Chelsea Flower Show 2000 - Previews: Floral Marquee Exhibits

This year's Chelsea marquee experience, always central to the whole show, is very different with two sparkling new pavilions replacing the friendly old canvas monster.

Inside, the plants will look far better this year, especially towards the end of the week, as the light from the new pvc/polyester cover is so much more suitable for plants than it was under the canvas. But it's very high, and unless exhibitors take advantage of the extra height their exhibits may well seem rather lost.

Some have certainly made the most of this new opportunity and others have capitalised wide open spaces following the great reduction in the number of the poles which always inhibited the layout.

The Italian garden of La Mortella have built a replica of their greenhouse which houses the giant water lily from the Amazon, with leaves 1.2m/4ft across which can support the weight of a child. At least moving such huge and fragile plants into place will be easier this year.

Sunflower Street have also made use of the extra height, with a raised walkway between their two back-to-back rows of town houses. The views are wonderful and the five front gardens, and a bedroom (!), down below are full of practical ideas for just this sort of garden. And it's from a computer in the bedroom that you can order plants through e-garden.

Hillier Nurseries (design sketch at left) have capitalised on the fact that there are fewer poles with a garden within a garden. Integrated into their usual impressive stand of mature trees and shrubs, with three new varieties on show this year, is a modern rendering of a traditional tea garden. Resplendent in rich magenta-purples, matching the rhododendrons and azaleas in the plantings, this garden sets the tone for the millennium's now colours.

Amongst the most popular stands are always those made in a modern cottage style, replicas of the best of realistic planting. Two nurseries, Glebe Cottage Plants and Rushfields Nursery, combine artistry in the arrangement of their plants with beautifully grown specimens of the most carefully selected varieties. This year Glebe Cottage Plants include the highly fashionable misty grey-blue larkspur 'Earl Grey'.

But when it comes to finding a winning formula, and sticking to it, Goldbrook Plants, with their immaculate hostas win every time. Dominated by their speciality, but with grasses and other choice perennials setting them off beautifully, Goldbrook again have some brand new varieties from the USA, not seen here before.

The overseas contingent is especially strong this year. Kings Park and Botanic Garden from Perth in Western Australia have brought huge rocks, tons of red sand, three hundred plants and a team of Australian Aborigines to the Show to build and explain their extraordinary garden. And don't be surprised if you hear the sound of the didgeridoo wafting across the marquee - I'm not joking!

Kirstenbosch, the National Botanical Institute in South Africa, will again be showing their astonishing natural flora; the Jamaica Tourist Board will be doing the same for their Caribbean island; and the island of Grenada will be creating a spice island complete with fruiting nutmeg tree which I bet you've never seen.

Finally, Peter Beales Roses won the award for the best exhibit staged at any RHS flower show in the whole of last year - with their Chelsea exhibit. This year their theme is A Thousand Years of Roses, showing the development of the rose using plants from their unrivalled collection. It's bound to be gorgeous.