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View Full Version : Olivia bought "The Dreaming Girl"


FPSHOT
Jun 19, 2006, 01:17 AM
Here is a nice story about Olivia having bought the 'star' of the famous annual Chelsea Flower Show

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/huntingdon/2006/06/16/1cf94f17-c95b-47f7-ab08-43b0f23c23fd.lpf

"Olivia's dream purchase"

The widow of Beatles star George Harrison has bought the star of this year's Chelsea Flower Show.

The giant living sculpture, called The Dreaming Girl, is one of the enduring images from this year's show and formed part of the Garden of Dreams created by St Ives garden designer Marney Hall.

The garden, Marney's sixth Chelsea Show submission, won a coveted silver gilt medal.

Olivia Harrison is said to have installed the 15ft long, 6ft high sculpture at the home she shared with her husband George - a fantastical late-Victorian gothic mansion called Friar Park, located in Henley-on-Thames.

His fellow Beatle, Ringo Starr, is said to have snapped up two pieces from the showpiece garden - a gazebo-like "stumpery" made of intertwined driftwood trees and a wood carving of The Sleeping Lady.

St Ives garden designer Marney Hall Gardening fanatic Ringo, who wrote the Fab Four song Octopus's Garden, and his wife, Barbara Bach, opened the 4Head garden at the show.

The garden featured 7,000 plants, healing herbs and a babbling brook.

The Dreaming Girl was inspired by the famous Mudmaid from the Lost Gardens of Helligan in Cornwall.

George was possibly the world's first green-fingered rock star, although Elton John, Mick Jagger and Sting all shared his passion.

He was a regular, if discreet, visitor to Chelsea and occasionally other Royal Horticultural Society shows.

In 1980, when he published his limited edition autobiography entitled I, Me, Mine, he dedicated it to "gardeners everywhere".

He meticulously restored the 30- acre gardens of Friar Park, including a 30ft model of the Matterhorn.

sadie
Jun 19, 2006, 01:34 AM
Wow how cool is that? My friends had a stand at Chelsea Flower Show, wonder if they saw either of them.......

beatlebangs1964
Jun 19, 2006, 03:57 AM
What a nice story. Thank you for posting this one, FPSHOT.

Hari's Chick
Jun 19, 2006, 10:58 AM
Thanks so much for sharing this, Rob!

FPSHOT
Jun 19, 2006, 03:48 PM
My Pleasure ladies :smile1:

If anyone can get a picture up here of The Dreaming Girl that would be nice.

Siobhan
Jun 20, 2006, 04:37 AM
Olivia must have shared George's passion for gardening. great story, thanks :smile1:

sadie
Jun 20, 2006, 04:44 AM
Here she is...

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/resources/images/autonumbered/6/4/8/648497c7-fe32-4859-8eb3-550d2e0db715.jpg

Hari's Chick
Jun 21, 2006, 05:36 PM
Wow, talk about bed-head! :wink3: Thanks Sadie for posting this!

beatlebangs1964
Jun 21, 2006, 07:02 PM
Bed head - Flower Bed Head or Grass Head or having a ??? hair day! :laugh5:

Hari's Chick
Jun 24, 2006, 12:59 PM
Flower bed head!!! :laugh2: that's even better!!! LOL!

FPSHOT
May 13, 2008, 12:34 AM
Since we are talking about the 2008 Chelsea Flower Show it may be nice to look back at this

Here is a nice picture and article about The Dreaming Girl

http://www.grand-illusions.com/opticalillusions/garden_of_dreams/

beatlebangs1964
May 15, 2008, 06:07 AM
That IS nice, FPSHOT. No doubt George would have loved it.

CWW
May 29, 2008, 01:13 AM
Flower bed head!!! :laugh2: that's even better!!! LOL!

And if one were somewhat inclined towards the grateful dead it would be a dead head!! or dead bed head!!! :laugh5: dead flower bed?!:laugh5:

I agree, with the HUGE chelsea news this year, its good to read about the news from 2006 again and look back, infact this could have paved the way for this years recent garden?:wink2:

Hari's Chick
May 30, 2008, 05:45 PM
And if one were somewhat inclined towards the grateful dead it would be a dead head!! or dead bed head!!! :laugh5: dead flower bed?!:laugh5:

I agree, with the HUGE chelsea news this year, its good to read about the news from 2006 again and look back, infact this could have paved the way for this years recent garden?:wink2:

:laugh5:

Yes, I think it is good to have a peek back, too. The Dreaming Girl is so so beautiful!!

You know, Friar Park has a long history with the Chelsea Flower Show. I was peeking around online and found the neatest article. It tells how even Sir Frankie Crisp was involved with the Chelsea Flower Show, with a little bit of gardening drama!! http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h211/boogey_man8/EMOTICONS/Happy_992.gif

http://www.bbg.org/gar2/pgn/2002fa_offshoots.html

It's well worth reading the whole article, but the part I refer to is this~

Crisp's most controversial oddity was his rock garden, composed of some 40,000 plants surrounding a 30-foot replica of the Matterhorn. The faux mountain was built from 7,000 tons of Yorkshire stone and topped with a piece of rock from the summit of the actual Matterhorn. A little tin chamois (a goatlike antelope found in the highlands of Europe) could be found cavorting on the slopes.

In 1914, Reginald Farrer, explorer, scholar, author, and as much a rabble-rouser as William Robinson, instigated an episode that came to be dubbed "the Crispian Row." In his introduction to E.A. Bowles's My Garden in Spring, Farrer launched into an attack on "some people's" tasteless rock-garden style, using unmistakable descriptions of Friar Park's Matterhorn marvel. Crisp and his defender, Miss Willmott, blamed the mild-mannered Bowles and excoriated him in pamphlets distributed at the Chelsea Flower Show that year. Robinson, never one to miss an opportunity to foment discord, reprinted their comments in his magazine, further embarrassing the unfortunate Mr. B. :laugh5:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y31/lovemygessies/PF%20Emotes/gardeningsmilie.gif

CWW
Jun 01, 2008, 08:03 PM
Its pretty cool, well AMAZING even that Sir Frankie was involed in the CFS aswell...nice find!!!

I wonder if George knew about this? im sure he would have?

LOL about that guy criticising the matterhorn!! Hey this could be a crossover thread with the 'disneyland' thread lol...George likes Matterhorns!!!

Hari's Chick
Jun 04, 2008, 07:41 PM
LOL!!!

I bet George knew the history, I'd think?? Although he was not much of an internet guy, so he'd have to stumble upon it another way maybe?

I have a great pic of the Matterhorn at FP, but I bet there are some good ones online at a few sites, if I remember correctly. I'm gonna peek again when I get a chance...

FPSHOT
Jun 04, 2008, 09:13 PM
I have a great pic of the Matterhorn at FP,

:afraid2: :wazzzup: