When you know Her Majesty plans to visit your show garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, the last thing you want is a gaping hole where your centre piece plants should be on display.

That was the situation faced by Fernando Gonzalez Garden Design, when UK stocks of Digitalis ‘Illumination Apricot’ failed to flower in time for display in the Pure Land Foundation Garden, already being flagged as the most prestigious show garden at this year’s event.

With just four days to finish before the Queen’s visit to the world’s most prominent gardening event, a nationwide hunt for flowering plants threw up no leads.

The plant’s creator, mail order seed and plant specialist Thompson & Morgan, stepped in to widen the search, calling on growers across Europe. Plants in perfect bloom were quickly tracked down at the Plantinova nursery outside Barcelona, Spain, more than 1,500km from its Ipswich HQ!

New Product Development Manager, Michael Perry said: “Knowing our ‘Illumination Apricot’ was playing a major part in this cutting-edge show garden, we just had to help out.”

At end of play Thursday it called on staff, seeking a volunteer to make the mad-dash 3,000km round trip to get the plants on UK soil in time for Saturday’s big garden build.

Up stepped marketing assistant Terri Overett, letting herself in for a 4am start and an 18hour journey to get the plants to the UK in time. First a plane ride to Barcelona El Prat, a taxi to the nursery an hour east of the city, then back to the airport to face the worry of getting them safely back to the UK in a cold cargo hold.

A very relieved chaperone found the plants in good condition once through customs, where colleagues were on hand to rush the plants into London in time to put finishing touches to the Pure Land Foundation Garden, stand FR25. At the eleventh hour, German grower Kientzler also stepped in to rush 10 plants by rail and overnight ferry, helping to plug the gaps just in the nick of time.

The design team’s Director, Thang Vota said: “Fernando and I are so grateful for all the effort put in by the team – they definitely thought outside the box to help get the plants in place on time.  It was the company’s  Chelsea Flower of the Year Award for Digitalis ‘Illumination Pink’ in 2012, that inspired us to use the new sister line “Illumination Apricot” in our garden.

"We can’t wait for Her Royal Highness and the public to see the finished design in its full glory with stunning foxglove as a main focal point of the garden.”