The Laurent Perrier Garden
Chelsea Flower Show 2006

Designed by Jinny Blom

The garden design for Chelsea Flower Show is inspired by the quintessential elements of French Gardens, ancient and modern, which it represents in a contemporary and conceptual manner.

The entire garden is on the theme of chalk. Chalk is the soil of northern France and in particular the Champagne Region, home of Laurent Perrier. All the constructed elements of the garden are either built from pure chalk rock, pure white limestone or are limewashed in chalky white. Every plant represented in the garden is suitable for growing on chalk. Even the roses, sourced in France, are specially grown on grafted rootstocks of Rosa laxa, a particularly lime tolerant species. The pale creamy flowers of roses and peonies temper the richer colours of the ornamental meadow.

The garden seeks to express how, from a seemingly weak and unyielding soil, a spectacular richness can be brought forth with careful coaxing.

The garden makes use of what we perceive as classic French stylistic statements, box headed Lime trees, sumptuous Roses, Irises, Peonies, gentle wild meadows and vines. These are set within the formal structures of walls; superbly crafted by the artist David Wilson from the rarely used and extremely beautiful chalk rock- Totternhoe Clunch. Decorating the garden is a metal framed Gloriette echoing, in skeletal form, the undeniably French roofline of a Chateau.

The garden unifies the French passion for architecture where natural materials are elevated to art forms of subtlety and complexity belying their humble origins, and the passionate excellence of horticultural tradition, which sees humble crops, transformed into the finest wines in the world.

The garden is a contemporary evocation of all that is stylish, liberal and romantic in France.

Jinny Blom
9.11.2005

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