The Ins & Outs - Behind the Scenes at Chelsea

Episode Date: May 21, 2024

On this episode we take a look behind the scenes at the Chelsea Flower Show and what is the "Chelsea Chop"?Jojo's had her colours done, and she's not the season she thought she was!Plus we talk about what tones you can pair with grey inside the home, and Jojo introduces a new game to the podcast.This episode is sponsored by Niwaki, purveyors of the finest Japanese garden tools and accessories this side of Mt. Fuji. From hand-finished carbon steel secateurs to the best-selling Hori Hori wonder-weeder, Niwaki’s tools combine utility and style to make gardening even more of a pleasure. Click the link to visit their website and see the whole range of great stuff from Japan - www.niwaki.com.Get 10% off by using the details below:Discount: INSANDOUTS10 URL: https://www.niwaki.com/INSANDOUTS10InstagramPodcast - @the_insandouts_Jojo - @houseninedesignPolly - @pollyanna_wilkinsonProducer Andy - @andy_rowe_WebsitesJojo - https://www.housenine.co.uk/Polly - https://www.pollyannawilkinson.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Green, the colour of true elation Pine on a summer's day See I've been waiting for you Waiting for you Hello lovely innies and outies and welcome to this week's episode of the Ins and Outs with myself, Jojo Barr and the very lovely Pollyanna Wilkinson.

This week we're playing a fun game of favourites. I got my colours done and it turns out I'm not the colour I thought I was. We go deep into Chelsea Flower Show and what paint to pair with greys and of course the Chelsea Chop. That's right and this week again we are sponsored by New Wacky. This week I want to talk to you about one of my favourite tools and it's very timely because it was essential at Chelsea Flower Show last year for me, which is the golden spade. Now, it comes in two sizes.

I have both. The big one, brilliant for digging up plants, dividing, general diggery. But the smaller one is kind of like smaller than a regular spade, bigger than a trowel. And my God, I had two of them Ubered over to me from Newark at the Chelsea Flower Show last year because it's the perfect one for sort of when you need something just bigger than a trowel it's perfect

great if you're just sort of putting a few plants in the ground and you're just trying to dig a little hole great all-rounder tool so after the hori hori and the second tears the golden spade the small one is my number three so thank you so much new wacky and remember guys we've got 10% off with the codes ins andANDOUT10 on the Nuwaki website. Hello, old girl. Hello, my darling. So catch me up. What's been going on?

What has been going on? Well, I'm drinking a chamomile tea. This has become my new go-to after I've had my morning coffee. So instead of guzzling coffee, someone said to me, drink chamomile tea, it makes you less stressed. So I'm giving that well, you know. Instead of starting at the root of the problem,

what I'm doing is I'm just putting a plaster on it and that's in the form of a cup of chamomile tea. I find that to be the best solution in life. Yes, plaster. Otherwise, pal, well, obviously, I had my colours done, colors done didn't i have my colors did didn't you did i yeah and i'm anything but what i thought i was going to be um i'm the opposite end of the spectrum of what i thought i was going to be so i'm not my lovely colors as you are my

lovely branding colors i am in fact winter which is why my wall behind me looks so terrible on me because i don't go with colors like this so the colors that work for winter so what it means is I've actually got a cool skin tone which also makes bizarre because I've got like olive skin so I've done that through me but I've got a cool skin tone which means that anything like dark emeralds dark purples burgundies those are my colors dark reds deep for everything that's deep deep then I love it how do you feel about that I'm actually I get it now and the crazy thing is after I had this consultation and even to the point where she helped me this lovely lady Jenny from House of Colour um was absolutely

brilliant quite local they have all these uh they have consultants all around the country that you can go and see locally so and she was brilliant like she so good. And she gave me a complete masterclass on why, you know, certain colours suit me and why some don't. And down to the lip colours that I was wearing. So I was wearing like a sort of peachy nude that just doesn't, now I see. Like it just doesn't look good on me. And it's like, I can't unsee it. Now I know this. I've learnt this about myself.

