Dalerb Garden Collection for RHS Chelsea

24 Feb

RHS Chelsea Sustainable Garden Product of the Year 2023 Finalist.

*Dalerb Garden Chairs and Dalerb Garden Table*

We are at RHS Chelsea Flower Show Stand Number SW315 adjacent to Main Avenue next to the Centrepoint Show Garden by Cleve West.

Our garden collection called the Dalerb Range includes a chair, bench and table. This will be made in micro-editions from named Perthshire trees.

The first special edition will be made in ‘Dalcapon Oak’. Two large oak trees were going to be felled on a farm near Pitlochry and we were contacted by the farmer - “did we want the wood?”

We are often offered trees by local foresters, tree surgeons, farms and estates and if we can use it next step is to call in saw-miller Pol Bergius with his mobile saw-mill to cut the timber into planks. These trees were particularly straight-grained and provide wood that is perfect for steam-bending. We are using this wood to create components for our first edition of Dalerb Garden Furniture for RHS Chelsea. There is zero-waste as any wood we can’t use are cut into firewood or chipped for mulch. We are delighted to be part of a local circular economy of highly skilled and passionate people looking after our precious native trees and woodland.

*The planks are sliced to Angus’s specifications. September 2020*

Preparing oak for our garden furniture is almost zero carbon.

We store the planks of wood ‘in-stick’ at a yard in Aberfeldy and wood is air-dried to prepare it for garden furniture making. Our machines, powered tools and steam-box are run on renewable electricity but most importantly we use steam and human power to coax raw wood into fine furniture.

The furniture is hand-made in our studio-workshop in Aberfeldy, Perthshire.

Once all the components are made the next step is to join them. There is a great attention to detail and we use traditional joint work to create beautiful, robust and durable furniture. The frame of the Dalerb Chair has seven components plus the curved back-rest and slatted seat. A sliding dovetail joint joins the front rail to the centre-rail below the seat. A bridle joint joins the arm-rest to the front leg. A pegged mortice and tenon joins the front-rail to the front leg.