Chelsea, Perfume and Prince Charles?

Dear Mr Postman not the most obvious of connections perhaps .. but this week, as you'll know, Summer really has arrived for the English .. the start of the cricket season .. the gentle echo of leather on wood, and the Chelsea Flower Show setting the standard for future gardens ..

Anemones - my mother's favourite flower is Chelsea's 2009 brand

The Victoria Medal of Honour is awarded by the Royal Horticultural Society to horticulturists whom they consider to be highly deserving. There can only ever be 63 at any given time - the number of years that Queen Victoria reigned -when the first one was issued in 1897 (together with fifty nine others! - two of whom I recognise .. Gertrude Jekyll (the influential British garden designer, writer and artist) and Lionel Walter Rothschild (banker and zoologist). The RHS this year awarded their highest accolade to HRH The Prince of Wales for 'his passion for plants, sustainable gardening and the environment'.

The Cancer Garden - the People's Choice at Chelsea 2009

Should I have started with royalty? - I don't know .. but it leads me towards the others .. The Queen presented her son with his medal .. & I guess perhaps he said "thank you, Mummy" .. at this year's Chelsea Flower Show. Years ago the Prince famously admitted that he talked to plants during a tv interview in 1986 .. as you'd expect 20+ years ago that earned him much derision .. but he said his gardening practice and philosophy was to 'come and talk to the plants .. they seem to respond'. His reasoning .. appears to be correct - though no-one knows quite why! Any ideas?

Chelsea this year has been hit by the recession .. only 13 show gardens instead of the usual 20+ and a number of smaller gardens being created with a credit crunch theme .. watering and environmental tips, raised beds, fruit or vegetables everywhere .. so we save food miles and have a healthier diet. I saw hanging tomatoes when I was out in the States .. now those I haven't seen here .. yet. Presumably they'd work just as well for strawberries?

The Perfume Garden at Chelsea has been designed as a sensory experience .. and though you cannot receive scent via the net .. you can have a look at an excellent 5 minute video made by the BBC on this garden - it's well worth a look.

This comes from English Heritage's Elizabethan Garden at Kenilworth Castle.

I believe the designers have been involved in the Elizabethan Garden at Kenilworth Castle that's been restored (see more at the English Heritage site) using advances in garden achaeology and which has been described in some detail from a letter dated 1575 (available for reading on the English Heritate site) .. whereby they've managed to create the sight, scent and sounds that would have greeted Queen Elizabeth I when she first walked the gardens.

In the ancient world plant perfumes were enjoyed and used as necessary accoutrements .. perfume balls like the later pomanders, pot pourri, nosegays etc all became essential to ward off the smells of life, when no sanitation existed. Scented flowers, herbs, leaves, bulbs and rhyzomes were all used appropriately for their beneficial oils or scents. It's been said that the mortar used in the building of some of the ancient temples was partly mixed with musk, and for many years the walls continued to give out a powerful scent.

Jars of perfume more than 4,000 years old have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs in Cyprus, together with stills, the utensils for a huge factory; the making of perfume is not easy and even though we have the technological advances today .. we still need a huge of amount of flowers: it is estimated that it takes one hectare of roses to produce a single kilo of the essential essence attar of roses, first discovered in Persia.

Perfume waters are easier to make using the distillation process - and rose water was brought to Europe by the knights returning from the Crusades .. the alchemists of the medieval ages started to weave their magic bringing new and pleasant scents to the rulers of the time .. encouraging the herbalists, plantsmen to develop new waters, syrups, pomanders, pot pourris from the local plants. Before that perfumes were made by boiling plants in fat to make a fragrant ointment.

Early Medieval recipes for the making of perfume, ointments and pomanders consisting of lavender, elderflower, lily waters have been found, together with violet and rose syrups, dried leaves and petal mixes for bags to hang on chairs, take to bed or use in the house to ward off unpleasant smells.

Fortunately today we have sanitation, we smell sweet - mostly! .. we can make ourselves smell sweeter and as our learning continues we are embracing the ancients' knowledge as to the many benefits of a sensory garden and its uses. We are learning to be extremely grateful for those explorers, scientists, experimenters, recorders and plantsmen of the past centuries, without whom we would we would all be so much poorer as far as our gardens are concerned - we are finally truly embracing our roots and the benefit of our lands.

Chelsea this year had so much to offer - plants and gardens of course, knots, embroidery, quilts, pillboxes, east meeting west, toys ..... what a mix - tales to tell.

Mr Postman thank you for bringing us these tales .. my mother will enjoy the story and we have our first summer scents in her room - I found some wonderful large stocks .. purple, lilac and white .. they are wafting their perfume towards her. I'm grateful to you for keeping an eye on her while I was away .. this year hasn't been very kind to her .. and she will never truly get over the trials - which considering she actually hasn't been ill .. seem somewhat unfair - but we live on and I will keep her as happy as I can. We will talk about our visits to the Chelsea Flower Show and the amazing gardens she has created.

Hilary Melton-Butcher

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