Do you need to wear a bold lip? Bold lip. But like even like deep sort of burgundy reds or like a really strong red. I can't unsee it now I know this I've learned this about myself I can't unsee it bold lip but like even like deep sort of burgundy reds or like a really strong red like my lip color like my nail color but I can't go anything wishy-washy wishy-washy browns no no browns definitely no white's good on me but not the color you're wearing that would look so you can basically have half my wardrobe no um so and that was really interesting and the most fascinating thing of all um because i don't wear i never put my face in the sun because it's my religiously my mum taught me from a very young age don't put your face in the

sun so i wear factor 50 and then i put fake tan on and she said you're wearing the wrong shade of fake tan for your skin tone now when you buy fake tan off the peg it usually is just a standard fake tan you know whatever you use it turns out that you can buy fake tan especially for cool skin tones so that it has an element of like i guess purple in it or something that helps bring your skin tone like your coloring out as opposed to because if i tanned in the sun my skin wouldn't go orange fits all right yeah oh my god it totally blew my mind honestly it was one of the most brilliant things that I had done and I now see my entire wardrobe in a different way and

I now understand what looks good on me and what doesn't it's so good I had a big old colors result of mine and actually do you know the bit that made me the most nervous was um when she said that your skin tone dictates whether you're a gold or a silver girl and I was like oh god if I'm not a gold I'm absolutely screwed yeah I think she and that's that's she pulled out at the very last minute she came to me with a handful of gold and a handful of silver and she goes now for the bad bit I'm afraid your skin tone suits silver jewellery and I was like no and I said I'm afraid that's the one thing I'm not changing because my entire jewelry wardrobe is gold and I'm not going to change that I can see that it would look beautiful on you though silver I can see that I could just let all my gold jewelry tarnish because to be fair it's all gold plated so I could just keep showering

in it and going swimming with it and then eventually it'll turn silver so it's no waste I'll I'll have all of your gold jewelry it's not a problem it's not going to go to waste am I going to have all your black stuff then anything you own that's black quite a lot of my black and all of my like color i just basically dress like mud now just brown sushi though green like a tree yeah and also guys i'm when this comes out it's obviously gonna be chelsea flower show biggest event in the calendar gardening calendar polly and i obviously as everyone knows we keep hanging on about it because we don't have harp on us too but we are going to be wearing something that we're very excited to share for on the day and it happens to be one of the colors that i'm wearing to film my podcast is my color and i can't believe like it's like the color that i'm like what

anyway have to wait and see what else what else What else has been going down? Oh, my hair. Can you notice it's slightly wavy? Yes. This is the sock trick. Have you heard about the sock trick? You literally get a sock and then you wrap your hair around the sock. Takes literally 30 seconds and then you sleep with it in and you wake up and it looks like this. It's insane. I mean, mate, what sock did you put in your hair? Your hair is so long. Were you wearing like a knee height?

I had to find a ski sock. A ski sock? mate what sock did you put in your hair your hair is so long were you wearing like a knee height i had to find a ski sock a ski sock i literally went and found a ski sock in my ski boot bag yeah and so it's really long and i sort of stretched it it was like what you get it wet and then no your hair's wet you literally get out the shower towel dry your hair put your sock here wrap the sock do you do it in bits or do you literally like split your hair in half? Literally split your hair in half. Two socks, one sock on each half. That's it.

It's a telly. I'm not sure I might get my hair round a sock. Maybe one of those little ankle socks. You'd have a pop sock. One of those little condom socks we don't like. Love it. Anyway, so that's that. Now listen, the most pressing question of the week really and i think everybody is on tender hooks how is fisher fish is great fish is thriving he's got some friends now

oh friends meant to only get one friend i am now the proud mother of three fish tell us the names then i'm so proud of these names i didn't come these are the kids names number one we've got mr jeremy mr jeremy as in mr jeremy fisher beatrix potter character that's actually quite sweet then that's really clever that's clever no and also just the fact that i have a fish who is called mr jeremy i mean i just think let's keep it formal yeah let's keep it formal okay so what's what's the other fish called then the other one is smaller and he's called minnow oh minnow minnow do you know how much a fish is guess how much a fish is like if you were going if I said right go buy yourself a fish for your garden they range anywhere from like 15 quid upwards don't they

no mate was three pounds oh my god can you imagine your life being valued at three pounds it made me feel a bit sad yeah well you look after that fish so yes we have that and that's that's quite enough about the fish but i mean what's been really keeping me busy this week and obviously when this comes out it will be the first public day of chelsea flower show but i've been there for the last two weeks filming in the background with my darling friend lottie for project giving back so i've been i love lottie all of the designers she's a hit everyone go and follow Lottie because she's just a breath of fresh air she's a joy Lottie Delamain fellow roving reporter so she and I have been having great fun interviewing all of

