Chelsea Flower Show_ di Elif Bonelli

01 Tom Stuart-Smith’s garden for Laurent Perrier02 Andy Sturgeon for the Daily Telegraph03 Nicholas Dexter’s simple metal sitting area04, 04_a Scott Wynd, Golden Medal04, 04_a Scott Wynd, Golden Medal05, 05_a Japanese designer Midori05, 05_a Japanese designer Midori06, 06_a Women figures in the garden06, 06_a Women figures in the garden

07 Champagne garden

Chelsea Flower Show foto di Elif Bonelli www.elifbonelli.comDopo alcuni mesi ecco i giardini a tema del Chelsea Flower Show di Londra, la fiera della floricoltura più rinomata al mondo. È uno degli eventi più eleganti e “fashion” per l’alta società britannica.La spettacolare esposizione florovivaistica, promossa dalla Royal Horticultural Society, richiama ogni anno numerosi visitatori dalla Gran Bretagna, ma anche da oltre confine. E' considerata un punto di riferimento per i fanatici del verde, questa manifestazione ogni anno detta legge in materia di tendenze floreali e nuove varietà vegetali, fin dal lontano 1862.In esclusiva per il mio blog alcune foto scattate da Elif Bonelli, Landscape Designer di Istanbul, al Chelsea Flower Show di Londra.leggi anche il suo articolo:The Chelsea Flower Show, 2010Set in the heart of posh Chelsea, the West-Side neighborhood that epitomizes everything that is noble and traditional (and a little bit snobbish) in London, this yearly event is one of the biggest and famous garden shows in the world.It takes place during five hopefully sunny days in May, of which the first 3 are unfortunately closed to the public: these days the show grounds are only welcoming to the Royal Family, the glitterati and the members of the Landscape Institute. It goes without saying that the remaining two days are very crowded, and the tickets are extremely coveted (not to mention pricey). Despite the aforementioned capacity limitations of the show ground, The Chelsea Flower Show gets almost 160.000 visitors each year, most of which concentrated on day four and five of the exhibition, mercifully taking place in the middle of the week.The very first Chelsea Flower Show, officially called the Royal Horticultural Society Great Spring Show was held in 1862, at the RHS garden in Kensington.The show consists of two sections; the open area garden designs and the covered flower exhibition arrangement. Because of its name, some might think that the flower show is the main honcho: in fact, many foreign landscape architects dismiss this event only as a flower arrangement exhibition and they don’t show the required interest.Yet, this being Cool Britannia, the designs are as cutting edge and as mind boggling as one could expect.Of course, this being England, this is not the place for formal gardens, shaped into order and geometry; no Persian chor-bagh taking pride in its artificiality and clarity, or Japanese garden proclaiming the activity of man in its understated minimalism.Here everything is about the explosion of nature, the flourishing of grasses and plants into an anarchy of colors and forms. The lush gardens are almost engulfed in a viridian embrace, and the casual onlooker, used to the minimalist comfort of the modern gardens, might feel initially suffocated by the triumph of the green that is the norm at the Chelsea Flower Show.The baroque disorder is of course misleading: these are not overgrown patches of neglected green, thriving in abandon. Every detail is painstakingly designed. The spontaneity is wished for as an esthetic and political statement of self sustenance.The constant referral to the moorlands and the wetlands of uncultivated England is an aspiration of lower key human intervention in landscaping, paradoxically obtained through a more intense activity of design and plantation.The ruffled aspect of the winners of the Gold Medals, with their wild and exuberant vegetation crossing the boundaries of settled life, is a testament to the return to nature, where the living room crosses the border into the garden, but the garden itself overflows into the kitchen and the sitting room....grazie Elif