The Chelsea Flower Show always takes place during the third week in May in the grounds of the Chelsea Royal Hospital, and as I write it will probably have ended. The exhibitors have two or three weeks to set up their displays. On the Sunday before it opens everything must be finished. On the day before it officially opens (Monday) it is open, but not for everyone. The third Monday in May is called preview day. It is the day when the Queen and other members of the Royal family wander round at their leisure and the day when exhibits are judged. Tomorrow is nail-biting day when those people from all over the world who have put their goods on display learn the result of the judges’ deliberations. The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) awards for excellence are the most prized in the world, and the range of flowers, fruit and vegetables on display for the coveted gold medals are utterly bewildering.
Chelsea is horticulture’s Olympic Games. It is the pinnacle of horticultural excellence. It is the largest flower show on earth, probably the most expensive to attend, and also to show your displays. It is crowded from the first hour of the first day and goes on for five days. It is wearing on the feet and on the nerves. This year for the first time it closes on a Saturday. For some years Chelsea Pensioners have been allowed to enter exhibits. No matter how hard the RHS tries, there are always complaints that there are not enough toilets.
Every year I have attended, I have sworn it will be my last time. I meet friends I have cherished for all of my professional life and others who I really wish I had never seen, but after a few months I am organising my life to attend next year, come hell or high water. My particular friend Alan Titchmarsh has hosted this show for 37 years for the television media and is probably one of the best known and most loved gardeners in Britain.
The number of entries for small private garden design (to be no larger than 250 square metres) is on the increase, with exhibits recently from Japan, the Cancer Research Institute, several schools, the occasional prison, and including many entries from private individuals. All of these would have had to submit plans a year in advance to be considered. England’s weather being what it is those that designed and built cactus gardens (low maintenance of course) were taking a risk and by the end of this week might be regretting it. At a recent show I was particularly interested in a Flanders poppy exhibit by an enterprising lady who is able to get them to flower for any occasion during the year. Flanders poppies are of course the main flowers produced for Remembrance Day in November.
The ones that are sold to the public are not real of course, but the several million that fall from the roof of the Royal Albert Hall in London during the two minutes silence are real enough, and she supplies them. She says that the art is to dead-head them as soon as they flower (that is remove the seed heads) and seeds may be sown really at any time of the year. A large batch has been sown and were ready for the flower show this week, and are to most people a symbol of life itself.
I suppose I must have visited Chelsea Flower Show over fifty times. I cannot have more left in me before my feet give out, or my patience. If you get half a chance to visit the show then go to it I urge you. As I’ve already said it is crowded, but the scent of the giant marquee is all that’s needed to draw you back again. You will never regret it. Take out RHS membership; you will never regret it. Look after yourselves and your plants and may your God go with you and care for you.
