The Lawn Society slide tackles Chelsea

In a move set to put the 'Great' into the British Lawn,  Mike Seaton Founder of the Lawn Society, has fired a broadside across the bows of the organisers at the Chelsea Flower Show by insisting that Lawns, the centre feature of nearly every garden, be added as a category at the world famous show.

Mike quite rightly insists that lawns have been treated by the Royal Horticultural Society as the poor relation and, whilst the society pushes hard the importance of trees, shrubs and plants, they ignore on of the major drivers of the horticultural industry.

Indeed, with an annual £400 million spend on the lawn care industry many a supplier seems to have missed the opportunity of linking into this lucrative market.

Lawns and gardens are co-joined and it is Chelsea's responsibility to put the lawn at the heart, both physically and metaphorically of the British garden.

In a first for the show and an inaugural award for the Lawn Society, Brian Alabaster, whose naturalistic sculptures sell for up to £20,000, was judged to have the best lawn in the show and was given its “gold award”.

Mike Seaton commented that “There’s nothing like the British lawn, I think there are a lot of secret lawn lovers, people who try really hard with their lawns. The RHS is great on flowers at the show, but awful on grass and it’s about time that good lawns were given their due.”

Bob Sweet, the show organiser really compounded the the vacuum that exists by saying “To be able to lay good turf for a show is notoriously difficult. I’m delighted that the gardens and exhibits at the show are being looked at more closely by a specialist. We have a team of advisers here to answer the public’s questions about gardening issues and lawns always get the highest number of queries and inquiries.” 

He called for the RHS to give lawns a stage and to create a category devoted to turf.