Dig It with Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball - 94: Chelsea Flower Show Exclusive!

Episode Date: May 20, 2026

It’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show week! To celebrate, Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball were given exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the world’s most famous flower show before the gates even opened to the public.In this special episode of Dig It, Jo and Zoe explore Chelsea on build day and chat to two brilliant garden designers - Frances Tophill and Arit Anderson - about the extraordinary gardens they’ve created for this year’s show.From powerful stories behind the planting to practical inspiration you can take home to your own garden, this is a very special Chelsea edition of Dig It.Watch on YouTube - https://youtu.be/dJsINKUCB1EGET IN TOUCH📧 Email us: [e-mail]📱 Text or Voice Note: 07477 038795💬 Or tap here to send a voice note or message on WhatsApp:⁠ ⁠https://wa.me/447477038795SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR SPONSORSThis episode is brought to you by Alzheimer's Society and M&S🧠 Alzheimer's Society — Every three minutes, someone in the UK develops dementia. Find out more at www.alzheimers.org.uk 🛍️ Marks & Spencer — M&S have relaunched their Sparks loyalty programme, and it’s better than ever. Earn money into your digital Sparks wallet every time you shop at M&S - across food, fashion, and more.CREDITSExec Producer: Jonathan O’SullivanAssistant Producer: Eve JonesTechnical Producer: Oliver GeraghtyVideo Editors: Cameron Laird

Coming up on Dig It at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Who's had her back operation. We were planting some things the other day. And it was the first thing she's been able to do as part of her recovery from her operation. It's like, oh my God, this is a game changer, isn't it? Bring out to you. Oh, it's true. It's true.

The amount of bees that are loving these, is this garlic? It's a drying flower. It's an alium, isn't it? It's an alium. I've not done it for a medal at the end of the day. Why have you done it? Yeah, I've done it because my sister has Parkinson's. All of that right after this.

Hello, Diggers. Welcome to a very special episode of Digget coming to you from the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Joe, we've made it. Oh my God, it's the thing that dreams are made of. Honestly, if you'd seen us earlier on today, we've been taking photographs of absolutely everything that we can find in all the different gardens. We are so delighted to be here.

It's the build day today. So this is when all the construction and all the finessing is done, done to the gardens. So this is a real insight. There are no other podcasts that are coming from Chelsea today. So we're very honoured. We're very, very excited and we're going to bring it all to you. So I'm thrilled because we are using your ambassadorial role, Joe, because Joe is an ambassador of the RHS, aren't you? You know your stuff. It's really fascinating because the first time I've really walked around gardens with Joe and she knows so many plants and I'm writing them all down or spotting them with my plant app. But it's a real three.

thrilled to be here because it feels like we're very much behind the scenes today, aren't we? Because none of the public are here. It's just everyone who's worked on the teams, everybody in the last minute checks. Judging has happened this morning and now, and we're just like pulling back the curtain and having a sneaky piece. Everyone's wearing high-vis jackets and steel-toe caps. We've taken hours off just for the purpose of talking to you now. But there's a lovely air atmosphere of calm. Air of calm, that's what there is an air of calm at the moment because like you said all the hard works been done and they all the what I always think is the garden designers they've got to stand and talk to

people for the rest of the week so they're going to be absolutely exhausted but what Chelsea's all about I think it's like it's like a theatre isn't it it's just this amazing carnival of creativity and skill all the plants people are involved in putting the gardens together the designers the construction workers yeah the landscapers the teams that put these gardens together and it's all completely artificial. I mean, it's ridiculous, but it's also so utterly inspiring. I mean, that's what I do. I just come here and I steal all the ideas. I think this is the wonderful thing about going to flower shows. And if you've never been to one before, they're all over the country. They run all year. If you are into your gardens or if perhaps you're just

starting to find an interest in gardening, go and see a flower show because you get so much inspiration, don't you, from this incredible displays that the gardeners create. And we haven't even touched yet upon the Royal Pavilion, which is behind us, which is an enormous building. It's so big you could get, I think it's 500 London buses in there. That's how big it is. And that is full of all the growers. So these are the incredible skilled people who grow everything. There's the mushroom gang, fabulous Kaylee brothers. You'll have all the veg growers. They're silence. You get the road. The road. people, the alpine. The orchids.

Yeah. Oh my God, there is so much to enjoy. And these incredible growers are so passionate about their particular type of plant and they will have, you know, looked after these plants and then they've transported them here, often sometimes in their own vehicles and put them into these incredible displays.

It is so inspiring. It's wicked. It's also, when you go to the flower shows, this one or any others, they're all really keen to give you all the information as well. They want to share the knowledge that they have. We'll talk happily about the different plants that you like. They'll tell you whether it's suitable for where you live, what you could put it, what kind of combination you could put it in.

It's just, there is so much to learn. So I cannot recommend going to a flower show highly enough. And of course, this is covered on the TV as well. So the BBC do this great coverage, which you can watch on BBC One, the BBC two, all these experts from Monti Don to France's Topville. Adam Frost. Yeah, there are so many of them.

