The petunias and irises are in full, creamy flower, the rhododendrons are blossoming, and the roses and phlox look splendid. However, the exhibitors, planters and designers putting final touches to their creations for the Chelsea flower show are split as seldom before. The traditionally humourless Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has temporarily lifted its ban on “brightly colored mythical creatures,” and war between the landscape snobs and the oiks who love them may be imminent.
“Pssst, want to see one?” Sue Robinson of Hillier nursery said, bringing out “Woodland Wilf,” a fluorescent pink, pointy-headed chappie with two lurid orange buckets.
Wilf, possibly the first garden gnome in 100 years to legitimately show his face at Chelsea, looked as if he wanted to hide in a display of delphiniums, but she was having none of it.
Photo: Reuters
“We haven’t decided where Wilf will sit. Probably beneath that tree,” she said.
Next week, the RHS will unveil more than 100 gnomes, painted for charity by celebrities. Elton John has reportedly garnished his with glitter, but those of Dolly Parton, Dames Maggie Smith and Judi Dench, Rob Brydon and others will not be seen until the royal family and the garden grandees who have long opposed gnomes have had a look tomorrow, before the show opens on Tuesday.
Chelsea’s attempt to reflect the tastes of ordinary folk may prove popular. A wholly unscientific poll of 15 exhibitors and gardeners at Chelsea by the Guardian on Friday found strong approval for the presence of the little people.
“About time, too. What’s wrong with them? Yes, they’re naff, but I’ve secretly got three myself,” one eminent garden designer who asked not to be named said.
“I’m sitting on the gnomic fence,” said Jinny Blom, who has designed a garden of forget-me-nots and baby’s tears plants for Prince Harry’s Lesotho children’s charity, Sentebale. “Chelsea is quite divided. Some people here really, really hate them. Others think it’s all a bit of a laugh.”
She expects Harry to rappel down into her garden from the plane trees in the Royal Hospital grounds.
“I sent the design to Camp Bastion. He said he wanted to dig the garden, but he couldn’t get away,” Blom said.
“This is definitely a gnome-free garden,” said Steve Marsh of the Woodland Trust at the Food and Environment Research Agency garden, funded by the environment department, Forestry Commission and Welsh and Scottish governments, with the idea of not just stimulating the senses, but scaring the 200,000 people expected to visit the sold-out show next week.
An avenue of leafless willows stands above a sinister black pool to make the point that British woods and gardens face a host of new killer pests and diseases such as ash dieback. Fringed by horse chestnut, sycamore and maple trees — which conservationists say could succumb in future — the garden is dark and shocking amid the frivolous yellows and pinks of most of Chelsea’s other exhibits.
“We say they are not dead trees, but lifeless,” the ever-optimistic Marsh said. “The trees actually died naturally and were removed by the Forestry Commission. We want to tell people that if we don’t take notice of what is out there, there won’t be any gardens in future.”
In fact, half of Chelsea’s attractions this year are centered round very expensive bits of dead trees. The £6 billion (US$9.1 billion) garden industry sells plants, but also £20,000 wooden statues of horses, £10,000 gateposts and sheds, as well as beehives, bird boxes and driftwood sculptures.
“The plants are just a small part of the business these days. The money is in the objects,” said Rob Francis, a Dorset garden center manager in London this weekend in order to spot trends.
“It’s been a real struggle to grow the plants this year, what with the cold weather,” said Ruth Gooch of Thorncroft nursery in Norfolk, tying up a display of Polish-bred clematises. “We’ve been holding some back from flowering and encouraging others. The flowers are quite giddy — they have been brought inside and taken outside so many times to make sure they bloom on time.”
She shows how to stimulate the buds by gently rolling them between her fingers.
“Do it too early and they are distorted. The iris people are amazing. They use hair dryers, but we don’t,” she said.
Neither the Garden Gnome Liberation Front nor the supposedly less militant Garden Gnome Emancipation Movement — which take gnomes from gardens to “free them” from “enslavement” in flower beds, lawns, gardens and centers — could be contacted on Friday, but the RHS said the gnomes were safe and being well guarded in its offices.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day