Anyone going to Chelsea this year?

We're going on Thursday this time, but we're going for the half day. We don't fancy battling with the commuters in the morning to get there early. It's open till 8 pm anyway. Hopefully the weather will remain good.

 

I live too far away, but I only went once and it didn’t really seem to have much relevance to my chaotic gardening style anyway.

Sad news about Mr Tayshan Hayden-Smith…

Yahoo fait partie de la famille de marques Yahoo.

No idea why this link is in French. Nothing French about it.

 

We went once, many years ago, and vowed never to return. It was an RHS Members day, but you still couldn't move within about an hour of the gates opening. Food and drink was ridiculously expensive too.
We couldn't afford to go now even if we wanted to. The combined cost of travel and tickets is way out of our range.

 

Went once, vowed to never go again unless wearing shin pads and metal toed boots, worse than how The January sales used to be. I did wonder judging by some of the conversations I overheard just what percentage of people actually were interested in horticulture or were just there to say they had been!
It reminded me of a time many years ago when I was in Centre Court at Wimbledon watching a thrilling final of the women’s singles.
There were 2 women sitting of me who never stopped talking about pretty much everything but tennis. Got to a critical point in the match when one woman turned to the other and said “ oh it’s 4 o’clock, time for tea” and they departed and did not return to see the end of match. It annoyed me as tickets were really difficult to get if you did not have a source, true tennis fans would have given their eye teeth for their really good tickets

 

Yes it is expensive, that's another reason for us having a half day ticket. The RHS do restrict the numbers of tickets now, so it's not as crowded now as it used to be. We haven't been for a few years now so we'll see how we will cope.

 

I went MANY years ago when it was unrestricted. It was horrendous. A few years later I had an opportunity to go after work as I was in central London on a project. And that was great - relatively empty.
However I really preferred Hampton Court - more space, lovely surroundings and you could buy plants!

 

Most things now are over priced and it just excludes so many people from attending

I was shocked to find out Kew Gardens is £25 to get in how, i remember it was 1 penny to get in

 

We went last year and got there for when it opened at 8am. There was a queue to get in but at least you could see the gardens. By 11am it was absolutely packed, too busy for me to be honest. It was a very expensive day out, once you’ve paid for the show tickets, train tickets and refreshments.

I wasn’t aware they had restricted numbers, it seemed as busy as I remember it being the last time I went which was probably 10 years ago?

It will be interesting to see how busy you find it with one of the half-day tickets @Allotment Boy. We were wondering if that would be a better option for us. It would certainly be more civilised. We had to leave home just after 5am to get there for when they open

 

OH convinced me last year to go to Chelsea. £45 the return bus ticket to London, £184 entrance fee, the show gardens not accessible and much smaller than on telly, no plant sale, all that was for sale were useless gimmicks and gadgets for gardeners. We agreed after 3 hours that we had seen everything and spent another £26 to use one bus earlier.
Never again.

 

I enjoy watching it on TV but wouldn’t choose to go I dislike busy places crowded with strangers. That said I do go to Gardeners World live in Birmingham some years and that is quite enjoyable I think it’s a much bigger venue and it certainly feels less busy plus of course plants are for sale. Not so prestigious but more my cup of tea and local too.
A bonus is the attached Good Food show because OH is a chef so he enjoys that.

 

Well this now off my bucket list!
London travel, the price (!), crowded, no plant sales and often hot. It’s a no from me.

 

Never been. Never wanted to go, even when it was affordable. I can't bear crowds of gawpers, or the overstimulation of noise, colour or movement. Now if they'd let me in on my own for a few hours I might scrape together the money....

 

Never been, never wanted to go. I don't do mass events as the stress of people would outweigh the joy of seeing the gardens. Having watched it on TV for 20+ yrs, I'm finding it all very samey. The presenters constantly push "excess, excess, consume, consume", which is not my way. More doesn't automatically mean better, IMV. One plant you really look at beats a thousand you glance over.

 

I suppose we tend to think of it with gardeners' eyes, whereas in reality it's for plant breeders, garden designers and the garden industry in all it's cut-throat consumer-driven guises.