the designers in the background for Project Giving Back and when we're not trying to be too serious about it it's just meant to be a bit of fun and a bit of an insight into the show because I think you know if you go to the show all you see is these finished amazing gardens but you don't see the ridiculous amount of work stress and fun that there is in in building these gardens so just to get a bit of an insight I mean they are working these designers are on on the show ground at like 7am and they don't leave until they're kicked out usually around 7 8 p.m and then getting about five hours sleep if they're lucky because it's the most stressful thing you'll ever do in your life whilst also being wildly addictive and the camaraderie on site because you've got what two

weeks to build a garden it needs to be perfect this is the most important in my view flower show in the world this is the biggest garden event in the world of the year in my opinion and so and all eyes are on you for this time and it's so it's fast it's been so fun to be there with no stress worrying I'm not building my own garden I'm having a year off which is lovely and just going and having a chat with these brilliant friends and colleagues and I've got to tell you this is a very special show year, I think. A few of your sneak peeks have been amazing. I think it's been an interesting year as well because I've not seen all the plants yet.

Obviously, at the time when this comes out, I will have done. It's really moving away from that kind of cottage gardening. Actually, a lot of plants that the general public, us, like, it's really moving away from them it's not really you know it's floral in the same way as it used to i know it's a flower show but i would say it's much more foliage heavy and sort of shade planting more textural way more green and far less that sort of um you know really flowery roses and irises and catmints and sowas it's really moved away from that towards it's more naturalistic more drought tolerant so there's a real theme this year about

resilient planting and you'll really notice that in terms of the trees that have been chosen are all very resilient trees because we're really moving away from ones which require loads of water so um so it's i think it's gonna be a really curious and interesting show that's so interesting i wonder if that's been happening because of, obviously, climate change and the effects of the seasons and the fact that we're no longer getting snow and the winters are warmer and wetter. And obviously for you, you guys who are there at Chelsea Flower Show producing these incredible gardens for us to come and have a look at, you know, it's we're learning from you so you're setting the trends and obviously you're yeah much more ahead of understanding why these changes are occurring and what we can do as the general public you know to to sort of bring that into our own homes and our own gardens because now you know even like with our springs now right you know there we are rushing out buying all these beautiful spring flowers and then we get these really really wet heavy rainfall seasons very dry one or very dry and then suddenly the plants just don't ever

come to anything so i think we want to feel like we can put things in our gardens that are going to stand the test of time a bit more totally and i think actually they're really interesting for all and there's been this for a couple of years now where there's been gardens which focus more on rewilding which is far less about that sort of manicured, symmetrical gardens of old, which I think the great British public adore. But you've got a series of designers, and I would argue it's nearly all of them now, who are moving far more towards more resilient planting

and therefore it's more foliage heavy. It's less about pretty flowers, far more about textural interest. And what's really curious is, you know, it's a bit like when you go to a fashion show and it's got something pretty flowers far more about textural interest and what's really curious is you know it's a bit like when you go to a fashion show and it's got something a bit out there and you're like I would never wear that and then you find yourself wearing it three years later it's you know the the designers are trying to showcase plants which will be successful in the future and there's always a bit of pushback there but yeah what I've seen is spectacular

you're so right it is it's like fashion it's fashion but but for us it's not about a trend if anything I think the thing I'm really proud of in the garden world is it's not about trend it's actually the focus is more on climate and sustainability so you'll see nearly all the materials in the gardens this year are reclaimed oh there is so little really stone it's all oh yeah it's a real the shift the RHS has really encouraged it's sort of part of the judging criteria about how you do, how you incorporate sustainability in your garden. And all of these gardens go on to have a second life as well. So that sort of reclaimed materials,

you'll see some really clever, interesting uses. So it's not kind of new and shiny, which I think is going to be, I always think it's an interesting approach. It's fine if it's not new and shiny if the public can walk away with inspiration as to how they can use that in their own garden i think where it can alienate is where they walk away going i'm not it's lovely i'm not really sure how i can translate that in mind but i think we could all reclaim materials or we can all use more drought tolerant planting or more resilient planting might not be drought tolerant given

