Watch our build-up video and TV coverage here, including our interview with gardening legend Monty Don (scroll to bottom)

We exhibited at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show for the first time in 2018 and as it has been a very busy year, we decided to celebrate everything past and present going on at Grafton Nursery and designed the show stand to reflect our “year of celebration”.

About our Cheslea exhibit:

“A Year of Celebration” 2018 is a milestone year for Grafton Nursery.

For us, this year marks:

• Grafton Nursery’s 10th Birthday,

• generally working in horticulture for 40 years,

• our first RHS Chelsea show & 6 years on the Flower Show circuit,

• and our first year exhibiting at the renewable energy show Energy Now Expo.

So, we’re feeling pretty proud of ourselves right now.

About our stand

Last year we celebrated our daughter Charlie & her husband Luke tying the knot with our cut-foliage themed, “Outback Wedding” show stand.

This year, inspired by Charlie & Luke’s glamping mini-moon in the forests of Yorkshire and as a nod to our Year of Celebration, our display shows a happy couple celebrating their 10th anniversary on a glamping holiday in a Eucalyptus woodland, that is also being sustainably managed as a source of firewood to heat the tents and the landowners’ family home.

Our stand also featured three zones of ‘useful’ Eucalyptus; DIY firewood species, cut foliage for floral art, and smaller garden-friendly ornamentals.

We included every-day items made from Eucalyptus:

• bath products,

• Tencel* hand and bath towels from John Lewis,

• Tencel* shirt from M&S,

• luxury Tencel* carpet provided by Jacaranda Carpets,

• compressed Eucalyptus wood decorative screens provided by Garden Design Art,

• Eucalyptus wood furniture,

• home-grown Eucalyptus firewood logs,

• our home-made outdoor ‘forest shower’ with copper fittings and home-grown Eucalyptus log rounds.

• and home-grown Eucalyptus tent poles for the home-made bell tent (yes, really!)

*Tencel® is fabric woven from a fiber made from spun Eucalyptus wood pulp.

Above: home-video of our Chelsea Flower Show build-up

We were awarded a Silver Gilt medal for our Chelsea stand, and subsequently awarded a Gold medal at BBC Gardeners World Live 2018 a month later, which also happened to be our 20th medal!

Above: Monty Don, interviewing Hilary for BBC Gardeners World Live, Chelsea 2018 (episode 11)

“So there is a Eucalyptus for anyone, they are beautiful, they belong in gardens, and they belong here at Chelsea” – Monty Don, interviewing Hilary for BBC Gardeners World Live, Chelsea 2018 (episode 11)