We’ve had a great year… we’re just a bit late telling anyone about it!
The common thug “E.gunnii” plays the Evil Queen as our Eucalyptus take centre stage on our RHS Chelsea Flower Show exhibit that’s all about Dwarf species.
(Scroll down for video and photos)
Hardy Eucalyptus (at Grafton Nursery) RHS Chelsea Gold Medal, May 2019
Among many other things that we’ve managed to squeeze in this year, we’ve now got an RHS Chelsea Gold Medal for the display of Eucalyptus in the Great Pavilion (2019).
This is only the 2nd time we’ve ever exhibited at Chelsea, having won a silver-Gilt for our first Chelsea exhibit, called Outback Glamping, in 2018.
Our 2019 stand, called “Snow White and the Seven Dwarf Eucalyptus Trees”, was designed to look like a film set in a Eucalyptus grove, with a cinema screen at the back ‘crediting’ the seven dwarf Eucalyptus species found around the stand.
Snow White was Disney’s first feature-length film, first aired in 1937, hence the (slightly shaky) vintage theme, and we gave it an antipodean spin.
The RHS Chelsea 2019 exhibit. The ‘cinema screen’ that formed the back of the hut of the ‘film set’ behind!
We had a bit of a “Blue Peter moment”, and hand-made the curtains, Dwarf’s hut (with homegrown Eucalyptus poles), directors chair, 1930’s replica camera, clapper board (invented in Australia!), a paper mache poisoned apple, and the theater costumes too.
The credits were hand-written in white emulsion paint using icing nozzles and a piping bag!
There was also a working water well so the dwarf’s could do their washing up.
The Cast;
– the white-stemmed E. debeuzevillei played Snow White,
– the thuggish, bog-standard E. gunnii played The Evil Queen,
– the Seven Dwarfs were played by:
E. Azura,
Baby Blue,
France Bleu,
gregonsiana,
kybeanensis,
Mount Buffalo
and Mount Bogong.
A silky Tencel ® carpet (made from Eucalyptus fibers) on the deck boards (“treading the boards”… no? A metaphor too far?) and a vintage theater chair completed the look.
Our other 2019 medals
This year we achieved a hat-trick as we also got Gold Medals at RHS Malvern Spring in May and BBC Gardeners World Live at the NEC in June! Both in the Floral Marquee.
Phew… it’s gonna take a lot of elbow grease to polish all of those medals. (Just kidding. They’re printed on card now…
Gold at BBC Gardeners World Live 2019. We used the same ‘Snow White’ film set, just a bit smaller!
A running total
So that totals 23 medals across the 7 years we’ve been exhibiting at the Flower Shows, plus the Most Creative Exhibit in the Floral Marquee Trophy which we won at our first ever flower show at RHS Malvern in 2012.
Above Left: Hilary, Charlie and Steve sat on their first ever Flower Show exhibit at Malvern Spring 2012.
Above Middle: The Silver-Gilt medal with the Most Creative Exhibit in the Floral Marquee Trophy (or the Fox’s Glacier Mint, as we call it…!) sat on a home-made Eucalyptus leaf plaque, made from Eucalyptus wood.
Above Right: close up of the stand surround. Made in-house from Eucalyptus wood deck boards and home-grown Eucalyptus log rounds.