how wet our climate can be so it's it's really curious and it's a real shift, I think, away from towards something more naturalistic. That's so exciting to hear. When you guys are listening to this, tomorrow on Wednesday, we are going to be recording at Chelsea Flower Show. So we will be coming to you from the show, from the Project Giving Back stand. And we will be giving a full review of what we've seen, of trends, of Jojo's reactions. My professional reactions about all the plants and of course hopefully this year now you're kind of a big deal you might actually not get you know um snubbed by any royalty this year perhaps Queen Camilla might

actually give you a wave in your direction. Who knows? Gosh. No, I think I'm booted out of the showground actually before the royals come. So the interesting thing about press day. You haven't quite made it then. For the royals, they boot out everyone apart from the designers. Literally, that's it. Everyone has to leave, I guess, for security. And the sniffer dogs come round.

And then you all have to sort of stay by your garden and stand there and wait and then the royals come. So no, no opportunity to be ignored this year. Now, pal, I want to play a game with you because I play this game with my kids. I want to play a game with you. My kids and I play this game called Favorites and it's really silly,

but I tell you what, long car journeys, forget ice fly. This is the game to play with your kids. It's called favorites and you got it this has got to be quick fire we've got to go real quick fire okay you got to answer within five seconds so uh favorite chocolate bar boost what's yours snickers in the fridge favorite designer you oh no not interior design um clothing but thank you i love you you're my favorite too i love you how cute is that favourite too. I love you.

How cute is that? Look at me. That is really cute. Oh my God. I'm so glad we got that on film. I love you. Didn't even clarify. Do you mean it? Decorate it.

Favourite designer? Celine or Loewe. Don't make me choose. Loewe. Mine's Cezanne. Favourite beauty product? It's got to be mascara. It's a Rimmel.

It's called Wonder Volume Thrill Seeker. What's your favorite? Again, mascara. Ilia. Amazing. Ilia Limitless Lash. Got it in a Christmas box. Ilia.

So good. Right. Can't find that. Ilia, I-L-I-A. Favorite cheese? This one's the most important. Oh, jeez. It's got to be a Comte.

Oh, Manchego. No, Comte. Manchego. Manchego. Mine's Stilton. Manchego. Manchego. Mine's Stilton. Stilton, obviously. Favourite bad habit? Or biting the skin around my nails. I do that. What's yours? I like to swig wine from the bottle when I'm cooking.

Oh. Bloody love that. You're the winner. You win that. I think you win that, swigging your wine from the bottle. Also because you just named me your favourite designer. Right right let's move on to some questions shall we so i've got an easy question from meg i'm buying my first house this year it's tiny but it will be ours we have proper gray sofas i hate them but not in a position to get new ones at the moment so i need to make them work they're the darker side of gray long term i'm trying to create a more neutral home of oatmeal and beige it's what color shall i do the walls in the lounge to make the sofas work oh okay good question i know i think like i will say i think people are trying to evict grey a bit

because as you know i call it the fun sponge grey is a very sort of a bit of a dull color and it's a cool color and therefore you're slightly restricted to what colors you can put with it because interestingly grays doesn't go so greys obviously goes with sort of black cool colours doesn't really go with the warm autumnal colours so well so colour palette wise because I don't know if it's south facing or how much natural light you get um I would almost say look at sort of either either you could go towards greens greens is beautiful with gray and obviously it's going to help add that sort of um add a bit of interest a bit of fun and i think with gray you want to bring color in so it's it's very easy to sort of go down the kind of white black streets

but you're just going to make it colder so you want to introduce color pink is a really lovely color with gray so you could actually do like some really lovely sort of almost like a plaster pink on the walls that would look really beautiful yeah so um plaster pink and grey that's beautiful and would that good then go with her oatmeal in future because I know that you can you can always repaint but if you just wanted to paint once and know that it went with both that would be really lovely you want to go with something that's really you don't go like a baby pink it wants to be something like a setting plaster pink so it's sort of got that real undertone of it's got a slight gray undertone if you like so it doesn't want to have a warm yellow undertone it wants to be sort of more towards a gray undertone

and that's going to really kind of help complement the gray and actually help warm it up a bit and then you can also with that then you can bring more pinks into the room as well you can actually bring brighter pinks and think think texture here as well on your on your cushions bring sort of you know other other tones of pink onto your sofa as well that's really going to help and of course white's going to help brighten it up as well great thanks meg paul one for you my darling and outie this is so from sophie i want to plant a drought tolerant gravel garden. What plants would you recommend, please? Oh, I love this. And actually, this is very timely because I literally just planted my drought tolerant gravel garden.