Sophie Rayworth is here. So we can all enjoy it on the television and you get such a great insight. but today this is the real insights. We're going to be talking to Arrett Anderson, who has put together a garden, the Parkinson's Garden. So we're going to chat to her about why she's done that and what that means. And just kind of wander around and look at different gardens too. And we're going to kick off with Francis Top Hill.

France's Top Hill, who you may know and love are from Gardeners World. She is a real inspiration, such a young, knowledgeable, vibrant lass. We adore her. And she's had the great task of putting a garden together with a, A group of superstars, really, I would say. Yeah, count them. So you've got David Beckham, you've got Alan Titchmarsh, and you've got the King, and she's working with them.

She's designed the garden for them. No pressure, no pressure at all. So here we are. This is the King's Trust Curious Garden. So this is the combined forces of David Beckham, the King, Alan Titchmarsh, and all designed by the wonderful Francis who joins us now. No pressure. I know, right?

Or a lot of pressure. And when you get the call, you're like, well I can't say no to that, can I? But then as soon as you start doing it, you think, why did I say yes to this? Yeah. And we're here on, like, as we've established already, everything is being constructed. Everything's being built at the moment. We just had a little incident, which is, people might be able to pick this up.

But something just fell from the ceiling. What happened? So we have this beautiful tangle of driftwood that I collected from Charmouth Beach. Oh, beautiful. So this one called Beck's Partridge, she's an amazing floral artist. She hung all the dried flowers on. And when we were doing it yesterday, I was saying, we were both saying, we sure the string will hold?

Yeah, of course it will. But it didn't. And so one branch fell and then knocked all the other branches down. So we're rebuilding. The king wasn't here. Yeah, King or David Beckham. I mean, you're not fond of taking them out, would you? But you know what?

I think David Beckham would get up a step ladder and help you tie it with a string. That's the kind of man he is. I think you're right about that. Yes. Exactly. But this is a joyous project. And what a gang to bring together. Francis, your first garden at Chelsea?

Yes. Yes. So how was that to get that call for you? Big. I mean, exciting. And the brief is really nice. It's all about celebrating plants and all the things they can do. And I had an excuse to get out all of the junk that I've been making and accumulating for the last, I don't know, 15 years or something like that. It's really cool. I mean, it's not judged. So that takes the pressure. Amazing. And also people can walk through it, which is really nice because it means you're sort of sharing it with everybody. I think you come to Chelsea, I love these gardens and I'm very lucky. You know, we all get to sometimes walk on some of them. And when you're in them, you really feel the feeling of the garden.

Whereas when you look at it from the outside, you don't necessarily get that, do you? So to be able to bring people in, it's really nice. It's about encouraging new gardeners, isn't it? Because David Beckham is a very passionate gardener. People might not believe it, but actually he is. And I'm sure you've learned that from discussing with him. But it's about encouraging everybody to get into gardening. I mean, I had feedback from Alan Titch, Marsh and the King.

and David Beckham and the most planty feedback was from David Beckham. He was like, can we have Napier to Six Hill Giants? My favourite plant. Lavender he wanted, he wanted garlic. Yeah, he was very, and veg. So he's very, he was really very plant focus, which is really cool. As you walk into the garden, this is the whole idea about, you know, the curiosity and the wonderful thing you have done immediately you step on this garden is creating great curiosity. Because as you're looking at one plant, suddenly behind, this, this, is that kale and there's some picture and there's it. It's incredible.

That mixture and I don't think I've ever seen this so beautifully done here at Chelsea ever. The mixture of plants with vegetables are in amongst these trees. They're pomegranate trees out there as well. It's delightful. Yeah, what's happening to? I didn't know they grew on a tree. I'll bring a van. I don't have how to survive in my house, but I'm going to give them a chart.

No. I would happen to get married here. It feels like it's just like a venue. It would be an amazing. venue. There's so much to feast your eyes on and to discover. I'm going to be burning like incense and stuff in here. It's like frankincense and I've got some like real proper hippie incense. Smudging. There's smud sticks there. We've got like like dried leaves and stuff like that to birds. We kind of want to create that sense of it being a celebration. But I'm really,

it's lovely that you said it was making you feel curious. I mean that's what I love is plants that that draw you. You get to know your plants, don't you? Yeah. When you, when you grow them, you get to know what they like and what they do. When you use, use them, it brings a whole other level of that interaction. And that's what I love about plants is when they just look beautiful, they're fine. But when you look, especially on that front corner and you see herbs and you're like, what is that and what is this? And then you think, you know, not only are they lovely, beautiful plants, but they could be like globally significant. One of the most important plants here is the linsee, which you wouldn't even notice.

It's just on this front corner as you come in underneath Hamish Powell's very eye-catching rose sculpture. So now people really are not going to know. Hamish Powell, who is also glorious. And it's like the Avengers of Assembles for this garden. It's the best of the best. Brilliant. So the linseed is, it's really small. It's grown kind of in fields, normally. That's that blue colour, isn't it?

