Irish horticulturist wins gold at Chelsea flower Show

An Irish horticulturist has been hailed a “credit to his country” by the Royal Horticultural Society after his collection of exotic ferns won gold at the Chelsea Flower Show in London.

Billy Alexander, master gardener of Co Kerry’s Kells Bay Gardens, presented a 60sqm display of ferns, with some plants reaching over 3m in height.

Senior judge Jon Wheatley marvelled at the “exceptional” range and quality of the Kerry plants. He said Mr Alexander had produced “probably the most outstanding exhibit of ferns I have ever seen at any Chelsea show”, making him a “credit to his country”.

The gold honour is the second Mr Alexander has received from Britain’s Royal Horticultural Society. His diverse display also won the top prize at the Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival in July of this year.

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Gold at Chelsea Flower Show was always Mr Alexander’s goal, he told the Irish Times. Getting a silver gilt award at the show in 2018 was “not good enough” for the ambitious gardener and he knew he needed to come back with a “broader, bigger, wider” display.

“There was only one objective here: to get gold ... Chelsea is the pinnacle challenge for somebody in horticulture in these islands and practically in the world,” he said.

Reaching this point has been a “slow burner”, he said, as the 2020 flower show was cancelled and the 2021 May event postponed until this week. However, the wait was a short spell in the life cycle of the Kerry fern collection.

“A lot of these ferns would have been in Kerry for the last 100 years growing naturally,” he said, noting there are now hundreds of varieties thriving there.

Mr Alexander’s Chelsea Flower Show display, which opens to the public from Tuesday, is a “microcosm” of the Kells Bay Garden collection. It features larger tree ferns underplanted by “a lot of rare ferns of the world”.

These plants are nothing like the wild bracken growing around Irish beaches and in forests, he said. The Kells Bay varieties are “very peaceful” and the “jewel in the crown” at the gardens, said Mr Alexander, who became fascinated by the tree fern species a decade ago while still working in finance.

“It started as a hobby of importing tree ferns. Then one fern led to another,” he said.

It has taken several decades to build upon and conserve the rare species in Kerry.

“All tree ferns come from the southern hemisphere,” he explained, with the Kells collection bred from imports from New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, South Africa, and South America.

Transporting the Kells garden microclimate to southwest London presented challenges. Mr Alexander, accompanied by gardener Grzeg Zawlocki, encountered “hiccups all along the way” due to Brexit checks and paperwork.

“The logistics of moving very large tree ferns was very difficult. A leaf is so soft, and at Chelsea every single leaf is supposed to be almost perfect,” he said.

The prized ferns will be transported back to their home after the show comes to an end on Sunday. Mr Alexander hopes the award will help attract visitors to the gardens during the less popular autumn months.

“We do get good visitors, but I would hope that this would be a good boost for people in September and October to come out and have a walk in the most beautiful part of the planet,” he said.