The roof garden designed by 77 year old novice gardener Tony Samuelson for this year's Chelsea Flower Show will turn more than a few heads when the show opens on 22 May 2007.
Chelsea is about design and all things horticultural but most of all it's about plants and the plants on this garden are growing out of all manner of rare, beautiful, common and utilitarian objects that Tony Samuelson has collected over the course of his exciting life.
The garden is a realistic representation of a roof top space with a tall chimneystack, chimney pots, TV aerials, satellite dishes, drain pipes and cables in abundance. There are walls on three sides and railings along the front. Imagine if you will that the garden belongs to a hedonistic young man well grounded in the history of art and things will become clear!
76 different plant varieties feature on this garden, including a tree fern(Dicksonia Antarctica), planted in an old rusty water tank, a double hammock with Clematis Montana growing up the supporting tubular structure and a wild flower meadow planted with Cornflower Blue Carpet (Centaurea cyanoides), Ox-eye Daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare) and Corn Poppy (Papaver rhoeas) beneath it.
A Gainsborough painting entitled Mr & Mrs Andrews is represented by a pair of show room mannequins whose hair pieces are planted up with grasses (carex comans bronze) and spotted deadnettle (lamium maculatum 'white nancy') respectively.
Mrs Andrews' eighteenth century pannier dress is a colourful carpet of viola and the rubber chicken which adorns her lap (surely not an allusion to the Tate Gallery's Chicken Knickers by Brit artist Sarah Lucas?} sprouts Salvia offiicinalis - well no chicken is properly dressed without sage! Mr Andrews is himself an edible feast of fenugreek, wheat grass, white radish, various sprouts and red clover.
The famous eight foot tall Biba Great Dane designed for Barbara Hulanicki will make a long overdue public appearance as the dog from the Gainsborough painting, his dog food tins will overflow with sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritima)
Near to Mr and Mrs Andrews, secured high up on the chimney, is a yellow ladder- back chair with sun flowers growing up through the rush seat - a clear to two pictures by van Gogh. The two sunflower varieties in van Gogh's sunflower paintings are represented by Sahin's Helianthus 'Little Dorrit' and Sahin's Helianthus 'Orange Sun'. On the right hand wall an upside-down tomato plant tumbles out of the bottom of a giant ketchup bottle.
'Cow Girl' is a plastic pot swathed in a brown suede mini skirt with a vintage blow lamp (notches down the barrel) slung from the belt and planted with Opuntia vulgaris (Prickly pear), the official plant of the State of Texas 'TV Boy' is Samuleson's modern day re-incarnation of Ganymede (cup holder to the gods).
Here he holds aloft a portable television receiver for the benefit of occupants of the hammock. He carries it like a waiter carries a tray loaded with food. From the neck upwards he is a plant container for a combination of Silverbush (Convolvulus cneorum) and Black Tulip (Tulipa 'Queen of the Night').
'Girl Table' is named after a famous work by Allen Jones, this version consists of a transparent plastic cylinder-sectioned table top with three chromium legs. The front two legs wear stripped socks for reasons of modesty which any Victorian couple with a youthful family and a grand piano in the drawing room would understand! The socks are supported by a white suspender belt and a disjointed arm from a display model whose days of shop window glory lie in the past implies an on-hip "Come-on Big Boy!' gesture. The pot is partly covered with a black basque with one dropped shoulder strap - a reminder of the scandal that transfixed Paris when John Singer Sargent's portrait of a lady in a black dress, Madame X, went on display. Appropriately the pot is planted with Passiflora caerulea (Passion Flower).
A second table made from ex shop window found objects is called the Four-legged Table. A pair of male legs is (tastefully) juxtaposed with a pair of female legs, both naked to the hip, to produce a free-standing table with a two layer glass top. The tops of the legs are hollowed out to provide a container for a mixture of Liquorice (Helichrisum patiolare), Coral Bells - Palace Purple (Heuchera micrantha) and Black Mondo Grass (Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Black Knight').
On the upper shelf stands a small Victorian bird cage within which are a pair of red suede silver buckled lady's boots, planted with a mixture of Morning Glory (Convolvulus tricolor) and Creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia 'Aurea'). Those who know their art will be reminded of Diderot's famous spat with the egregious painter Greuze.
Other unique planters include a table with two chairs, set for an intimate supper à deux with illumination from a three light chandelier made from recycled and modified carbonated drinks bottles planted with Petunia 'Purple wave'. ABoby trolley created by the designer Joe Colombo whose hinged drawers open toreveal sprouting seeds of various kinds in varying stages of germination including some ready for cropping and juicing! A guitar is fixed upside down to the door and acts as a container for Twinspur (Diascias), Blue Lime Grass (Leymus arenarius) and Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia trifoliate).