RHS Chelsea Flower Show

M&G Investments

RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2012

22-26 May 2012 at Royal Hospital, Chelsea, London.

Explore 'The M&G Garden' 2011

with Bunny Guinness

Last year’s M&G Garden was created by multi award-winning garden designer, landscape architect and journalist Bunny Guinness. To find out more about ‘The M&G Garden’ 2011, use the interactive plan below to navigate around the garden and let Bunny tell you more about some of the key items found in the garden.

Glass Platform

The main centrepiece to ‘The M&G Garden’ is this elegant glass platform. Thanks to its innovative design the platform will appear as though it's ‘floating’ over the garden, and despite being made from glass will comfortably hold up to 25 people!

From up on the platform guests will be provided with a completely different view of ‘The M&G Garden’, as well as the wider showground, whilst the space underneath the platform will act as a light and sheltered space for people or plants alike, should we get some rain!

Watch the video below to find out more about the glass platform from Bunny.

View photos of the glass platform being made

Ironwork

Ironwork is being used throughout the garden, both for the trellis pyramids used to hide the supports for the glass platform, as well as for the furniture in the garden.

The metalwork will have a unique acid etched effect to give it a unique appearance.

Watch the video below to find out more about the furniture and to see some of the items being created.

Plants, Vegetables and Lemon Trees

‘The M&G Garden’ is going to be crammed full of a whole host of beautiful plants and trees. In keeping with its theme as a modern kitchen garden, it is very much a garden which you can both live with and live from, combining the practical with the aesthetic.

Watch the video below to find out more from Bunny about some of the plants being used in ‘The M&G Garden’.

View photos of some of the items being grown for ‘The M&G Garden’

View the full planting guide for ‘The M&G Garden’

Pleached Trees

‘The M&G Garden’ is framed by a series of pleached trees. Standing nearly 3 metres tall, these trees are trained against wire and ironwork to achieve this unusual effect. 

Watch the video to hear Bunny explain more about the ‘pleaching’ process.

View pictures of the pleached trees for ‘The M&G Garden’ growing

Lead Bowl

This magnificent lead bowl will be one of the centrepieces of the garden. Amazingly this huge bowl was beaten into shape by hand by Brian Turner of Turners Ornamental Leadwork. Designed as a giant ‘dunking bowl’, it will be filled with water, allowing watering cans etc to be easily filled to water the plants and vegetables in the garden.

Willow Beds

The raised flower beds in ‘The M&G Garden’ are going to be made from woven willow by Sue Kirk. Bunny has decided to use two types of willow, ‘Welsh New Kind’, which is a beautiful luminous green colour and ‘Dicky Meadows’, which is a fawn brown colour.  

Sourced from Musgroves Willow in Somerset, the willow will be woven between metal upright rods, fixed to a bottom metal rail. These raised beds will be made off-site and then brought on-site complete to save time.

Terracotta Pots

Terracotta plays a major part in the garden, as we have a number of large terracotta pots being used to house the trees. Made from beautiful Italian clay these pots will be used throughout ‘The M&G Garden’. 

Watch the video to see the pots and hear more from Bunny about their design.

To view pictures of the terracotta pots click here

This is only a representation and the layout, planting and items contained within 'The M&G Garden' is subject to change.