Yeah, like a, yeah, the field of blue. And they open in the morning. So in the morning you see blue and then by the afternoon all the flowers have died off. And it's, you know, you make linen with linseed. Lin seed, obviously the seeds that people now more and more are eating for fire. limseed oil for making for doing oil painting but also for waterproofing and so like it's a really economically significant little plant but really insignificant when you look at it but those sorts of things are they're the kind of curiosities that I wanted to so you look at the plant and then you find

out more about it and then you realize how important that is to us yeah also because you've worked with the King's Trust I was lucky enough to go down and visit some of the craft workshops and amazing people who are studying these wonderful trades down there. So talk us through how they've been incorporated and some of their skills have been incorporated into this garden. So cool. One of the things we're using is millinery. And when I was young, I wanted to be a milliner.

And everyone was like, I don't know work in that anymore. But now, the King's Foundation teach millinery. So one of their former students has created this straw plating, which they, so they platt the straw, which is made from wheat. And then they stitch it together on these really ancient sewing machines to make beautiful straw hats. And what we've grown actually, aside right by my jumper, which is not part of the exhibition. You always do good knit wet. You do. Actually that's my sisters, I nicked it.

But the wheat that's growing beside it is it's called... Yes, it's Maris Widgeon. So that's a really ancient form of wheat, which would have been grown for its long stems. Because if you're... that wasn't for making bread at all, it would have been for thatching and for for millinery. So it was all about the stem rather than the actual EAS. We've really hard to source it. Turns out when I was talking to Emily, who brought the platted straw the other day

that she's growing a whole field of it, a sandringen, which I could have just gone and dug some of that up. But instead we sourced it, we've managed to grow just six or seven of the wheat and they're out right on the front edge there. And it's just those sorts of things that you wouldn't think about and just think, you know, straw hat,

take it for granted, buy one for four quid. You know, but actually the craft that has historically gone into this. And apparently it was a really female industry. The hat making and the plating and all of that. So it was like a real kind of empowerment for women and to be able to make money selling hats that they've made themselves.

This is the magic of the curiosity that, isn't it? What we're learning already, France is great. I'm curious to know how you have come to this position now. Was gardening something you were always intent on doing? Did you come from a creative gardening family? How did it happen? How are you here? I'd get here.

I mean obviously my mum had a garden she gardened in it my grandma was you know keen gardener but no I did not intend to it I wanted to go more art way I was thinking I would do so I did a BTEC in art and I ended up making jewelry but I don't really wear much jewelry like what I actually did for my final piece was just I cast all my friends nipples and made them out of brass I was just like stuck brass nipples on everything I took it really seriously I've still got all of their nipples black male. That is great. Don't get any ideas. They should so be done on here. You should have put one in here, actually. I can imagine certain members of your team would spot things like that.

Yes. Anyway, so you went for making brass nipples too. Making brass nipples too. An apprenticeship came up near my house when I was like 19 and I just thought it would be more convenient. I could walk there. I liked being outside and I thought I would go more into design from that. But I got the job and immediately just fell in love with plants.

I'm being physically busy and I know I now have designed a couple of gardens, but my day job is more working in community gardens and growing vegetables and stuff. That's what I loved. What do you get out of the physicality of it? Being tired, having headspace, just work through whatever's going on in your brain. Working with great people. But actually, doing a Chelsea garden is one of the most surprising things I didn't expect is seeing old colleagues that haven't seen for years.

And, you know, having a team here and we're all here for, I don't know, what day are we? day 28 or something like that, 60-hour days every day. And it's lovely, the community. When you garden, so when I left school, I worked in M&S, and I remember A having to be there when the till said 8am, but also you couldn't talk because you're there, you know. Exactly. When you garden, one of the main things that I loved when I first said,

it was like, I remember singing the whole Greece soundtrack when we were digging the most enormous hole for us. Greece soundtrack. Yeah, excellent. Beginning right to the final. Like chatting, that's obviously why horticulture therapy is such a thing because you can draw, you have that space to talk. But when you're with your colleagues, you can just chat, you know, whatever.

But you have great conversations. You do. You can get things off your chest. You can just talk rubbish. Yeah. Yeah. And that is also great. Just be like, actually I was saying this to some of our planting team,

I was working most recently in a mindfulness meditation retreat center. we were growing the veg in the wall garden and when the people who came on retreat came out in the garden on a wednesday they'd have two hours of silence or their whole day was silence but their two hours with us was silent it was so nice not to have to talk just to be there gardening and be like and not like actually that pressure's gone then so silent gardening is also lovely like it's great to have that where there's no one watching you and making sure you don't chat but actually being in nature without talking and just listening and that's it's so it's so good for us and we've spotted the amount of bees that are loving these is this garlic nectar so it's it's a it's a it's a drying

flower it's an alien isn't it yeah it's a i think all aliums you can eat but this is more of an ornamental one but that even though it's been cut and it's hanging upside down it's they're still getting the next around it i thought they'd have to be living yeah yeah so you didn't even know that No, I did not expect that to happen. You've got two very important roses here in this gardeners. Well, three, hang on. Tell us. So we've got the King's Rose, which is here.

