Creating a little piece of the Yorkshire Dales in Chelsea

We’re getting closer to the start of the Chelsea Flower Show and are getting even more excited to be part of this fantastic event.

You may have seen that we are teaming up with Welcome to Yorkshire for this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show!

This year’s show garden will showcase the county to the world and encourage people to visit the area to see its beauty first hand. As well as a stunning Dales landscape and traditional cottage garden, this year’s design by Mark Gregory features a stone bothy converted into a craftsman’s creamery where genuine artisan cheese production will take place. Read more about it here.

Designer Mark Gregory who is celebrating his 30th year at Chelsea has been inspired by the stunning Yorkshire Dales, world famous for its Wensleydale cheese, wildflower and buttercup meadows and iconic drystone walls. So much so that 35 tonnes of walling stone and 15 tonnes of glacial boulders have been collected in the Dales for the Welcome to Yorkshire show garden!

The stone, collected from near Castle Bolton in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, will be used to create a genuine drystone wall and to construct a stone bothy in the garden. The glacial boulders will be used to help create a tumbling beck and fast flowing stream. They are being delivered to the site in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea by Green-tech Ltd based in Knaresborough. All items are on loan and will be returned to the Bolton Estate after the show.

Sir Gary Verity Chief Executive of Welcome to Yorkshire said:

“It’s brilliant to see this stunning design being turned into reality. Borrowing some genuine pieces of Yorkshire is a fantastic way to make our garden shine as brightly as this great county does when viewed first hand, and we’re incredibly grateful to the Bolton Estate, Wensleydale Creamery and Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority for all their help and support in making this happen. We promise to take great care of these precious pieces of Yorkshire and return them straight after the show”

Garden designer Mark Gregory said:

“To create a garden that truly evokes the beauty of Yorkshire you have to start with the right ingredients. We wouldn’t be doing it justice if we didn’t borrow part of the soul of the county and it’s amazing that we are being given access to this kind of quality material. We’re trying to make it as authentic as possible, but we are also being incredibly respectful to the environment.”

David Hartley, Managing Director at The Wensleydale Creamery, said:

“We are very excited for the start of this wonderful project, which will create a little piece of the Yorkshire Dales in Chelsea, allowing us tell our historic story and showcase our much-loved Yorkshire Wensleydale in a truly authentic setting.”

Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority Chief Executive, David Butterworth, said:

“We are pleased to support this wonderful garden inspired by the stunning landscape of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. We hope it will, in turn, inspire visitors to the Chelsea Flower Show to come and enjoy the sights, smells and tastes of the Park for themselves.