The D-Day 75 Garden at Chelsea

A monumental date to remember in any year, but especially this year,  the 6th June 2019 will see the 75th anniversary of the 1944 D-Day Landings.  The D-Day Revisited Charity have organised a number of projects to mark this most important of historic moments, including the creation of this garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2019 – and one that Lovania Nurseries have had direct involvement with through their supply of thousands of Armeria maritima: Sea Thrift.

The Garden

The D-Day 75 Garden takes pride of place in the foreground at Royal Chelsea Hospital at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2019, taking place from 21-25 May 2019. The garden itself celebrates the lives of all of our Normandy veterans, 75 of whom will be invited to take part across the week and share their incredible stories with the Chelsea pensioners and the public. Thrift at D Day 75 Garden RHS Chelsea 2019

Sea thrift memories

D-Day veterans visiting the garden will recognise the carpet of sea thrift supplied by Lovania as they will have seen it on the shores of Britain as they left and as they landed in Normandy.

John Everiss designed the garden and says the idea behind the design came to him after talking to the men who were there. Describing the garden he said: “We have a sculpture of an old veteran and then we have a sculpture of them as young men, coming through the water and trying to fight their way onto the beach, like a fragment of memory as if they are just thinking back to the past.”

The sculptures, made out of thousands of metal washers welded together, give the soldiers a ghostly appearance. Blanketing the ground in a beautiful sea of colour lies the waves of sea thrift, supplied in their thousands by Lovania Nurseries.

“This anniversary garden presents the perfect opportunity to celebrate the D-Day veterans living amongst us today and commemorate those who lost their lives, to all of whom we owe a huge debt of gratitude.” – The Hon Henry Montgomery

The ‘75 Reasons To Thank Our Normandy Veterans

Part of the 75 Reasons To Thank Our Normandy Veterans campaign, this garden has been brought to reality through D Day Revisited’s fundraising initiatives, fuelled by public, government and business donations for the £250,000 to create this national horticultural tribute.

Once the flower show comes to an end the veterans will gift the garden to the town of Arromanches in Normandy, where it shall remain forever.

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