And that's beside the exact replica of a pot that was gifted to him on his 50th birthday. And apparently they made two because they thought they might. They didn't think they might. Just in case. In transit. So we have the twin of here. So Melissa, who's the head gardener from High Grove, came and she genuinely thought we'd nicked a pot from High Grove, which was quite good. So the kingdom might think we've stolen.

You're like, oh! You'll make her citizens arrest. Yeah. The king's rose is beside the king's pot. It's like raspberry ripple, isn't it? It's like a raspberry ripple. Yeah. And it smells amazing.

Yeah. And then we have the new, Sir David Beckham, which is David Austin's new introduction this year. That's a white one, which is on the front there, but also in this sculpture, rose sculpture.

And then obviously we had to have Alan Tishmarsh as well. Yeah, you should, you can't leave him out. No. Pale pink. He's pale pink. And the flowers are really heavy and the stems aren't quite so strong. So they look beautiful in budding.

And then when they open, we found this sort of, but he knew this. He did warn me that this is going to happen. He said he has a weak neck. He's not wrong. But we had to keep it in the garden anyway. Yeah, I love it. You've got Serinthi, which I've got in my garden, which is an amazing spread. I would recommend it to anybody.

And it's dramatic as well. There's quite a lot of drama. Like the deep purples that you've got. It's really, really beautiful. Yeah. Contrusting with all the yellows. Stunning here as well. Do you have a favourite little spot or a favourite plant that's gone in

or something that you're particularly pleased with? What I'm really pleased with. I mean, I love a lot of it. The herb corner on the front, we spent three days placing that out, mainly because every time I tried to do it, I got called off to do something different. But I love that and all of the herbs.

I love them. And for anybody who hasn't been to Chelsea, is there an insight that you would give to people who are watching now from your experience? experience of doing this garden? Yeah, because I've come to Chelsea for years and never realised really naively how much work this takes. For me, it was months and months of planning, but for most people it's years of planning. But there's probably 60 people involved in this, including all of my family who have been painting, drawing, making potions, but like, you know, all the growers

that have grown these, the guy that built this building, the people who are here behind me repairing a fallen floral sculpture, the whole landscaping team, but also the office of the landscaping team, who have organised every delivery within kind of a one-hour window, weeks in advance, all the passes for everyone to get accreditation so we can get here and actually build the thing. You know, it's an enormous mammoth effort of logistics, which I never really realised. It's such a feat.

All for us to come for a week and enjoy. And what's going to happen to the garden? after Chelsea. It's going to Farmborough College. So the building is really, I mean, we're not being judged so it doesn't really matter, but it's a little, in terms of, you know, technically design scale, it's probably too big for the space. Although actually I think it works quite nicely, weirdly, because this is an outdoor classroom. So this is just designed for Farmborough College, really, and it's just going to spend a week hanging out here in Chelsea. But so all of this is going to become, they teach all sorts of things, floristry, cookery, sustainable fashion, so

they want all of the dye plants as well. And they'll all all the young people there studying will be using this as a classroom space, which will be brilliant. So it goes on to have another life as well. And then I think any of the plants that they don't want will go to various charities, including St Martin in the fields, who are, who are extending their garden outside the church in Chavagas Square. So they're going to come and collect a load as well. And those broad bean plants? When shall I pick them up? Because I can be here.

I don't might. Are you here on Saturday? Yeah. We'll put inside. Absolutely. She's got a name on them. Congratulations, Frances. It is absolutely stunning.

And I hope you're really proud because you should be. It's amazing. Yeah, enjoy the week. A little holiday afterwards and then you can relax. And it can sink in. Yeah. I mean, what an amazing treat this is. There is one thing, as we're here in this space right now,

we are the only people not wearing high-vis jackets because we are doing this on this garden, on build day. So this is on the Sunday. This is when the gardens have been judged in the morning, but there are no results until the... Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday. So by the time you're watching this, we will know what this garden has been awarded when it comes to medals. But right now, right, this is the chaos.

This is the chaotic day. And we're joined by Arrit Anson, who is one of our absolute favorites. Congratulations. But yeah, just so you know what's going on around us. There are like cranes and there are lorries and there are people like barging around and everyone's just finessing the gardens. But here it's an oasis of calm at the moment. It is. It is.

I've been here since like six this morning. Okay. Just getting just sort of ready for judging. And it's really quiet then. And now, because you've got the marquee, you've got a finish and other guards, and so you're right, it is going to be. When they're judging, Arrett, I have to ask you, do you do that thing where you loiter and look at their faces?

Or did you go and have a cup of tea or do something else? Well, the rule is you cannot be here half an hour before they're judging time and half an hour after. So you're not, and that is the rule. And you can't be an ear shot. They don't want to see you. So, you know, you have an assessment the day before. they come and have a look and see.

We're still rampantly going around the garden. But then today, no one's allowed to be here. They have security. It's really very strict. Wow. What is it like being on the other side? Because you're obviously, you're presenting Chelsea. You've been here before.

You've done gardens. You've never been judged before. No. So how is it? Yes. Not with the gardens. Yeah. How has it been?