So I got a list for you. Yeah. So, yeah. And I think the trick with a drought tolerant gravel garden is you're not going all flowers. And that's a lesson for all of your borders. all flowers really remember you you structure and your texture so you want those plants which are going to give fluff and also what I really like in sort of gravel gardens is that more glaucous bluey gray leaf uh so I mean I'm going to go straight into something like stachys which is the one which is like a fluffy rabbit's ear you know it's sort of gray and silver do you know the one I'm talking about

Jojo where it's genuinely fluffy I remember as a kid stroking them and exactly we've got one in our neighbor's house the kids always stroke it's really sweet yeah it's lovely so stachys is a great one and you can get ones which are quite erect but you can also get ones which form a bit of a carpet so I definitely would include that I also always use blotter which also has a really difficult name that I can barely pronounce which is pseudo dictamnus mediterraneus but you can just call it blotter can I just say there's dick appears in a lot of these Latin names what does that what is the meaning of this word so does anus anus comes up a lot tell me dick and anus can we just explain like a rigor on kovinsky anus

which actually you should use in your new drug run didn't plan that yes so i would use belotta and that's a really nice so remember how i always talk about how you want structure a lot of the things you might put in a gravel garden tend to be a bit more perennial and die back but belotta is a nice one for structure so i would definitely go with um your belotta i'd go with stachys you could look at putting some steeper in there which are um the grass uh sort of swishy little grass that you'll see on holiday um perovskia as well for a little bit of color so that's the russian sage it's changed its name to salvia now but let's just call it perovskia for now which is a purple it's got a silvery foliage and a purple flower on the top of it which looks beautiful as well and that's good winter structure there too because

it kind of holds its form a little bit and then I mean old classics I love to get herbs into drought tolerant gardens so you could get some thyme in there lavender as well and then a bit of verbena would be fun and then I've put actually quite a lot of euphorbias into mine because, again, they can handle some drought and it's going to give you that sort of zingy green. So that's a nice little mix to get you started. Lovely. Good stuff. Okay. What more for you, my friend?

I've got one from Celia. Hello. Love the podcast. I'm beginning my journey as an interior designer. I'd love to know how you go about sourcing artwork. Do you have any advice? Which would be great be great much love you guys are crushing it oh thank you Celia oh thank you um do you know what I art is a really it's a funny one for me and I get asked this a lot where I source artwork from and first off art is extremely subjective. So what I might find for that... My fucking cat.

This cat, honestly. Listen. It's just always got something to say. It's got to be Clarence, right? It's always Clarence. Look at the size of this cat. Look. That's a large cat.

He's a huge cat. It's the amount of mice he eats, I tell you what. Anyone that's followed me for a while will have seen this cat when he was a little tiny, tiny little scrap. And now he's this gigantic, he looks like some sort of a snow leopard when he's prowling across the fields. He doesn't look like a snow leopard. He's making me

like sneeze just looking at him. That's how allergic I am to cats. I mean, you know, the last time I came to you, I basically just sealed up and was just like this. You did actually. Your eyes went like this like this. Anyway, we digress. Artwork. Oh, so art is so subjective sealed up and you did actually your eyes went like this like this anyway we digress artwork oh it's art is so subjective and therefore when people ask me this question it's I I get it from all sorts of places and it very much depends on client budget um on on where we're putting it so

in certain areas like your living room or then I will sort of you know encourage the client to sort of go with a piece that's a bit more of a collectible so you know actually really buy from artists so that you're supporting artists so work with an art consultant if you're not sure you know designers us designers also work with art consultants I work with a brilliant Kramer and Bell um and a number of others that I that help me source art specifically for clients. So I'd say speak to an art consultant so that you can actually really tap into these brilliant artists that are out there. And go and look for. But it very much depends on the scheme.

And as you know, we love an art wall. I love curating art walls. I love an art wall. And I tend to never overthink them. So a client might have a whole jumble of artwork in all sorts of different frames. And you just lay them all out on the floor and you just work out what looks right. And just, you know, just be quite free with it. More is sometimes more.

