With only days to go before RHS Chelsea opens for 2018, garden designer Robert Barker is challenging his biorhythms. “I haven’t been to bed for five days,” he told us earlier this week.

The Skin Deep garden, sponsored by Harley Street Skin Care, designed by Robert Barker, and built by Terraforma Landscapes. Copyright: Robert Barker.

Skin Deep is Robert’s first Chelsea garden, one of the new ‘Space to Grow’ category that is replacing the ‘Fresh’ gardens of recent years. Sponsored by Harley Street Skin Care, and dominated by nearly two hundred concrete blocks, it examines our relationship with the largest organ of the body; our skin.

What a difference a month makes! From the torrential wind and rain, I am currently sat inside the ‘Green Living Spaces’ garden we have built at the RHS Malvern Spring Festival. The sun is shining, the gardens look divine, the atmosphere is buzzing, and there is a bottle of something fizzy cooling in the fridge. This can mean only one thing; it must be press day!

Jamie Butterworth – Green Living Spaces (©Lynn Keddie)

The Green Living Spaces category is all about showing that you can have an amazing, beautiful garden even in the smallest of spaces. Using creative, imaginative and inspiring designs to maximise the most of a small space. With four brilliant gardens, designed by four very talented designers, there is a lot of inspiration to take away.

Here at London Stone we’ve always maintained the importance of working together, so we love events that make that happen.

London Stone Stand at the SGD Spring Conference

The annual SGD Spring Conference, which took place last Saturday, is a prime example. There’s a real sense of community, with garden designers travelling down from as far afield as Scotland to enjoy lectures, meet colleagues, and exchange news—and hugs!

It was a first-time experience for our Garden Design Consultants, Fiona Campbell and Lucy Bravington. “It was a really good platform to introduce ourselves,” says Fiona, whose role is to work closely with designers from concept stage to ensure you have everything you need during the specification process.

If we could have asked for something extra to really show off our newest showroom, launched this week, it would be this superb sunshine. There’s nothing like a hot day to make you appreciate a shady, well-laid out outdoor space, with drinks available!

Exterior display at the North London Showroom

Our new North London Showroom, in Bounds Green, has been designed in-house by (our rather talented, but shh! Don’t tell them) Director Gavin Walley, Design Project Manager Piotr Przytula and Sales Advisor Ionna Vongou. They’ve put an enormous amount of thought into what you need to see and how you like to see it, based on what you’ve said to us, and what we’ve learned from our other showrooms.

I’m sat writing this blog in my car, in the middle of what is a rather wet, muddy field here on the Malvern Show Ground. It is hard to imagine that in just one months’ time this will be an incredible flower show, an epicentre of horticulture, full of the country’s greatest nurseries, designers and horticulturists. A feast for the senses and is most definitely not to be missed, this year’s show is looking like the best yet.

RHS Malvern Showground

If you’ve never been to Malvern before, you should really consider coming. Located under the stunning Malvern Hills, this has to be the most gorgeous rural location for a Flower Show you could think of.