A succulent masterpiece at Chelsea Flower Show

The last thing you might expect to see at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show is a family of South African quiver trees standing high over an escarpment of ancient stone and surrounded by very English show gardens — filled with fragrant tea roses, giant allium heads and sunset-hued bearded irises. This is the offering of the Newt in Somerset as it marks its last year as the flower show's headline sponsor. The gardening teams from both the hotel's Bruton estate and its South African sister hotel, Babylonstoren, have come together to bid the world-famous event a dramatic farewell.
The Karoo Succulent Garden pays homage to the South African roots of the Newt's owners, the tech billionaire Koos Bekker and his wife, the former magazine editor Karen Roos, and its connection to the majestic Western Cape landscape that surrounds Babylonstoren. This was their first hotel — they now have six in their boutique group, including outposts in Amsterdam and Tuscany — which they opened in 2010 after buying and restoring an old farm and 17th-century Dutch Cape house located in the Franschhoek area of the Cape Winelands, an hour's drive from Cape Town.
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For inspiration for the triangular 45 x 15m Chelsea garden, the Newt's estate architect Katie Lewis has taken cues not only from Babylonstoren's topography, but also from the nearby semi-desert eco region of Karoo. Here, many of the country's most beautiful and resilient succulents thrive against the odds of heat, drought and wind. Lewis has filled the garden with 'vignettes' of everything she saw while visiting the Karoo last summer, guided by the master botanists at Babylonstoren, Ernst van Jaarsveld and Cornell Beukes.
Six biomes have been sculpted at different heights in layers of sandstone, shale and quartz to replicate the rocks the South African succulents nestle among. 'It all starts with stone since stone begets soil,' says Van Jaarsveld, a renowned ornamental horticulturist who joined Babylonstoren after four decades of curating the Botanical Society Conservatory at Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden in Cape Town.
There are the 6,000 plants, including rare specimens from 15 plant families, found across the Cape Floral Kingdom region. A long winding path runs through the middle of the garden, 'like a dry riverbed,' Lewis says, allowing visitors to get closer to these otherworldly species.
Elegant fan aloes and bushveld candelabras jostle alongside the 6ft-plus quiver trees (so named because the local Khoi and San people hollowed out the side branches to carry their quivers). 'I don't think the majority of people will know they are a succulent, not a tree,' Lewis says. There will be varieties of fragrant pelargoniums and an abundance of what Van Jaarsveld calls his favourite cliff 'huggers, hangers and squatters' (that is, succulents that either hug the cliff, hang from their stems or squat between the rocks). On lower levels, gem-like succulents in peculiar shapes such as horse's teeth, baby's toes and bunny heads sit on a shimmery bed of quartz. Meanwhile, handmade pots filled with eccentrically named succulents (spirals of slime lily and frizzle dizzle, cathedral window and fairy washboard haworthias, ox tongue and warty gasterias) hang from two faux quiver trees to show just how easy — and delightfully decorative — succulents can be to grow at home.
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'People will recognise some of the succulents from ones they possibly grew on a windowsill when they were kids — like mother-in-law's tongue with its blade-like leaves, the yellow-flowered pickle plant and the lithops that camouflage themselves like small stones to avoid being eaten in the wild — and then there are ones that are fairytale weird,' says Lewis. 'Gorgeous but strange.'
Many have been grown at the Newt or in nurseries around the UK and a couple were sourced from Italy. But the quiver trees were tenderly and protectively wrapped by Van Jaarsveld and Beukes before being flown by plane in the cargo hold from Babylonstoren to London. 'We just couldn't get them of that size and number locally,' Lewis explains.
To see these fascinating plants in the heart of leafy Chelsea is one thing, but to experience them up close in the Karoo Desert National Botanical Garden was something else entirely. I visited in early February at the tail end of a long, hot, dry summer. Here we could see first hand what Van Jaarsveld calls plants 'shaped by suffering'.