Can we just hop on that, pal, with frames? Have you got any rules with frames about, like, colours to avoid? I mean, you're brilliant at sort of mixing colours and textures, but are there any sort of general guidelines in terms of that, in terms of gallery walls and mixing frames? I think it's just really important to think that you either want the frame to do the talking or the artwork, so the frame should enhance the painting.

And if it's a cheap poster or it's something you're not that fussed about, then let the frame do the talking. So it's just a sort of line. Right. Maybe then, you know, find a that's really kind of speaks to you so mix it up but just be aware that if you're suddenly going to choose a sort of red bobbin frame on a bit of artwork that's the thing that you're going to see not the artwork so it wants to all be quite cohesive like sometimes we can have there might be something that's really strong like a gold gilt frame that's been given to someone by their grandmother or whatever and they want to

make it work and therefore the other things that we add with it we'll try and kind of help complement it um it's like putting anything together really it's like putting any sort of accessories together there is a bit of an art to it but i'd say artwork is just one of those things just don't i tend to say mix it up if you're choosing artwork don't source from the same people i don't want to encourage people to just go to poster websites i don't like buying cheap posters i get it for kids bedrooms because it is quite you know transient you can't it's constantly changing every few years kids won't want to change their posters or whatever so that's a great cheap easy way to put something fun on the wall but otherwise you're going to

be hanging it in other rooms i'd rather you go and spend a little bit of extra and buy it from an artist or an independent so go and find independent art suppliers online you know even etsy or someone i don't know if i'm about to commit a cardinal sin by saying this but i really like print club london because they have loads of different artists that do print i think they're like they're affordable right so it's loads of different artists you and they vary from sort of about 60 quid for something quite small up to yeah hundreds or even a thousand if you go for like a david shrigley or whatever but it's i like it because it's really varied you can sort of yeah as a as a lay person i think it's got a really great variety and then they're what i would regard as affordable as well right I've got one here from Sammy Sammy's asking moved into a new house two years ago with a huge

garden it's now looking a bit sad and yellow and it all feels a bit overwhelming to me help help oh right yeah I mean it's a busy time in the garden is and it's a funny time as well because all of your tulips and even some of your alliums they'll starting they yellow out about now and they the annoying thing about things like daffodils tulips that you have in the borders is if obviously you want them to come back next year you have to leave them to die back and so it is a time where you've got sort of yellowing leaves which can look a bit manky and you just have to wait when they go full-on yellow you can cut them off don't pull them out because the bulb will come with it but just cut them off just to tidy it up um but one of the biggest tips I can give you at this time of year is we're around Chelsea flower show which means it's Chelsea chop time and this is going to make

your garden look so much better long term it's called the Chelsea chop because you know it's around Chelsea so what I do every year about this time usually straight after the Chelsea flower show get my Nowaki secateurs I use the GR pros yellow handle my fave and go out and snip back all of the plants in the garden so that I get that succession of flowers but there's two ways of doing it so you can either get the whole plant and I'll give you a list in a second the kind of plants you can do take the whole plant back by 50% which freaks a lot of people out but but they'll be fine. Or you can take half the plant back by 50%. If you do the whole plant, what it's going to do is essentially delay its flowering. It's going to prolong the flowering into later in the season. Whereas if you only do half,

obviously you're going to get some flowers now and then the other half will flower later. So it's a way of extending it so that you don't just get everything all at once and and things you can do it for are things like achillea or asters echinacea campanula um phlox you can do it with napeta as well but actually with sedum i really really recommend you do that so it's sedum s-e-d-u-m and they've got sort of a a w, usually quite glaucousy blue leaf. And then they flower later in the summer in sort of pinks and reds and whites. But the thing with sedums is they often flop open and create a gap in the middle

if you don't cut them back because they're quite heavy and they sort of flop out and you end up with this sort of void that looks like you've dropped a bowling ball in the middle of it. So sedums in particular really respond well to just cutting them all back by about 50 and what that will do is just bush it up so you get that nice dome

rather than this big gappy plant so i would say if there's one thing you do this time of year it's just cut back all of those tatty leaves once they've yellowed and just make sure that you cut back some of your perennials so that you just get that succession of flowering it means you're not going to have this burst in sort of May early June and then nothing in July it's just going to prolong it so that's your that's your job for the month oh I've just looked it up as well it says sedums you can actually plant in May and June and it's a really good it's loved by bees and pollinators yeah because they're late they're a late summer flowerer nice for beds is that nice for beds do you know we need to have a talk about this because my team called me out on this oh you say bedding and beds they said

