Answer - BE LUCKY!!Applications for the Chelsea Flower Show in May 2007 were due in to the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) by July 2006. I had designed my garden and started my search for a sponsor well before this. I wrote to and called literally hundreds of Chief Execs and Marketing Directors, but the scatter-gun approach doesn't work. I'm a tough old bird though, so every time a rejection letter came through the letterbox I would pick myself up, shake myself off, and try to think of another way to persuade someone to give me an awfully large amount of money (a legal way that is...)
[FYI - the large show gardens along Main Avenue at the Chelsea Flower Show range from £100,000 to £250,000 and up.] I had postcard-sized drawings of the garden in my handbag and would regularly proposition strangers - "Don't suppose you fancy sponsoring a garden at Chelsea?" I even bought a load of lottery tickets to see if I could win the money! (I didn't); although I did win enough to pay myself for a month - all the work so far had been unpaid, so someone up there was looking after me.
I decided to enter a garden anyway in the hope that I could find a sponsor later. (After Diarmuid Gavin's problems finding sponsorship in 2004, the RHS want to see a signed letter of sponsorship before they will confirm a slot). So I applied for a large show garden10m x 23m without a sponsor. Being a new designer to Chelsea it was too much of a risk for the RHS to give me a large plot without proof of sponsorship, but I was very flattered that they asked me to design a smaller garden 8m x 10m.They could have just told me to get on my bike, but they must have seen some sort of potential in my initial design, and I'm very grateful that they took a chance on me.
Around the same time I did a deal with my PR consultant, Rosie Harkness, whereby I designed her garden for her, in return for PR work for my new business. By co-incidence, Rosie also does PR for Hasmead plc, a Landscaping company, and parent company to Premier Trees. Jon Todd, the MD, had offered to supply the trees for Rosie's garden, so we travelled up to Milton Keynes to meet Jon and choose the trees. "Don't suppose you fancy sponsoring a garden at Chelsea?"..."Maybe"...
The rest, as they say, is history.
Linda Bush is a garden designer based in Kent.
