Going for Chelsea Gold

The 2007 Chelsea Flower Show has 20 entries in the Show Garden category.

The following is the breakdown of Medal winners:

Gold medals: 7
Silver Gilt: 5
Silver: 5
Bronze: 3

In other words, every Show Garden was awarded a medal of some sort and over one-third of the gardens earned a Gold Medal, which must somewhat devalue the actual achievement.

Creating a garden for the show and winning a medal is obviously a great was of promoting a gardening/landscaping business. Diarmuid Gavin has undoubtedly gained huge publicity from his involvement at Chelsea on a number of occasions - he won a Silver Gilt medal this year - which means he finished in the range 8-12 out of 20.

There are persistent media reports that Fitzpatrick Gardening & Gambling Inc. has recognised the possibilities and is actively considering submitting an entry for next year’s Chelsea show. One can readily envisage areas of lawn set out as roulette or blackjack tables. I'm reliably informed that employees are not looking forward to this project, particularly the noisy and dirty job of using an angle-grinder to cut square paving slabs, in different colours, into circular chips.

Footnote: Today's Indo carries a report by Anne-Marie Walsh in which it states: "Gavin revealed that one of the Royal Horticultural Society judges told him the wrong garden had taken the gold medal". Which one of the seven gold medals awarded would that be, Diarmuid? Chancer!