Once again the highly selective and notoriously hard to please judges at the Chelsea Flower Show have bestowed a Gold Medal on the ever creative team of the Barbados Horticultural Society (BHS). A Gold Medal at the Chelsea Flower Show is the most prestigious accolade in the horticultural world and the Barbados team worked extremely hard to get this one.
BHS chose a ‘Gully Adventure’ as their theme for this year’s 2015 Chelsea Flower Show. Last Wednesday a team of volunteer’s flew out of Barbados, taking on a journey of 4,000 miles accompanied by 62 very large boxes, all carefully packed with a vast array of foliage and blooms that had been painstakingly grown during the previous year by members and other supporters throughout the island.
The 20ft x 20ft display was complete with a curving path covered with an assortment of dry leaves, tree bark, dry branches and mahogany pods, to enable visitors to enjoy the experience of walking through a gully – just as they would in Barbados. To add even more drama and realism, the recorded sounds of whistling frogs and crickets can be heard in the background.
Set with Bearded Fig Tree vines, Golden Pothus vines, a number of tall Palms and vivid colour from a selection of a stunning selection of Orchids, Ginger Lilies, and Ornamental Bananas have been arranged in key locations.
It is worthy of note that the members of the Barbados Horticultural Society Team are all unpaid volunteers. They take great pride in the fact that they grow, pick and pack their own blooms and foliage, all collected from private gardens and nurseries around the island, and ship them from Barbados to Chelsea.
As the Chelsea Flower Show continues for the rest of this week, more than 150,000 attendees will view the Barbados exhibit each day and enjoy a small but wonderfully enticing glimpse of what the beautiful island has to offer.
