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Laurent-Perrier has looked back to its roots in the chalky landscape of Champagne to create a 'French' Show Garden for the 2006 RHS Chelsea Flower Show (23rd – 27th May), designed by Jinny Blom. (pictured right)

The 2006 Laurent-Perrier Garden celebrates how, from a seemingly weak and unyielding chalk landscape, a spectacular richness of growth can flourish and be transformed into fine wines in Champagne or fine roses at Chelsea. This links the intricate blending of winemaking to the skill and art of gardening. The garden only includes plants that are chalk and lime tolerant and structures that are deftly crafted from natural chalk materials.

Jinny has taken her inspiration from quintessential elements of decorative, lime-loving French gardens (including her own in France) for the Chelsea garden, which blends the classical with the new to create a stylish, romantic and peaceful French Chateau setting. (Please click garden design sketch for larger image.)

There will be a white metal-framed Gloriette echoing, in skeletal form, the French roofiline of a hypothetical Chateau and an L-shaped pool which represents a 'vivier' or typically French trout pool. The planting will be soft and delicate, abundant with roses, irises, peonies and gentle wild meadow-flowers, set within the formal structures of chalk rock walls, crafted by artist David Wilson. Spontaneous herbaceous planting is combined with classic French stylistic statements, such as box headed Limes (Tilia).

Reckless asked Jinny what lies behind the concept of the garden. She
explained: "I've spent so much time in France since childhood that I have a great love of the tough way plants grow on limestone soils - very different to our rich loams here in the UK. I adore the early summer flowering of roses, irises and paeonies mingled with the wilder regional plants, such as aquilegia and allium and the air suffused with the scent of lilac. My concept for the garden was drawn from these lovely delicate plants and the rocky or chalky regions of the limestone causses or chalk downs of Reims where the architecture, the spires of a church or the turret of a chateau grows organically from its surroundings."

This will be Jinny's second garden at Chelsea (www.jinnyblom.com) and the second time that Laurent-Perrier has teamed up with her in the brand's eight-year association with the show. Jinny co-designed the award winning Laurent-Perrier Harpers & Queen Garden - 'The Healing Garden' - with HRH the Prince of Wales in 2002.

Chelsea, for Jinny, means the pinnacle of a gardener's year: "There is
nothing like it" she says, "for a year one lives, eats and breathes the show garden. It is a serious opportunity to push the boundaries of excellence in horticulture, building, design and conceptual ideas."

As design and garden preparations move closer to May we asked Jinny what her thoughts are at this stage: "It is a meticulous process of planning" she told Reckless, "first the inspiration and broad brush strokes, then, having seduced a sponsor, many hours of scrupulous work making certain that every aspect of the garden is planned to the millimeter. Planting plans have to be developed with sufficient plants sourced and grown on to allow for the inevitable castastrophes. Huge trees have to be carefully crated and stored on the nursery. Our walls are being made in Scotland and shipped to Chelsea so lots of liaising with builders is needed. At no point until the show breakdown on Saturday can I afford to relax."

However, Jinny admits that it is a year of pleasurable hard work for her, the landscapers who make the garden and the nurserymen who grow the plants as well as the sponsors and the RHS.

Once again, the Laurent-Perrier Garden is being built by www.crocus.co.uk, the UK's largest on-line garden centre, where most of the plants on the garden will be available for purchase on-line.

Planting includes: For the Lime Perimeter: Tilia – Box Head, Buxus
sempervirens Bullata, Clematis ffammula, Fig (Ficus carica), Lonicera
Belgica, Rosa Glauca, Rosa Rambling Rector. For the Paeony bed: Geranium sylvaticum Album, Iris Beverly Sills, Viola cornuta Alba, Iris Goodbye Heart. Meadow planting will include: Fraxinus ornus-multistem, Rosa chinensis mutabilis, Buxus sempervirens irregular topiary cubes, Aconitum Sparks Variety, Delphinium Tiddles, Lilium candidum and Verbascum phoenicium Violetta. The pergola will be planted with Rosa banksiae Lutea and the pool area will include Iris laevigata Alba and Numphaea Alba.

The Laurent-Perrier garden is supported by the prestigious Laurent-Perrier Grand Siecle Champagne, a multi-vintage champagne which represents the pinnacle of champagne blending - calling on wines from the finest growths and the very best harvests.

To keep you up-to-date with Jinny and the Laurent-Perrier garden we will be visiting them again just prior to the show.