Well, it has been a slightly weird position. We're not weird in a sense. I know about showing. garden so and and when I was here last it was for the RHS and it's non-meddled and you know great I think it's the fact it's quite exposing I guess because you know one minute I'm talking to somebody about their garden and now people are going to be judging this one but I think that if I'm honest I'm pushing past that because I've not done it for a medal at the end of the day why have you done it yeah I've done it because my sister has Parkinson's and it is a really difficult condition to have

difficult disease. And I really wanted people to understand a bit more about the condition. It's a growing condition in terms of it's more people who are being diagnosed with Parkinson's than ever before. And before it always used to be thought to be an old man's condition, you know, in their 80s as you get older. But now women get it as well and also a lot younger, a lot younger. Yeah. I have a friend who was diagnosed last year and she's in her early 50s. And I'm knew relatively little about Parkinson's until talking to her about it. And so with this garden, it's a special place in your heart, of course. Your sister Julie, did she help?

Does she get involved? Were you able to? Well, unfortunately not as much as I'd wanted to, because my sister was living on the island of Isle of Wight at the time. She's just moved. So for her to travel into London where we were doing workshops with a group of gardeners who have Parkinson's. And she was invited, but just the journey was just too much for that.

But what she did get involved in was we did a film, which can be seen on EyePlayer, where we'd have a little chat, and that's been captured. And I just felt really glad because I wanted people to see that she's a person, you know, and to get to know her. Absolutely. I mean, it's quite interesting that more women are being diagnosed much younger as well. So we are all going to learn about it.

So when you're designing a garden for the Parkinson's charity, what was the brief, Arrett? And where do you even begin? Yeah, exactly. The first thing was, Eric, before you put pen to paper, do anything, it has to involve the Parkinson's community. We want to input into this. And I'm like, yeah, absolutely.

And then also the other part of the brief was, and we don't want it just to look like a ubiquitous disability garden that, you know, is all a bit plinkety-ponkitty. you know that it doesn't need to showcase all of the the sort of difficulties of the condition you know we want it to be joyous so I was like okay so we sat down with about sort of 10 gardeners and we had a workshop a whole day asking them why they like gardening how it helped their condition and also learning a bit more about the symptoms because I needed to understand that to see how this garden could help with that

okay because there's up to like 40 symptoms aren't there and a lot of us don't know about any of those. That's right. I think a lot of people think that Parkinson's is just a tremor. The thing to understand about the condition is that it's neurological, it's the brain cells in our brains that produce dopamine, they die. And that means that dopamine is not just about the happy hormone. It's important, so about our mood, but it also controls a lot of our motor skills and how we move and everything. So you'll find that somebody with Parkinson's is often stiff, can't walk very well. Like you said, the 40 symptoms can come in such an array

and can be very subtle for some people and really, really sort of more extrapolated in others. So we looked at the symptoms and we kind of got down to about eight key things that they wanted to have in the garden. So it was like, off you go, take those. I was like, okay. But one of the things I really wanted to make sure

was that the garden made people feel joy. and have a joyousness about it and that they could navigate through the garden whether you was in a wheelchair walking on your own a little bit Parkinsonian where you might be shuffling and your gates slightly veers

or whether you would be walking beside somebody so there were things like that that I've taken into consideration in the design which I can love to walk you to the garden yeah and tour you through those yeah the garden was designed with three different areas areas and for specific reasons do you want to talk us through those areas? Yeah it was it was really important to me to sort of have the gardens sort of reflect the sort of

different areas of mood and feeling that you have when you have Parkinson's but importantly one of the things that the workshop group wanted we call them the head gardeners because that's what they're not going to our head garden these are guys living with Parkinson's who have been your amazing advisors. Absolutely that. And they said that they actually yeah let's have a garden that's for 24 hours because yes we have our Parkinson's during the day but we have this insomnia sleep disturbance, very difficult sort of broken sleep throughout the night. So it's like okay that's really key. So this garden is in the three zones because and it's it's sort of a west, southwest facing garden. So it means that when the sun comes up I get quite a shady border which I've made very

calm and that stays nice and quiet sort of in the more in the sort of morning time as the sun tracks around to a very sunny vivacious border full of colour full of joy which i hope people are going to feel really lifts the spirit and then as you travel through the garden this kind of calm a quieter palette of plants and whites and greens uh palmoves you know there's there's stress and anxiety is a symptom of parkinson's it's you know you and i will get stressed and worried if we've got to go out on the telly and things are running a bit late or whatever. To have it as a symptom, my sister, Julie, was never stressed. That woman could sleep on a washing line, right?

So for her now, oh, Ari, I can't do X or what. That's like, that's the Parkinson's, that's not my sister. My dad has Parkinson's, and he was only diagnosed last year. And he's always had, you know, struggle with depression and anxiety, but the anxiety has really kicked in now. So he doesn't want to go out. He will never come to cafe. He just will avoid any situation when it comes to socialising.

He just cannot bear to be in that situation. And we always thought that was his personality. But now, you know, I'm learning so much about Parkinson's. It's obviously a part of his disease. It's very difficult, Joe, because then what happens is because already then you have a natural depression as the dopamine comes in. You have to have drugs that are dopamine sort of like mimickers. And so therefore, in a garden space, a lot of times people feel like they can actually be themselves.

