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Assessment, Judging and Sky-High Nerves

It’s Sunday lunch and the first assessment panel have come through. My understanding is that the assessment panel decide the colour of the medal and put the recommendation to the official judges due in tomorrow morning. I had two minutes with the panel to discuss the garden and then they do their thing. They stayed for 50 minutes (normally 25), and we can’t tell if this is a good thing or not; needless to say the nerves are sky-high.

Jimmy and Ian chat in the garden at the 2011 Chelsea Flower Show in London.
Jimmy and I chat in the garden.

The garden itself is looking great – the team has recreated our design to the ‘T’. Words can’t describe how grateful I am for their hard work and persistence. I love these sort of tests in a team environment, and I find that more often than not it brings out the very best in people.  The fact that the garden now looks exactly like the drawing means that if we aren’t successful tomorrow it is my fault – and this fact is starting to weigh heavily on my mind. These guys deserve a result and we can now only hope that we have done enough.
I think it is going to be a long 40 hours!!!
– Ian