THE countdown is on – and if you haven’t managed to grab a ticket you can watch all that the RHS Chelsea Flower Show has to offer from your armchair, even before it starts. So, what can we expect from this year’s horticultural extravaganza?

Show gardens

• Maverick designer Diarmuid Gavin is back and is bound to draw attention with his Harrods Eccentric British Garden, inspired by designer Heath Robinson, with swirly topiary and an octagonal folly. Every 15 minutes, box balls will bob up and down, conical bay trees begin to twirl, and planting will rise from the ground.

• Wellbeing is a big theme of this year’s show and herb queen and RHS ambassador Jekka McVicar has come up trumps with A Modern Apothecary Garden, promoting food as medicine. It features heart-strengthening hawthorns, a cobbled path which is instant reflexology if you walk on it bare-foot, lavender, rosemary and other wellbeing stalwarts.

• Other wellbeing gardens have been designed by Chris Beardshaw, whose show garden for Morgan Stanley will be relocated to Great Ormond Street Hospital after the show as a therapeutic space for parents. Anne-Marie Powell is designing the official RHS Greening Grey Britain garden (not a show garden) to support its campaign, featuring bright borders to lift the spirits, benches to relax and share a chat on, soothing water features, a bee-friendly perennial meadow, edible plants in pots and a stylish kitchen garden.

• In the Fresh Gardens category featuring smaller gardens, check out a weird-looking granite cube surrounded by ashes and charred fencing. Look through the cracks and you’ll see a mass of planting in The Antithesis of Sarcophagi garden, sponsored by The Marble and Granite Centre.

• If you love seeing gardens inspired by foreign places, designer Sarah Eberle is back with an Artisan Garden inspired by the Mekong River in Cambodia. The 7m x 5m space is entirely water, with a small deck leading to a floating lounger styled on a traditional fishing boat.

• Look out for the unique ‘Together We Can’ acoustic garden, developed by Peter Eustance of Symphonic Gardens for disability charity Papworth Trust, inspired by world-famous profoundly deaf percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie. Features include a water marimba which will transform the garden into a musical instrument amid a backdrop of natural woodland copse.

Ones to watch

• Sam Ovens, winner of the RHS Young Designer of the Year 2014, hopes to bring heathers back into fashion with his debut Chelsea show garden for Cloudy Bay

• After 25 years of exhibiting in the floral marquee, Rosy Hardy makes her debut in show gardens with Brewin Dolphin’s Forever Freefolk, inspired by declining chalk streams

• Tropical plants feature heavily in Catherine MacDonald’s stunning design for Hartley Botanic

• Twice Best in Show winner Cleve West brings visitors a garden inspired by Exmoor

Royal theme

• Visitors will receive a welcome of the highest order as they arrive beneath majestic floral arches designed by Royal florist Shane Connolly to mark the Queen’s 90th birthday, using all-British blooms. There will also be an exhibition of photographs of the Queen’s 51 visits to the show since 1949 New plants

• Bake-Off queen and National Gardens Scheme president Mary Berry will be launching a beautifully fragrant pale lemon hybrid tea rose from Harkness (www.roses.co.uk) named after her.

• Hillier Nurseries (www.hillier.co.uk) will be introducing Lavandula ‘Silver Line’ in aid of The Silver Line charity, founded by Dame Esther Rantzen. This white variety flowers profusely from late May to August, making it a magnet for bees and butterflies, and has a compact habit (height 25-30cm x spread 25-30cm) perfect for containers, low hedging or the front of a border.

• In rose specialist David Austin’s 90th birthday year (www.davidaustinroses.co.uk), the company will launch three new English roses. ‘Imogen’ has delicately frilled, soft lemon petals; ‘Bathsheba’, a super fragrant English climbing rose with large flowers and ‘Roald Dahl’, a free-flowering variety with peach coloured flowers, marking the centenary of the birth of the storyteller.

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show runs from May 24-28 at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea. See www.rhs.org.uk

GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT: BLUEBERRIES

Darlington and Stockton Times:

THEY’VE long been deemed a ‘superfood’ full of antioxidants and other beneficial properties, but are astronomical to buy in the shops, which is one good reason why you might try growing blueberries yourself.

The right soil type is essential – blueberries need rich, fertile, acid soil with lots of added organic matter and can be planted in sun or dappled shade, preferably in spring.

They also have a better chance if you add mycorrhizal fungi (you can buy it in a sachet or tub) to the bottom of the planting hole, sitting the rootball on top so it is in direct contact with the powder, which will help plants to establish.

Blueberry bushes won’t need supporting, but should be spaced 1.5m apart when grown in open ground. Water plants regularly while they are establishing and keep them well watered in a dry summer.

Each spring feed them with a high nitrogen feed like chicken manure pellets and mulch heavily with well-rotted organic matter. If you want to grow them in pots, try compact varieties like ‘Top Hat’ and ‘Sunshine Blue’.

BEST OF THE BUNCH: ASTRANTIA

Darlington and Stockton Times:

THIS pretty perennial may look delicate, with its wiry stems and dainty pincushion flowers, but it’s a tough, reliable plant that you can divide every couple of years to increase your stock.

Growing to around 60cm, they’re ideal for the middle of a border and will grow in any soil in either sun or partial shade.

Most have soft, subtle colours which fit into many colour schemes.

The white variety, A. major ‘Sunningdale Variegated’, looks great planted with brilliant red crocosmias, while Astrantia major ‘Rubra’ produces plum-coloured flowers above deeply lobed dark green leaves and is a good companion for herbaceous geraniums and roses.

WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK

• Leave old flowers on some hellebores like H. niger and H. orientalis to allow them to self-seed

• Lift and divide primulas, polyanthus and forget-me-nots

• Give acid lovers like azaleas and rhododendrons a feed to stop leaves turning yellow

• Give conifers and perennials a feed by applying fertilizer around the base of plants

• Continue to sow mangetout peas in shallow trenches 15cm wide and 5cm deep

• Pick off rose leaves showing signs of mildew, black spot and rust, to stop diseases spreading

• Complete planting of maincrop potatoes

• Apply a long-lasting weedkiller to gravel paths and drives

• Renovate lawns which are full of moss by applying a moss killer then raking out the dead moss and debris

• Top up pond water levels