A TALE of TWO GARDENS

Wildly different yet unmistakably South African spaces revealed the countries botanical soul at this year's Chelsea Flower Show

- text HEIDI BERTISH

distinct in form but united in in spirit, South Africa offered something unique at this year's Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Chelsea Flower Show. The London event saw a showcase of not one, but two of the three biodiversity hotspots in the country.

First, an award-winning showcase of the Cape Floral Region by designer Leon Kluge, Tristan Woudberg and a team of accomplished volunteers themselves botanists, botanical artists and conservationists. Second, a recreated scene from the Succulent Karoo, the most succulent-diverse ecoregion in the world. Although the two gardens spoke in distinct tones, both told stories of richly abundant, other-worldly landscapes shaped over millennia.

Inside the Great Pavilion, the fynbos exhibit was a work of breathtaking precision and grit. Months in the making (Chelsea regulations require design submission a year in advance) it was the largest South African stand ever at Chelsea. At eight square metres, the design was inspired by the landscape that traces the contours of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. The installation included a cascading waterfall and stream emerging from a protea-clad ravine, cliff-dwelling plants and the wildflower plains of the Cape in an extraordinary display of 22 000 stems. To ensure flowers are at their peak for the show, stems remain on the parent plant in South Africa until one week before the opening of the show in London,’ explains Leon. ‘It's all a timing game.’