Women garden designers smash Chelsea Flower Show's 'grass ceiling' 

Sarah Price with her gardens at the Olympic Park, Stratford, in 2012
Sarah Price with her gardens at the Olympic Park, Stratford, in 2012 Credit: Martin Pope

A record number of women have smashed through horticulture’s “grass ceiling” to design gardens at next year’s Chelsea Flower Show.

Of the 26 set-piece gardens selected by the Royal Horticultural Society to compete for gold medals, 12 will be designed by women.

It is believed to be a record ratio since the event moved to the Royal Hospital Chelsea in 1913.

However, men still dominate the prestigious Show Garden category, with seven out of 10 commissions for the coveted plots on Main Avenue.

The event has historically struggled to attract female designers even though around 70 per cent of The Society of Garden Designers' 1,000-plus members are women.

In 2015, the RHS revealed that only a third of almost 200 show gardens over the previous decade had been designed by women and issued a “call to arms” to women in a bid to buck the trend.

Sarah Price's Chelsea Flower Show 2018 show garden design for firm M & G Investments 
Sarah Price's Chelsea Flower Show 2018 show garden design for firm M & G Investments  Credit: TIM STEWART NEWS LIMITED

Past female winners have suggested that fewer women apply because they simply do not think it is worth the stress and prioritise other things.

Sarah Eberle, the last female outright winner of the Chelsea Best in Show award, in 2007, told the Telegraph:  “I don’t think there is anything preventing women from applying but you have to be so ambitious, so determined and driven. Chelsea takes over your life.

“Perhaps fewer women are confidant on the project management side, dealing with contractors with authority.”

Eberle, who has three grown-up daughters but never took more than nine days off work following their births, added: “Many women take a step back, a career break, and why not?

“But even in the most contemporary households women tend to be the primary carer of children. To show at Chelsea you are away from home a lot, you have to prioritise it over other things.”

Charlotte Rowe, who won a gold medal in 2014 has likened Chelsea to “a private club of horticultural Olympians.”

Sarah Eberle at the Hillier Nurseries Stand she designed at Chelsea in 2016 
Sarah Eberle at the Hillier Nurseries Stand she designed at Chelsea in 2016  Credit: JULIAN SIMMONDS

She said designers needed “true grit” to sustain endless knock backs as you persuaded someone to build your design, someone else to supply thousands of plants, get a charity partner on board and then secure financial sponsorship.

Only then, do you begin the process of trying to persuade the RHS that you have a strong enough proposition for a successful garden.

“Fronting a project of this value (Main Avenue show gardens cost more than £300,000 to mount) in front of 160,000 visitors and millions of viewers on 11 hours of national television, not to mention media from all over the world, is not something with which all creative people feel comfortable,” she told the Guardian.

“And so much rests on doing well (ie medals) that it simply frightens off many women designers.”

Patricia Fox, whose last Chelsea show garden was in 2012, admitted: “it is very difficult and I think most designers give up in the end.

"Sponsors all want to win a gold medal and that can lead to a closed shop of mainly male designers who have won one in the past.”

Next year, female designers will include Jo Thompson, Hay Hwang and Sarah Price, all of whom have created award-winning show gardens for Chelsea in the past.

Thompson has chosen an 18th century tea garden theme for classic English fine china firm Wedgwood boasting a pond and pavilion.

Sarah Eberle's cricket-themed Chelsea Flower Show 2018 artisan garden design for the British Council
Sarah Eberle's cricket-themed Chelsea Flower Show 2018 artisan garden design for the British Council Credit: TIM STEWART NEWS LIMITED

Hwang's “eco-city” garden for LG Electronics features an outdoor kitchen and an indoor vertical vegetable and herb farm which use solar-powered lights for growth.

And Price is relying on Pomegranate trees and Mediterranean flora to create a "sheltered and beautiful oasis of calm" for firm M & G Investments.

Nine other women will be among the 16 designers who have smaller, less prestigious artisan or space to grow gardens, which cost a fraction of the cost lavished on show gardens.

Eberle will create a cricket-themed artisan garden for the British Council, marking the end of the organisation's UK-India Year of Culture.

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