The really wild show

Gardens used to be neat, but now the fashion showcased by the Chelsea Flower Show is for a wild look, says Toby

- Toby Buckland

PABLO Picasso was the most influential artist of the 20th century, spawning a revolution in graphic design and producing artworks that sell for millions. Even so, they’re not to everyone’s taste.

My father-in-law (who didn’t study art or paint for pleasure) thinks Picasso should have stuck to conventional landscapes, and argues that if a painting doesn’t look like a photograph, it’s not worth the canvas it’s daubed on.

I mention this after visiting the Chelsea Flower Show – an event that visitors and TV viewers couldn’t help noticing has a very different aesthetic from just a decade ago.

Back in 2012, gardens looked like… well, gardens. They had crisp geometric designs and clipped topiary hedges, echoing the formality and control of the grand Italianate landscape of old. Expensive and aspirational, these minime incarnations were designed to tempt the burgeoning client-base of cash-rich Russian oligarchs who wanted their plots to convey power, wealth and good taste.