The Chelsea Flower Show’s fondness for wild places shows I’m on the right track with my garden

His lawn may be unkempt, his hedge untrimmed and his digging half-done, but Will Gore now sees art in his horticultural mess

Presentations at the event have embraced the imperfect (PA)

The Chelsea Flower Show is supposed to be inspirational but it’s just as likely to be intimidating. The designs are obviously impressive, but everything is just so verdant, so blooming, so... well... perfect. You’re likely to look at the set-piece displays and wonder why you bother with your own efforts.

The last couple of years, however, have seen something of a reset. While artful, higgledy-piggledy cottage gardens have always found a place at Chelsea, it now seems that full-on wildness is all the rage. Last year’s “best in show” was a paean to beaver-gnawed rewilding, complete with dams and lodges. And at this year’s event, held over the last few days, a gold medal in the best construction category was awarded to a garden based on a crumbling Victorian house that has been taken over by nature.

Purists, such as The Independent’s parliamentary sketch writer and dahlia expert, Tom Peck, have been aghast. But really, there is something to be said for these wildernesses. Gardening, after all, is a difficult business; the idea that manicured lawns or precisely laid out flower beds might not be the be all and end all is deeply reassuring.