Blooming marvellous: a guide to the Chelsea Flower Show 2014

Most people ignore the celebrities on press day at the Chelsea Flower Show, perhaps much to their chagrin, but a famous mechanical horse from the National Theatre is a different matter. Brought on to attract attention to the No Man's Land garden—designer Charlotte Rowe's homage to WW1—it was so fabulously uncanny that the garden became a mere backdrop. 

With all the goings-on, it is helpful to remember that the 'show' is essentially of the horticultural variety. The best time to view the designed gardens is in the morning, when they've had a rest, the flowers are full of dew and the visitors are not thronging quite so heavily. When most people arrive at the Chelsea Flower Show, the medals have already been given out, the cheers and tears subsided. However, do try to see the gardens for what they are, instead of making a bee-line for each medal “to see what they got.”

Garden colours of the season

There is a calming feel to the gardens this year; the water trickles more quietly and the planting is meadowy. On the whole, huts have not been dropped in as though from outer space and furniture - well - it's very hard to get furniture right.

It will have been noted that several plants have been used over and over. Is this because of the zeitgeist, a kind of cosmic coming together in which a need for pale yellow emerges, and only  Trollius x cultorum  'Alabaster' will do? This occurred in three big show gardens, those of Luciano Giubbilei, Charlotte Rowe and Adam Frost, the last two next door to each other. Another leitmotif, if you will, is  Euphorbia palustris , breaking up the wavy greens of the Laurent-Perrier and Telegraph gardens, this time mercifully separated by a yew hedge. These citrus hues aside, the go-to colour in most gardens was purple, in all its plum, claret, and mauve forms.

Small pleasures

Increasingly it is the little show gardens which are intercepting attention. As a pleasant respite from Main Avenue, wander over to the Artisan gardens, overhung by tall trees along the perimeter of the show ground. Marylyn Abbot's 'Topiarist's Garden' features a plain brick gardener's bothy like the one she found in the walled garden at West Green House in Hampshire, when she took it on a long lease from the National Trust. With mainly white, cottage-style planting and lots of informal topiary, this is very pretty and even manageable for us non-professionals.

We've come to expect at least one smaller show garden laden with moss, and the Japanese 'T ogenkyo ' garden, designed by  Kazuyuki Ishihara , does not disappoint. Be sure to go round the back, which is not part of the judged display, to appreciate the exquisite attention to detail. A visit to Suwada, the Japanese blade people on Eastern Avenue's row of shops, will suddenly make more sense. Instead of gazing in awe and nervously clipping bits of wood in half with their frighteningly sharp blades, you will know what to do with the over-sized tweezers - “affix moss and pick small buds.” Quite.

Before you leave...

The Fresh gardens, clustering around the Grand Pavilion, are always worth a detour: head for the Cave Pavilion (in support of the Garden Museum) for a different kind of garden-viewing experience, this time via Wales.

Finally, for scent and shelter, the Grand Pavilion's expansive space is a must. It is helpful to look on this as a glorified village show: instead of old duffers from the allotment you have their professional counterparts. In this setting, they are just as obsessive and dotty but far more glamorous.