Chelsea Flower Show 2018: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Designer Sarah Price's Mediterranean Garden - Gardenista
Photography by Jim Powell, for Gardenista.
Designer Sarah Price makes gardens that garden editors adore. Plants aside, there is no getting away from earth red: It’s on the walls, the ground, the seats, and under the water.
Sarah Price in her gold-medal-winning Mediterranean garden for M&G, Chelsea 2018. Look at the colors in Monet’s paintings of his Giverny garden and there is this lively color effect.
British Impressionism, featuring succulents and poppies.
Rammed earth walls, screens, and pillars were put together on-site during the show build. Even the tree trunk (Lagerstroemia indica) is red-brown.
A Corten steel rill leads to the edge of one of several pools that reflect trees along with the sky. In a textural mix of herbs and at least seven different euphorbias, there is green in all its variations and acid yellow with amethyst and pink.
Trend alert—glaucous Euphorbia rigida with its coral flowers, is a standout shrub in this garden.
Dark poppy (Papaver rhoeas) with pink and green Euphorbia rigida and young giant fennel. A red clay base note could seem rather heavy in the British climate, especially if the weather happened to be the usual festival wind and rain.
Water trickles on to a bed of carefully selected hardcore, with a rusty plate to even out the flow.
Insect-friendly umbels of sea carrot (Daucus gingidium) with rangy mauves and pinks and a shot of euphorbia yellow. Price uses plants that might clash in a formal border but that rub together here.
Shadows and reflections will accentuate the pomegranate tree shape later in the day.
Roses indicate that this might be an English person’s garden in the Mediterranean.
A profusion of texture and mainly delicate color, with fluffy mauve phacelia next to fennel, tufty grass, and euphorbia. See our Garden Design 101 guides with ideas for planting our favorite Perennials, Annuals, and Ground Covers.