Smelling the roses with Harrods’ first Chelsea Flower Show garden

Harrods has announced it will show a garden at the Chelsea Flower Show this year, the first in its history.

The Harrods store in Knightsbridge, London. The famous British brand will present The Fragrance Garden at the Chelsea Flower Show, by the award-winning garden designer Sheena Seeks. Courtesy Harrods

Mention Harrods, and most people will picture the famous 19th-century storefront in Knightsbridge, London. Others might think of the department store's food hall or perhaps the extensive fashion displays. But what if Harrods had a garden?

Next month, the Qatari-owned store is to answer that question with a cutting-edge conceptual display at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Designed by the award-winning British garden designer Sheena Seeks, The Fragrance Garden is themed around the relationship between flowers and perfume. And it will confound the expectations of those who see Harrods as stuffy or ­traditionalist.

“The concept is inspired by the art of making perfume, and how nature, science and innovation come together to make beautiful, floral-scented perfumes,” says Deb Bee, the marketing manager for Harrods. “On one side of the garden, flowers will be displayed in oversized laboratory beakers and test tubes, representing the science behind the scents. On the other side, the flowers appear transformed into giant paper blooms, which will be mirrored in our store ­windows.”

Around the garden and dividing it into sections will be several large augmented-reality screens – a first for the Chelsea Flower Show. Visitors can download an app to their smartphone or tablet to bring these panels to life with images of flowers, birds, butterflies and bees, a level of interactivity that Seeks describes as “truly innovative”.

“Designing this garden has given me the freedom to explore the idea of the garden as a space where nature meets technology,” she says.

Seeks, 64, came to garden design relatively late in life, having spent most of her career as a sculptor. Looking to highlight the more innovative side of their store, the Harrods team recruited her after seeing her thought-­provoking work on the theme of sloth at another RHS show. “Sheena did this incredible garden called Quarry of Silences that won gold at Tatton Park,” says Bee. “The best way to describe it is a pile of sand with a load of spades stuck in it – it was the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen. When I rang her, I found that she was a bit nuts, but I mean that in a good way. She thinks out of the box completely.”

The designer started by researching the process of perfume-­making, including distillation and the 19th-­century technique of enfleurage, in which flowers are embedded in wax to capture their scent. Next, she selected flowers that are commonly used in fragrances, including the damask rose, which is believed to have originated in the Middle East and has been used since ancient times to produce attar of roses (rose oil); and violets, which were popularised for use in perfume in the 19th century, because of their sweet and woody scent, and are still popular today, albeit often in synthetic form.

Visitors with keen noses may also detect notes of jasmine, narcissi, lavender and osmanthus, but the centrepiece of the garden is an orange tree. Perfumers can use every part of this tree: the fruit is used to make orange oil, while the twigs and leaves may be distilled into petitgrain, a fresh, slightly bitter essential oil. Orange blossoms emit the scent of neroli – an almost spicy floral scent that aromatherapists believe alleviates insomnia, anxiety and depression.

“With such an exceptional mix of flowers, set up to represent the art of perfume-making over the ages, the Harrods garden is sure to have a beautiful and distinct fragrance,” says Bee. “We invite visitors to walk through the garden to experience the many colours and scents for themselves.”

For visitors who do not have a base in London, Harrods has teamed up with the nearby Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park to offer On the Fringe: a package that includes a one-night stay in the luxurious hotel, tickets to visit The Fragrance Garden at the Chelsea Flower Show, travel to and from the show in the hotel’s bespoke rickshaw and a floral-themed afternoon tea for two.

Also included is a personalised perfume experience at Harrods’ Salon de Parfums – the opening of which last year was celebrated with the launch of the world’s most expensive perfume, a £143,000 (Dh 781,430) diamond-encrusted bottle by Clive Christian. While the store has sold perfume for more than 100 years, technology now enables shoppers to create their own unique fragrances, combining single scents according to their own tastes.

The Chelsea Flower Show experience is to be extended in store, with each large window filled with paper flowers illustrating a different brand of perfume. Harrods will also supply arrangements for the lobby and Rosebery tea room of the Mandarin Oriental in the style of The Fragrance Garden.

Whether they visit The Fragrance Garden, the Harrods store or book the full On the Fringe package for the duration of the Chelsea Flower Show (May 19 to 23), fragrance-loving gardeners should go home with plenty of ideas, says Bee. “We hope to inspire our visitors to have fun with their gardens and to look for unique ways to incorporate the colour and beauty of nature as well as the individuality and innovation of technology.”

With orange trees, damask roses and lavender all relatively easy to grow in the Middle East, a few may even return to the UAE with the inspiration to create their own beautifully scented gardens.

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