I’m posting this blog as I arrive in London for one of my gardening highlights of the year, RHS Chelsea Flower Show

Eccentric garden

Chilling at Chelsea

Tomorrow (Monday 22nd May) I might be recording a live podcast, I might be filming  a clip for TV, I’m definitely eating a posh lunch and I’m definitely going to get lots of inspiration from some wonderful gardens and take them back to Manchester and say to my Dad……. “Dad, I’ve got this great idea for our garden” !

This is my third year at Chelsea, I blogged about the ‘flowers, folk, food and funky stuff’ last year. I’ve only got a short amount of time to look round so I’ve been looking at the descriptions of the gardens online and done a bit of research and the gardens I’m really looking forward to are:

Show Gardens

The Morgan Stanley Garden by my fellow RHS Ambassador, Chris Beardshaw as it’s all about children’s health and education. He’s using music as the garden’s inspiration and I like the idea of using all the senses in gardening.

The garden also celebrates British gardens, which includes woodland planting such as native acers, one of my favourite trees. Other sections of the garden include terrace planting, with a Pinus Sylvestris – is that a Scotch pine?!?!?

There are also links to nature, science and art – all of my favourite topics!

I’ll be sure to visit ‘Welcome to Yorkshire’ by Tracy Foster as it’s based on being inspired by places like Whitby and I love Whitby! This garden is also inspired by the coastline and that floats my boat !!

Here’s some show gardens from my visit in 2016

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Fresh Gardens

I really like the sound of The Bermuda Triangle by Jack Dunckley as it features tropical planting and I’m really interested in these kind of plants and where they come from. I like the idea about using aluminium sheeting in the design, with fire pits, LED lights, lava and rock fragments; how cool does that sound!!

I saw one of my favourite authors, David Walliams by the Fresh Gardens last year

Artisan Gardens

I was so excited to see that Ishihara Kazuyuki was back with his Gosho No Niwa Garden as it’s a Japanese Garden and I’m like well obsessed with Japanese Gardens, especially ‘cos they use a lot of acers in their design. I met the designer last year and it was HILARIOUS as we both didn’t understand each other, so we just jumped around laughing our heads off. This was my absolute favourite garden last year!

The Great Pavilion

Chelsea Flower Show is so big, that you have to be super speedy walking round and top of my list is The Great Pavilion, with 100’s of exhibitors of everything you can imagine from nurseries, growers and florist, it’s #PlantHeaven.

Here’s some of my highlights from last year:

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My posh lunch

As an RHS Ambassador I’ve been invited to lunch by the RHS President, Sir Nicholas Bacon and that’s a really fab bit of the day too. Last year we sat with Mary Berry and I did a selfie with Monty Don – it was #EPIC

Mary Berry the Queen of baking

Me and The Don

A few purchases too!!

Last year I talked my Mum into buying me an owl made from a recycled fridge, she said she, “soon regretted it when she had to carry it home on the tube!”.

I’m sure I’ll sweet talk her into a few new things this year!

I’ve been using a Kadai firebowl with Operation Farm, watch me use it here and they’ve got a stand, so I might check them out as they’ve got some chefs doing some live demos.

I’ll be tweeting @GreenFGeorge and posting photos and live streaming on my Facebook page throughout the day, with a big blog write up within a few days.

I’m mega excited, hope I sleep tonight; Chelsea here I come!