Learn to be silent. The Mindfulness Garden Chelsea 2013

 Learn to be silent. Let your quiet mind listen and absorb. In silence you will see benefit in all things’

Learn to be silent.  Let your quiet mind listen and absorb.
In silence you will see benefit in all things

It’s tempting when life is busy to rush everything.  Every conversation is cut short, meals are eaten on the run, projects lay scattered half finished and you wakeup the next day with more on your to do list than there was the day before, despite having worked from the moment you open your eyes until you shut them.

Certainly for me life is so busy I am almost caught on a merry go round that is stuck in 5th gear and I’m not sure how to slow it down.  So despite it feeling like a great inconvenience, I do make the time to meditate. I am a superfast at making myself relax and I will admit it’s not for everyone, but I take about 15 minutes out each day to practice mindfulness and it really grounds me.  It’s as though my world is turned into slow motion.  I listen to every breath and connect myself to now. It’s amazing just how much good it does me.  Occasionally I go the The Buddhist Nagarjuna Kadampa Meditation Centre based just down the road from me in Kelmarsh, to a drop in class, but mainly I meditate at home.  If I am out and about I play Speigel in Speigel, which just transports me out of myself. 

I was at the 100th Chelsea Flower Show today, and although I was tempted to rush about and try and capture every garden, instead I decided to catch one and share the one that really caught my eye.  Strangely for me it was The Mindfulness Garden which is designed to remind show visitors of the need to focus in uncertain times that took my breath away.   I spoke to Martin Cook who explained that the garden contrasts chaos and turmoil against calm, mindfulness and quiet through careful and somewhat playful planting and use of sculptures. The garden features paving and a carved seat by Martins son and a carved spiral made of Cumbrian blue/black slate. The York stone paving was carved with lines from Rudyard Kipling’s inspirational poem ‘If’ and the slate you can see in the photo about is inscribed with Pythagoras’s verse ‘Learn to be silent. Let your quiet mind listen and absorb. In silence you will see benefit in all things’

* Now there is a challenge.  Certainly for me ... Learn to be silent.  Stop laughing ...   I have been know to be quiet .. very occasionally. 

listen to ‘Martin Cook The Mindfulness Garden’ on Audioboo

The RHS Flower show Chelsea - Part 1

The Arthritis UK Research Garden 

Well the Queen was there yesterday and so was I ! For years now I have been thinking about going to the Royal Horticultural Show at Chelsea. If never quite got round to actually going and very nearly didn’t today.  With two poorly daughters over the weekend it seemed that I was going to have to stay at home and read about it from everyone else, however, the girls picked up and I did get to go.  It was really is good as everyone says.   There is plenty of amazing coverage about the show everywhere so apologies if you are already Chelsead out, but I wanted to share some of the highlights all the same.

There were people from all over the world there, with film crews, celebrities and press everywhere,  it has been a long day. I have so much to write about, but for this post I picked my favorite gardens from the many and I will write about the rest in a separate post in a day or so. 


Here are my favourite gardens.  My favourite was the Arthritis Research UK Garden ( above) which was designed by award-winning landscape and garden designer Tom Hoblyn. Inspired by the great Renaissance gardens of Italy, it certainly does capture the drama, and the structure was spot on.  I particularly loved the use of the trees as  the bark was just beautifully textured. 

The M & G Garden

 The focal point of ‘The M&G Garden’  is a large copper sculpture made from approx 3,800 copper washers!  (Watch out for the metal thieves !)  The sculpture is Reminiscent of a piece of arts and crafts jewellary  and is designed to convey energy and movement by weaving through the garden and water 

The Brewin Dolphin Garden 

I loved this garden and the structure.  Designed by Cleve West the beech hedging and yew topiary forms, contrast with loose layers of herbaceous plants.  It’s kind of romantic in a grown up way and a sense of timelessness to the garden  .. it wouldn’t be out of place 50 years ago in a classical country house kind of setting. 

The Laurent-Perrier Bicentenary Garden 

Created by award-winning garden designer Arne Maynard,  the Laurent Perrier Bicentenary Garden has a romantic and soft planting scheme with structure from the topiary.  I loved this garden so much .. I think I may have to use elements of it for my own garden, because it has such an easy elegance. 

The Telegraph Garden

For this year's Telegraph Garden, the designer Sarah Price has allot to live up to as this is her first Chelsea garden.  She set rugged rock and water against a delightful and delicate flora to compose as a tribute to wild Britain. 

L'Occitane Garden 

The essence of the wild Corsican Maquis - 8-time Chelsea gold medal-winning garden designer, Peter Dowle to brought the dramatic colours, scents and textures of this unique landscape to Chelsea today.  It looked stunning and oddly as though it had always been there. 

Quiet Time: DMZ Forbidden Garden

The barbed wire fence surrounding the garden really makes you stop and think. Created to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Korean conflict.  I read that the indigenous Korean plants that have thrived in the almost pristine conditions in the sanctuary of the demilitarised zone (DMZ) and this design highlights the tensions and lasting effects of the conflict.

The fence is hung with old rusty cans and what looks like casually thrown bottles, which contain letters from separated families and friends.  This garden certainly illustrates the sense of longing felt by people kept apart by the conflict. 

Like I said ..  it makes you think.