You know, when you go out and you're with other people, that anxiety of, can they see me shaking? Can they see the fact that I'm a bit slower? So in a garden, transitioning through a garden, when the plants aren't demanding anything of you, but they're giving to you. That karma zones, what I wanted for people to be able to kind of go, actually I'm going to tune into that. And then the third part of the garden is what we call our night zone. This is interesting.

Yeah, the nighttime garden. because often we think about our gardens during the day, we want all the joy de vivre of the flowers, and then of course we might stay out for a barbecue and then that's it, we're off to bed. But if you have a condition where your sleep is so disturbed, you know, we thought, well, hey, let's turn to the garden as a place for extra respite. And by doing that, if you have white plants, pale blues, lilacs,

they really sing as the light goes down. So as we said, this sun tracts, tracks around the garden and as it kind of starts to set the sun goes to sunset it illuminates an area of the garden that i've made all sort of like whites um some of them also sort of good for nighttime pollinators as well hesperis etc so the magical part which i'm you know really hope people get to see i hope you get to see this on the coverage um is that this garden is lit as well it's been you know we've lit it in such a way that enables uh safety for walking on the paths still but also just as small down lights we don't disturb all of the wildlife at night very small

downlight washes the plants in a warm glow so that again to encourage people to just gently light your garden of an evening or in the night time if you were feeling stress so you know because there is light in the darkness there is a bit of light in that darkness and and also and you know you can you can sit it doesn't have to be you know a big Chelsea show garden you might just have a container at your back door or a few selections of flowers. Yeah. Flowers with the whites with the blues where you could just so when you, you know if you're

struggling to sleep because of what's happening to you, you could just that's a little special place where you could go sit and enjoy. Yeah. Yeah. It's yeah. I mean it's incredible. As you come around the corner and you see the garden for the first time, your eyes are caught by the pop of the colors

of these beautiful flowers along the front. And they're quite blousey and quite flamboyant. And again, that's a whole different way of thinking as well, isn't it, within this garden. Why did you want those particular parts? Well, I wanted there to be that element where, I mean, there's a little bit of me, the other part of my career,

the healing part of my career, gardens are, you know, really, really powerful at helping us. And colour is a brilliant thing to have around you. It does sort of lift the mood. And also as well, the big and blousey, it's so brilliant. that you picked up on that term we had lovely Barry one of our head gardeners and he said yeah i love big and blousey plants i love my peonies there is again you know with parkinson's it can sort of um with your visual so with your visual uh looking out because the brain is sort of like

working slightly differently because of the the new the neurology sorry yeah um it's easier sometimes to see bigger shapes against smaller shapes contrasting colors different leaf text because if I made it all nice and just meadowy, that's a lot of information. Yeah, the brain's got to work hard to distinguish. So if you use, and it's good design practice anyway, but if you punch that up, it makes it a lot easier for you to read the sort of really red poppies, poppies pop out. And then there's the aliums and they have the colour contrast and then there's a peonies. And then you can go plant by plant rather than a sort of homogene. A mele.

Yeah. The tulips are very noticeable here as well, aren't they? here as well, aren't they? Again, like signposting, really signposting. When it comes to sense, because my dad, I know, has no sense of smell and he hasn't done for a long time. And again, all these little factors just as obviously the Parkinson's has been going on for a very, very long time. So have you used much scent in this garden or purposely not? So this garden is designed for people with Parkinson's and their friends and family. It's not just that you only have Parkinson's to come into this garden. So there are scented flowers within the space, but we have teamed up with Harkness Roses,

who have allowed one of their new roses to come to market to be the Parkinson's Resilience Rose. It was named by the community. We put it out as a competition, and they decided out of the three names what they wanted. And it has a really minimal scent. I wanted there to just be one area in the garden, which is around the seated area, around the um sorry the raised bed in the seated area where there's little scent because most of us can go up to a rose or and and sniff it in and they're oh yeah lovely and and it is just just acknowledge that that the loss of smell an osmia is called can be a precursor symptom to Parkinson's

my sister lost her sense of smell years before she was diagnosed and we thought it was connected to something else yeah that was pre-covid it wasn't a COVID thing so i think that that we are reason why really wanted to highlight that symptom for the people as they're talking about the gardens through the week is because of COVID that might be masking the fact that somebody thinks oh it's a COVID moment it'll pass and just to get it checked out yeah you know it might be okay but it is it is known to be a symptom that can occur through with Parkinson's shall we go on a should we go on a little because i'd love to have a look around and yeah yeah yeah see all the different areas Eric, where do you want us to start on the journey through this beautiful garden?

