years with only eight of the huge and wildly expensive commercially sponsored show gardens this year instead of the more usual number, such as the twenty seven there were last year. Yet another down-side of Brexit according to the organisers. If you want to see what has been going on this year have a look here.

The smaller gardens are always my favourites though as so often the big show gardens sponsored by insurers/newspapers/banks are too cold looking for my liking with massive chunks of hard landscaping and not a lot in the way of planting.

Chris Beardshaw’s Morgan Stanley garden only got a silver gilt medal, apparently because it is too densely planted!! Is that even possible? It’s definitely my favourite of the large show gardens. You can see more of it here.

The World Horse Welfare garden is a lovely overgrown natural looking wild space, but it’s the horse made from old horseshoes that I love.

Mr Ishihara has done it again and got another gold medal for his Gosho No Niwa No Wall, No War garden, based on a Japanese temple. His wee waterfall is beautiful and as usual the planting is gorgeous.

I really dislike the garden which won the ‘best in show award’. As far as I’m concerned it isn’t a garden, apparently it was inspired by an abandoned Maltese quarry. What do you think of it?

Our summer weather has turned up and according to the weather forecast it’s to be good for at least the next few days, this might be the whole length of our summer – you just never know, so I’m staying at home and I’ll be enjoying life in my own garden and having the odd potter around in it, tweaking plants. It’s supposed to be 25 celsius, that’s 77 F in the east of Scotland tomorrow. Just as well I bought ice lollies at the weekend!

I’ve been watching the coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show, it’s their centenary year. It has been a terrible year so far for plants and the horticulturalists must have been pulling their hair out trying to get plants ready for the show.

So far I’ve seen plenty of lovely plants but the large show gardens which I’ve seen have been a disappointment to me. The designs seem to be very bitty, as if they are all trying too hard and the result is a bit of a mish-mash. I think that in any design you should keep in mind that ‘more is less’ – unless you’re decorating a Christmas tree!

To be fair, I’m always far more impressed with the smaller gardens, I suppose they’re a bit like short stories and those show gardens are the hefty tomes, the ones which could have been doing with a good editor! I’ll still be glued to Chelsea on my TV this week though, and also voting online for my favourite gardens and plants.

If you’re interested in gardening you should take a look at the RHS website here. You can look at the directory of gardens and choose your own favourites.

Anyway