polly you need to tell jojo perennials are not bedding and it's not a flower bed it's a border sorry i thought i will i will tell her that because you said bedding last week i thought i must bring this to her attention it's it's a faux pas so tell me again bedding plants well i mean i guess if you're talking bedding i'd be talking about like little annuals that you go to the garden center and buy like little violas or you know the bits that die the things that i never use i would argue okay and the little like pansies things like that that's what you would call a bedding plant. Oh, so we're talking border plants. But you also call the flower borders, you call the borders flower beds. And the first thing on day one of design school, we were all going, well, where would the flower beds go or whatever?

And she was like, it's a border, not a flower bed. We're like, right. Okay. Thank you very much. So, you know, it's silliness and snobbery, but it's not snobbery. It's just industry lingo, but it's a border. Thanks team Py for schooling me there you're welcome no more bedding plants border plants thank you see that's what we're

here for it's here to learn all right i think that's plenty this week oh my god i haven't even told you haven't even told you my house i'm currently living it's very cabin vibes they have put a temporary wall through my living room and it's made of plywood and it smells of plywood they put a window in that they had in the yard so i didn't have to live in a in a box with a lightless box i mean it does look so it looks awful but look this is all the fun you know it's like camping so it's um i my living room is now a um a really small ply lined box within a box they haven't knocked the side of the house down yet so i'm sort of living within it but anyway it's it's all an adventure it's all good fun oh good mate i'm

excited for you okay so what's in tell me what's in my friend i haven't a clue what's in what's in for me this week it's peonies i bought myself some peonies. It's peony season, isn't it? I know that's an outie thing. Is that boring? No. Why? It's not. I just have mixed feelings about peonies. Why? Look, I love a peony. I absolutely love them as a cut flower and love them in the house. I don't think they work very hard in a border.

Don't forget, Paul, when I talk as an innie, I talk about cut flowers that I bring inside. You mean in the house? Oh, well, then I blimmin' love them. Yeah I blooming love them yeah blooming love them what color do you like blush blush pink I like that really yeah the color that I can't wear and would look terrible against my skin but I know you can get those that really deep deep pinky purple that's beautiful but actually I'm I'm always drawn to the blush pinks they're such a joy aren't they inside i absolutely love that roof really girly smooshy tissue papery peonies it's in the garden it's tricky because they take up a lot of space and they only flower for two weeks and then it rains and they get ruined so i'd always rather go for

kind of a tissue paper rose they're kind of like the some a big fluffy summer version of a ranunculus aren't they that's probably why i like them yeah i guess so that's a good shout yeah yeah thanks well we're gonna keep it floral then because my out was actually about what was in bloom at the moment which is the bearded iris bearded iris are out in bloom now and they look amazing i would argue it's one of my top five plants it's a real luxury plant because it sort of flowers and then doesn't do much but what i would argue whereas peonies I don't feel bring much to the party other than amazing flowers at one time a year iris I love their foliage they're like blades these sort of pale glaucous blades which I think give great structure even when they're not in

flowers so the bearded iris you had a bearded iris did you not have a bearded iris at your Chelsea show last year I had them at both. I had Wondrous, which was my sort of frilly knickers apricot one. And then last year I had Jane Phillips and... So funny the names they give plants. They're good, aren't they? They're like racehorses. Oh my gosh. And I actually need to go now because it is the final day of the tulip trials and I am... We are voting today. You've got to go, mate. I really hope we get... tulip trials and i am we are voting you gotta go mate i really hope we get um i hope we get numbers like on strictly yes that'd be so fun wouldn't it

but today we choose what tulips get the agm go tulips go tulips it's a big day okay right go grovel then quick quick grovel farewell grovel grovel next week from chelsea flower show but also don't forget to like, subscribe and share share with the people at your local garden centre which I bet you're going to this weekend because everyone goes

share with people at Chelsea perhaps they don't know about us hand out cards oh I'd love it if you would and come and say hi at the Project Giving Back stand we'll be there on Wednesday we'll be there on Wednesday

alright my loves over and out big love have fun in the garden alright bye bye bye bye bye