Well, this is sort of the primary way to enter through. So we're kind of slightly backtrack on ourselves. And main avenue behind us and it means as you would enter the garden, you are automatically, I mean, I'll let you girls be by the handrail. She's quite dark. I found this quite daunting when we first saw it. I know it's big and blousey, but also the. darkness of some of the flowers and the leaves. Well, this, this is kind of like your backdrop to

being able to really allow the colours to sort of like zinging crossover. If they wasn't there, it would sort of, it would homogenise again. And it all acts as sort of like as a continuum throughout the garden actually. It's not there to be ominous at all. It's there from a sort of to help the visual. Yeah, it's just me being dark then. It's just you. Can you tell us about this real? Yes. Which is sort of like almost like a handrail as well. Fantastic. For this beautiful water reel.

Well, exactly that, Zoe. It is a hand reel, I've called it. But it is here that if somebody comes onto the garden, they can either just rest upon it. You can put your fingers in and fill the water. It's a sensory cue. Bringing water up to sort of height where you can see and hear it, it helps with a condition which can be.

experience called freezing and freezing is when the brain literally can't computate everything you know like your computer kind of has the wheel doesn't it that spins around it's a little bit like that and it's an action where you can be midway to do something and you literally freeze so you so you need a sort of a sensory cue can sometimes help to pull you out of that and so again working during the workshop we sort of we talked about the sound and and loving water and I just wanted to bring it up to this level so that people could experience it.

And you can put your fingers in. It's gorgeous. And the little gold goes into the jar. Yeah, the metal as well is beautiful. Yeah. Shine. So as you can see, it flanks the sunny border, which at this time of day, you know,

we're getting in sort of into the afternoon. All the colours are starting to really sort of sing through. But it's important with Parkinson's that you give people places to rest. Yeah. You get tired, you know, after either activity or in between, the medication that you take. So we wanted to make sure that there was plenty of seated areas within the garden. And also as well, just sort of, you know,

giving the idea of being able to have a raised bed because, of course, some people's stiff this and they can't bend down. So you bring plants up to their height. And this is where you can see that the real sort of is now wrapped around that seated area, almost giving you a hug. Comfort, isn't it? Yes, really gorgeous. And these are ideas that people can adopt in their own spaces, aren't they?

raised beds so much easier for people who've got movement issues. My mum who's had her back operation, we were planting some things the other day. And we just had the table there and she was able to do it. It was the first thing she's been able to do as part of her recovery from her operation. And it was like, oh my God, this is a game changer, right? Bring it out to you. Oh, it's true. True, though, because it's because you want, you don't want to disengage with life and things with, like, with Parkinson's.

You know, I feel, no, but I feel that with my sister, you know, I don't want her. to not be able to do things. And it's incredibly hard. And it is emotional, Joe, because we want our loved ones to have the best that they can have and something like the joy of gardening. You know, you all of a sudden,

my sister used to garden. And her space is way too big for her. We've had to, you know, to help her downsize. And she'd given up gardening. And I want to get her back into it. It helps your fingers. Yes, you'll get your stertity. And the moving around and even brought up to a table

because, you know, you get me asking now. because feeling that you can't, you can't do something is incredibly, incredibly difficult. Yeah, it's very debilitating. And you don't want to remove all the joy from people's eyes too. They're dealing with enough. So to bring the joy and so adapting, these are great tips for people listening, thinking, I can do this for someone I love. And go into your own garden and just put even if it's just a chair,

have a station them around. There's a lovely guy who has Parkinson's. He's had it since he was 37. And he calls them his sort of like his nature observatory, observatory stations, their seats. But he has them around the garden so that he can kind of observe nature, but rest because he knows he can't always be on his feet. Yeah.

Can I just say with my, but I know this is not so with Parkinson's, but with my mum, it was a really good sign as part of her recovery because it was the village best in, oh, not best in show, but, you know, and the open gardens are on. And she was suddenly really cared about her garden because people had been walking around the village. and she's always had like all her flowers out and wanted it to be pretty. So the fact that she wanted it to be pretty that she's well enough to care about that was great.

That's it. It was really good. So yeah, she enlisted all of us to make the garden pretty. So and mum, I'm so sorry for crying because she didn't tell me off. No, it's important. Yeah. Eric, noticing underneath the lovely flat stone. So it's really a nice wide path. Yes.

Easy to manoeuvre. This is it. Nothing to trip over. Nothing to trip over. You know, we've not put the plants. You know, normally we love romantic spilling edges. you know we've been mindful of making the path as wide as it can if you think there's three of us yeah side by side okay quite and that's reasonably comfortable yeah if one of us drops back i'll

drop back the two of you can now you know come and even if you had your arm out help you wouldn't feel that you've got to really scoge up you've got space if you have Parkinson's my sister has what we call a lot um dyskinesia it's literally moving all the time and not being able to sit still if i was to squish her into what is normally a sort of 900mm one meter garden path, which would be wide enough for us. It would make her feel more conscious of her body movement. So I wanted to make sure there's breathing space in the garden as we walk. Tell us about this. Beautiful. Shining sculpture here. You know I like a bit of bling. Fashion and gardening, see they go together so well. Can't help myself. But this is here.

because we had a lovely lady Chris who says in her garden, she has to have rest more than she did. She said, but I want to garden. So by having a sculpture, she's got as, you know, not as big as this, obviously. It was her real rest point. And also she used it as her wayfinder to know 10 more steps and I can get to the shed. And so again, you can have these little things and it might be an obelisk. You could have in there with some sort of, you know, some plants, a climators growing up,

something where you know, 10 steps and I get to X. So, you know, we've obviously slightly exaggerated that, but we worked with the sculptor, we told him all about the garden and just allowed him to sort of use his magic. And also, you know, we want people to interpret this as they wish. Some people's stories, you know, I have moments when I feel really sort of quite dense and things are difficult or very... It's up to you. Yeah.