In South Africa's unforgiving arid climate, these plants have found ways to survive. 'Some have chemicals in their spines to ward off animals, others like euphorbia have toxins that sting and burn the eyes and throat, and others turn adversity to good use,' he explains. 'Instead of the plant dying, it goes into a kind of depression and then starts growing again.' That's why, he says, 'succulents make such wonderful house plants, because they're difficult to kill … except if you water them too much with kindness.'
On walks, Van Jaarsveld and Beukes would point out white-spotted zebra wart succulents and pencil cactus euphorbia winding its samphire-like tendrils through water-hardy fynbos shrubs. The region's indigenous Cape speckled aloes (aloe microstigma) were all neatly tied up in parcels, their octopus-like leaves protecting the inner crowns from the heat, radiant in shades of blush pink and rusty red. 'In the summertime the aloes put a block on photosynthesis by producing the pigment that turns them into these beautiful colours,' Van Jaarsveld explains. 'For other succulents, like paper rose haworthias (a species identified by the 18th-century British botanist and entomologist Adrian Haworth), their dead leaves form a cover like a dress to protect the inner skin from both heat and hungry animals.'
We looked out for the unusual local fauna such as rock rabbits (a bit like chubby guinea pigs), desert chameleons, spotted eagle owls and shrub robins. Delicate aster daisies grow wildly in the rock crevices and we marvelled at the fat, fleshy stems of butterbushes, so named because 'you can easily cut them up'. The red-edged pig's ear — also on show at Chelsea — is intriguing too. The juice from its leaves is useful for soothing mouth ulcers and insect bites, and even helps to remove warts. It is a magnet for songbirds seeking out the nectar in its brightly coloured tubular flowers in the autumn.
Back at Babylonstoren, Van Jaarsveld and Beukes play 'father, mother and doctor, and sometimes fun uncle' to the tens of thousands of succulents in hand-coiled pots, made by the local artist Nico van Wyk, that line every surface and shelf in the estate's purpose-built succulent house. 'If they're sick we have to find a solution to make them happy again,' Beukes says. Tiny gecko lizards dart around the plants, encouraged by Van Jaarsveld as a natural form of pest control against the tiger moths whose eggs do irreparable damage when laid in the succulents.
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The botanists make an entertaining duo, especially Van Jaarsveld whose pockets are always full of seeds and cuttings as he walks around the estate in his hiking boots and floppy hat. Together, on adventures searching for new and interesting succulents in Namibia, Angola and Zimbabwe, they've fallen off cliffs and been bitten by snakes, but they have never been deterred. 'I was always interested in nature, growing succulents and aloes as a young man,' Van Jaarsveld says. 'If you love growing things, you will remain a plantsman all your life.'
The Newt's Chelsea garden is timely, not only because succulents are increasingly popular for indoor gardening, but also in light of the urgent need to start bringing more drought-resistant plants into our homes and gardens, given a recent climate change study that revealed that London could feel as hot as Barcelona by 2050. Other gardens at this year's show designed by Tom Massey, Nigel Dunnett, Matthew Butler and Josh Parker are following a similar theme of raising awareness of waterwise plants and endangered species. After the show, the succulents will be relocated to the Newt to go on show in its winter garden.
'We want to champion the idea that there's a succulent for every situation,' Lewis says. 'It's about seeing something that's very common but evoked in its natural setting, as well as seeing something really unusual that you've never seen before.' She hopes, most of all, when someone stands in the centre of the Chelsea garden, 'that they will transported a little to the beauty of the South African landscape'. Van Jaarsveld adds, 'I know in Britain the rainfall is completely different, the vegetation is different, but I hope our garden will inspire people to learn more about how these small, tenacious succulents have learnt to survive and thrive.' And maybe we might take away a few life lessons in how to be a little more resilient in these uncertain times.
The Karoo Succulent Garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show is open to RHS members from May 20-21, and the public from May 22-24. For more information and tickets, visit thenewtinsomerset.com or rhs.org.uk

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