My build up team at the 100th Chelsea Flower Show.

Build up is always a fun but frantic few days, for almost four months before the show you spend so much time going over your stand design, building sections of walls, sourcing the plants, painting plinths and putting together all the finishing touches.

The comes the meetings with the build up team, going over the schedule, how we are going to put things together and in what order, what tools we will need, absolutely everything has to be planned in meticulous detail.

Next comes the flat packing and loading everything from turf and trees to sculptures and walls into the back of a long wheel based transit van and driving off to London.

The hard work now starts, building everything from the ground up over two days to create the best display you can to show off your sculptures. The planning really pays off, but even with all the planning there will always be something that you cant plan for. One year the ground was so solid we couldn’t hammer a single stake into the ground, the following year it was so wet the walls began to sink, this year the nursery manager who had agreed to supply me with plants for my stand had forgotten to inform his staff, who all felt extremely embarrassed and tried their best to scrap some plants together. 

Would I do it again? of course.