How you interpret that. Yeah. And it's beautiful, the view of the plants through the sculpture as well. Yes. Yeah, so much to discover different angles. It's really cool. It's really good. So as you can further around, now I'm saying to you about with the sunlight and, you know, if now the sun's tracking around and we'd be getting to sort of early evening,

this starts to sort of twinkle up and you can see that, you know, our back slightly turns on the sort of beautiful bright flowers as we come into the night shelter and you then have a completely different feeling and atmosphere and vista in this area. So now the white plants have just start to really just pop out and talk to you. And of course, you know, they're much more common. I have put in a very still pond because, you know, we've had the movement of the real. And now we can sort of start to feel to try to bring down that anxiety, try to make ourselves feel a little bit calmer. Yeah. And you're again enclosed right as a hug. It's a hug. It's a hug. It's all about kind of embracing people, keeping them safe and calm.

Yeah, it's exactly that, Joe. You know, the curves in here, you know, when you have sort of, you know, very formal, linear geometries, you know, it's very exacting, which is great. But this sort of, you know, allows you to flow without sort of it. It's easy and it's tactile and, of course, the seat, another seated area. Yes, theatre. Have you got some real favourite plants that you might point out to us? I mean, there's so many. Everis man. Joe and I have already been taking notes.

But you, there are some real stars in here. Who are some of the biggest stars? Well, the stars in the white area is this an enemy lavelli. I love it because it sits really proud on its stem. And it's like a little star to me. And it just bobs about in the daylight. I mean, and I love plants that have movement. So I really love this.

I love digitalis. I love that. They're so beautiful white glove. I remember Sarah Ravens sort of saying one time, yeah, they're like little, they're like little, what does she say, they're like little skyscrapers for bees. For bees and they go up each level. They just go up and they go up to the next one. And of course, they're very statuesque and create drama. We do a feature on Dig It each week called Crate Dinging where we dig out some of the music that we have been listening to the books we've been reading, who we've been inspired by.

Right. Ari, was there a particular song that has been helpful to you and the team whilst building this beautiful. Well, interesting you should say that because the landscape has had hold of the music for some time and let me tell you, it wasn't great. And we kept asking for a prince to be on, etc. So, but us girls would be sort of when the bums were down and, you know, the house stone was there, we'd be going, this is how you do it. Don't know. Montel Jordan, great song. A good vibe. It's like an anthem. Get through it. Get through it. Keep going. Oh, congratulations, see. We know how much. hard work goes into this and I know on such a personal level as well I guess for

all of us yeah yeah a hell of a lot to us Arrett you're so wonderful yeah it's so good spread the word about Parkinson's and enlighten people please yeah and be proud because you've done an amazing garden thank you you really really have yeah congratulations you get our medals Arrett thank you so much to Arrett and DeFrancis for talking to us today and giving us such an amazing insight into their gardens which are both very personal to them. But there is so much else to enjoy at Chelsea. We're off now, but we're going to go and look at some of the gardens. There is quite often a really important message behind a lot of the gardens, and one of those is the Lady Garden Foundation. So we're interested in this one. Well, because they wanted

to highlight the five different cancers that affect women in your lady garden area, in your gynecological, which is never easy for me to say cancers. Ghanacological cancers, yeah, because there are five of them and they want to highlight the symptoms so that we all know what to look out for because it's very important. As with breast cancer, there is so much awareness now. So they're doing the same thing. And if you didn't know what the five are, because immediately, I say there are five. No, I didn't. So what other, we've got the vulva vulva, vulva cancer. Yeah, vaginal cancer. Servex, ovarian. And womb. Boom. See, five cancers affect women around there. So that garden is definitely one to go visit. If you can't get a ticket, you can watch a lot of coverage, of course,

on BBC with Monty and the gang with Adam, Sophie Rayworth. Eric's going to be there as well. Yeah, a whole gang doing it. So you can check it out. And also remember that there's flower shows all over the country. So even if you can't get to Chelsea, you can watch some of the coverage, take the inspiration and check out where flower shows are happening near you as well.

Send photographs of your own gardens. When you've got the inspiration, you can then send us photographs. And we can feature you on the podcast as well. Not the lady gardens. Yeah, we don't want to see your lady gardens. Thank you very much. We don't want to confuse those two. issues there. We should say thank you to the RHS, shouldn't we, for having us here today.

Particularly, it's Haley Monkton, who's an amazing lady, and she's fabulous and she's let us come down and get a little glimpse behind the curtain, and I hope you've enjoyed that with us as well. Yeah, thank you for watching. Take it. Digit is a Persephoneica production.