Credit crunch Chelsea prunes budget

By Marie Jackson
BBC News, Chelsea Flower Show

There was talk last year of one of Chelsea's show gardens costing £800,000 - think Fred the Shred's pension and add a little extra for a water feature.

Nothing but the best, you might think, for this world-famous spectacle of nature at its most primped and preened, with an audience that includes the Queen, Rod Stewart, Stephen Fry and the world's press.

This year though, the annual flower show has a very different feel.

Talk is about how designers have managed to create beautiful, eye-catching gardens on a budget, using their imaginations instead of their cheque-books.

Like an accountant, a good designer should save you money, not end up making you spend more

Sarah Eberle, garden designer

For organisers, the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), there were some nerves early on that the event might take a knock from the recession.

Sales of tickets, priced at up to £43 for a day, were slow to get going, but all 157,000 are now sold out.

Show manager Alex Baulkwill thinks people have become so fed up with the recession, they are looking for a way to escape "all that horrid stuff".

More significantly, some sponsors had to pull out, meaning the number of show gardens is down to 13 from 22 last year.

Designer Sarah Eberle was among those to feel the hit. The former Chelsea gold medal winner had been set to create one of her showpieces - until her sponsors dropped out.

Instead, the RHS asked her to take the credit crunch as inspiration for a very different type of garden.

Artists and bankers

"I had thought about 'the repossessed garden' - rolled up and stuffed in a corner - but the topic's a little too close to the bone," she jokes.

Instead, the result is three imagined front gardens, belonging to the overdrawn artist, the off-shore dweller and the banker who's hit hard times.

James May and Sarah Eberle talk us around their creations.

In the artist's space, a stand for an old Singer sewing machine takes the place of a garden table and a box of home-grown vegetables awaits a passing buyer.

The off-shore garden might appeal to a certain Conservative MP - a tidal moat allows the owner to keep unwanted attention at bay.

Meanwhile, the banker's front garden is a playground of sorts - sculpted wooden dice sit alongside an old boot and an iron, pieces from the Monopoly board game.

The bill for labour and materials came in at £15,000, a stark contrast to Sarah's usual £300,000 budget.

"You can't say I will solve it with money," says Sarah, who relied on her imagination to stay on budget.

"Like an accountant, a good designer should save you money, not end up making you spend more," says Sarah.

'Swap shop'

Peter Dowle, who built the gardens, said the budget had forced them to think laterally when it came to problem solving.

"It's amazing what you can pull together," he said.

The pair say they have begged and borrowed, even lifting materials from their own gardens to feature in the displays. And they are not alone.

Show manager Alex Baulkwill says there has been such a demand among designers to work together and keep costs down that a swap shop was set up on the site where palettes of ballast were being exchanged for bags of topsoil.

Deborah Jasper is optimistic sales will be strong

But not everyone's been forced to count the pennies.

The recent trend to grow your own in these straitened times and spend more time at home has seen sales of plants, seeds, and tools flourish.

Fallen Fruits, a tools and wildlife products supplier based in Ludlow, has had a bumper year already.

Deborah Jasper puts that down to people spending more time at home and enjoying their gardens.

She is expecting their sixth year at the show to be no less profitable than previous years, thanks to foreign visitors taking advantage of the weak pound.

Even the higher-end market is optimistic. Elizabeth and Charles Durrant from family business Wilverley are hoping for a repeat of last year when they sold 30 swinging garden sofas.

Their products are certainly well showcased in the unexpected early morning sunshine, and if the weather holds, so should their sales.