Chelsea Flower Show

Plasticine garden misses out in favour of simple designs at Chelsea Flower Show Photo: GETTY
The world's biggest and most complex Plasticine garden designed by Top Gear presenter James May is one of the few entrants at the Royal Horticultural Society show not to win an official award. However the RHS did award the colourful display with a Plasticine gold award that is now proudly displayed alongside the official awards on the adjoining gardens. Mr May said no-one is "too posh for Plasticine" and even managed to smuggle a garden gnome into the model, which is strictly against Chelsea rules. "They [the RHS] had to admit it is a nice idea and people like it but they cannot give me a medal alongside the other proper gardens otherwise that would open the flood gates to all sorts of ideas like gardens made of balsa-wood or something. "So, they decided to give me a Plasticine medal for taking part without compromising the judging process. The Plasticine garden which is part of a series of projects Mr May is carrying out using toys, is already proving popular with the public. The garden was modelled by hundreds of volunteers including schoolchildren, war veterans and professional artists from the Aardman studios where Wallace and Gromit were created. Many people commented about a "smell of childhood" rather than flowers from the model using two-and-a-half tonnes of Plasticine. However some gardeners protested against a garden without any living flowers bringing down the tone of Chelsea.
"Some people have said it is a bit camp and a bit vulgar but I cannot do much about that – its modelled out of Plasticine," said Mr May. "It has been great fun and we can still go for the people's vote." Bod Sweet, Head of Shows Development at the RHS, welcomed the inclusion of different ideas that might encourage more people to be interested in gardening. This year's show has seen a credit crunch garden built with no budget and an underwater garden with piranhas as well as the Plasticine model. "We are seeing some different takes on gardening at Chelsea this year and that is quite interesting," he said. The Daily Telegraph garden by Ulf Nordfjell won Best Show Garden this year. TheTamshee's: good lady loves spending her days nourturing what started off as a gardeners nightmare at Inchgarth. The efforts over the years are a joy indeed, with an abundance of shrubs, fruit trees and flowers to reward her hard graft. As a treat, she set off on monday for the big smog with best friend Annie, first visiting Kew Gardens then moving onto Chelsea Flower Show for the rest of the week. First day report, awesome, wow, brillant, saw the Titchmarsh, he's goergous. Love you!