Diarmuid’s Inspiration for the Garden:
This is a studio garden, cruciform in shape, its soft wooden walls and roof emerge from lush planting. The structure was made in Ireland by Shomera and travelled to Chelsea by ferry. The individual buildings are similar in feel to railway carriages – narrow rooms with glass sides, verandahs on each.
The garden features pathways that lead through the planting, reminiscent of a summer spent in Lisbon in the sixties – cobblestones joined together to form floral shapes with wonderful Buxus sempervirens to the centre of each flower.
The plants were carefully chosen so they are plants that most people will recognise and have in their own garden. It’s a planting scheme that could easily be transferred to any garden – easy to source and easy to maintain and recognise.
The colour scheme is predominantly different shades of green but with a splash of colour in the form of silver foliage, purple pink, white, blue and orange flowers. The planting is mainly evergreen, providing year round interest as well has having a strong architectural edge to it.
The dominant plant is Stipa arundinacea planted in a sweeping wave which flows through the garden linking front to back. It will be inter-planted with Allium purple sensation picking up on the multi-colour of the Stipa leaves and the dark flower heads contrasting against the feathery vertical grass.
*Diarmuid’s helpers in his Chelsea Garden this year were the I.W.A.G. families – Kay White from this series, the Lyons from Bettystown, The Connollys from last year…they all answered Diarmuid’s call for help with the planting.