Chelsea 2012: Plants in a Warzone

One of the most thought provoking gardens at this years RHS Chelsea Flower show is Korean designer Jihae Hwang's garden "Quiet Time: DMZ Forbidden Garden". I must admit that when we saw this garden on TV the evening before we attended we were not really sure what to make of it, was it a garden? an art installation? or a political message? In reality of course its a mixture of all three. As Chelsea is a Gardening show, it should be noted that the plant range was quite diverse, with some very interesting and unusual plants (and not to mention several rare plants too).

The Garden itself was created to reflect and commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Korean conflict and contains at its center a large watch tower. One boundary of the garden is a barbed wire fence which was host to several climbing plants (and would quite successfully keep passers by from climbing into the garden!).
On the fence hang glass bottles with messgaes in, again a real reference to the division between North and South Korea as families seperated by the fences used messages in bottles to communicate to each other.

Throughout the garden there were references to war, empty bullet cases, soldiers helmets, and other rusting items of warfare. Buttons line the pathway - in the DMZ in Korea buttons are often all that remain from the uniforms of dead soldiers.



A stream runs though the garden, which according to the designer defies the barriers of human conflict and depicting the feelings of love and tension that the real DMZ (De Militarised Zone) holds for the people of Korea.

We were fortunuate to be invited to enter the garden and meet part of the build team, the realism in the garden is superb with many native Korean plants complemented by some additonal European plants as well. Even up close the planting really does look very natural.





Despite the garden being placed next to Diarmuid Gavin's latest attention seaking creation, it seemed to be gaining far more attention than the 80' scaffold pyramid across the pathway.

The Quiet Time: DMZ Forbidden Garden justifieby won a Gold Medal and was a garden we came back to more than once during the day.