COS x Clifton Nurseries

Celebrating spring and the Chelsea Flower show, Swedish minimalist brand COS have partnered with London's Clifton Nurseries for an in-store installation. The display at COS' Brompton Road store incorporates Paphiopedilum orchids and miniature bay trees. Here, AnOther took the opportunity to pose questions to Karin Gustafsson, senior designer at COS, and Matthew Wilson, managing director of Clifton Nurseries, to unearth the key incentives behind the collaboration, the best flowers for birthdays and their personal gardening tips...

What are the key ideas behind the installation?
Karin Gustafsson: We gave the team from Clifton pretty free reign to come up with the installation. We worked with them last year so knew we could trust them to come up with something beautiful.
Matthew Wilson: To bring a little bit of the beauty of Clifton Nurseries to the heart of Brompton Road! We've been regulars at Chelsea Flower Show for years, but saw this year’s inaugural Chelsea Fringe as a great way to work with our friends at COS again and give customers to the store a chance to take away a selection of lovely pot plants, so they can celebrate Chelsea too.

What flowers or plants do you love the most?
KG: Evergreen trees, all climbers and jasmine.
MW: I have eclectic taste. I love the contemporary feel of ornamental grasses and the bold simplicity of clipped topiary plants like the clipped olive trees we're using in the pop up shop at COS, but I'm also a sucker for peonies and roses.

"I love the contemporary feel of ornamental grasses and the bold simplicity of clipped topiary plants like the clipped olive trees we're using in the pop up shop..."

What flowers or plants do you dislike?
KG: I have always disliked conifers, they always seem to be in cemeteries.
MW: Very few, actually. Most plants have something to offer - the problem is usually our putting them in the wrong place. But I'm not a big fan of petunias, if I'm honest.

What flowers are best for birthdays?
KG: I always try to buy flowers in season. I love tulips in the spring, wild meadow flowers in the summer and hyacinths in the winter.
MW: For summer, dahlias - they're so colourful they are the perfect celebratory plant.

What flowers are best to say sorry?
KG: Any! Everyone likes to receive flowers.
MW: Any!

What do you like most about the Chelsea Flower Show?
KG: I have never been but watch it every year on television, I would love to go and hopefully will get there this year.
MW: It's a total celebration of gardening and the one time of the year when everyone pays attention to it, even those who wouldn't normally mention a plant at all. If you aren't blown away by the colours and smells of Chelsea then you must be very hard to impress. I'm really excited about the Fringe too, which I think will bring that excitement to people who might otherwise not experience it.

What's your favourite gardening tip?
KG: Try to not approach it as a chore and the odd weed here or there adds to the character of a garden!
MW: Buy the best tools you can afford, look after them, and they will last forever. A really good gardener loves the craft of gardening and good tools are essential to that.

The installation is currently open at COS, Brompton Road until May 28.