Talk Report – Steve Edney & Louise Dowle: Seedheads – Organising a Chelsea Gold Medal Winning Display

What do you do when the speakers arranged for the evening talk phone up at lunchtime to say they are indisposed?

There must be no other horticultural society which can arrange for not one, but two speakers to continue the talk they gave on Gardeners’ World less than a week beforehand.

Lou Dowle and Steve Edney demonstrated their enthusiasm for the architectural delights of seedheads in winter gardens. Or rather in the drier winter gardens of Kent, not the soggy gardens in the west, where even the stateliest plants turn to mush.

Steve and Louise brought a range of seadheads to demonstrate the range of textures and forms that they can bring to autumn and winter gardens.  They included included Alliums (the bigger, the better), grasses, (Calamagrostis brachytricha and Miscanthus can be seen outside the village hall). Phlomis russeliana (Turkish Sage) and Lunaria ‘Chedglow’, The seedheads of irises and peonies were also admired.

In 2019 they were awarded a gold at Chelsea for their display of dried seedheads. As Steve said, the first to be awarded for dead plants. But it’s not just a gimmick; there is a serious message about the way we garden.

Plants spend more time out of flower than in flower. The flower is only one aspect of a plant’s life. The seedheads fulfil the purpose of plants to produce another generation. So maybe not dead plants, but the initial steps of new life. If that sounds too fanciful, wildlife also benefits.  Seeds are a critical food source for animals and birds, and dried plants can provide nesting material for a range of garden wildlife. Cutting down plants before they can set seed deprives garden wildlife of a valuable resource.  Plants can provide food, cover, hiding places, shelter and nesting material, And they look terrific. 

Pictures from Chelsea 2019 below.