News

May 23rd, 2011

Robin Montgomery Garden Design at Chelsea 2011
Pleased to report that with the inevitable unexpected delays and hiccups we completed the Wonderland Bronze stand last night at 9pm ready for press this morning (welcome Alan Titchmarsh), judging and then the VIP gala event.. will HMQ have the energy after her exploits in Ireland?

The stand looks great, the muted foliage based planting design totally vindicated, the blues, violets and odd white splash setting of the tones of the sculptures. "It's fantastic," says Jim Copelstone, "Better than I ever could have hoped for. The planting really lifts the work and sets it off brilliantly."

For those of you coming to the show we are directly outside the Main Floral Marquee, where tones are anything but muted with some fantastic displays and extremely friendly co-exhibitors, Stand No SR 9, closest entrance, the Bullring Gate.

May 19th, 2011

Robin Montgomery Garden Design is to announce its imminent departure for our Chelsea Flower Show debut later this week. Invited in summer 2010 by Wonderland Bronze to help design and plant its own debut stand at Chelsea this year, the invitation was too good to turn down.

After several years of planning, Wonderland Bronze, trading as the Robert James Workshop of Beaminster, Dorset, has chosen the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2011 to launch a collection of high-quality, limited edition cast bronze sculptures based on much loved characters from classic children's fiction. All the favourites from 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' will be present, plus the Owl and the Pussycat, Peter Pan and Tinkerbell.

Based on a chequer board printed onto vinyl with a built-in, receding perspective, the sculptures occupy their own "squares" raised on plinths built as old-fashioned tea chests. Planting is simple, with a limited colour palette but designed for maximum impact using blocks and drifts of single plant... Festuca glauca (Blue Grass), Dicentra spectabilis 'Alba' (Bleeding Heart), Brunnera 'Jack Frost' and Armeria maritima 'Alba' to name but a few. A full size 2-metre high looking glass at the back of the stand will be planted vertically with, appropriately enough, Brunnera 'Looking Glass'. Alice herself will be floating on a bed of Saxifraga hypnoides, a native plant, with small white, daisy-like flowers.

The centrepiece of the stand was to be a giant exploding "chandelier" composed of different Alliums but due to the summer heat that came in April and the fact the alliums are all but finished three weeks early, this project has had to be shelved.

The stand will also include a fountain with a difference.. Wonderland Bronze's detailed interpretation of Sir John Tenniel's original illustration of the Mad Hatter is a fully functioning water feature, the drips of "tea" falling onto a bed of Alchemilla mollis and Dicentra spectabilis 'Alba'. Appropriately, Clipper Teas, based in Beaminster will be sponsoring the display.

If you are visiting the Chelsea Flower Show this year, please come to stand SR 9 outside one of the entrances to the main floral marquee to view the work in person, or visit www.wonderlandbronze.com for further information.

As the stand is built and finished, a further post will be added to this News section.