Anyone going to Chelsea this year?

Chelsea always comes to mind as an event not to see, but to be seen.

Enjoy it on television.

 

Indeed.



And the Designer vocabulary has to go with it too. Anybody here has “leaned into” their landscapes lately?

 

It's a good day to visit Chelsea Physic Garden. It's just down the road and there's no one there when Chelsea 's on.
Can't remember how much it costs but I'd have remembered if it had been too expensive.

 

"..... leaned into natural lanscapes shaped by climate change and a growing desire to reconnect with nature...."

Who writes this bu**sh*t??? More to the point, who believes it? Maybe that's what they're counting on!

 

I was so busy "leaning in to my landscape " that I definitely "reconnected with nature " - face down on a very hard daisy covered lawn. That was a couple of weeks ago and it still hurts. No more leaning/reconnecting for me whatever Chelsea says

 

I first went to Chelsea in 1989 and it was very different. The biggest show garden was a "rock garden" with huge boulders brought down from Yorkshire and the whole planted with daffodils, tulips, azaleas and rhodos, roses and late summer perennials all in flower at once. I went again twice more before we moved to Belgium in 1991. Tickets cost about £30 for the full members' day and, after the first visit, I learned to take my own sandwich and a bottle of water plus a bin bag to sit on.

Missed a few years but then started going as my annual solo treat taking 3 days off from domestic duties to travel on Monday, Chelsea on Tuesday and home via Wisley on Wednesday. By then they'd reduced the numbers and started including more ecological designs with plants more in season. For two or three years I'd meet up with fellow posters from the GW forum and we had a great time, including one memorable chat with Chris Beardshaw who is just lovely as well as being a briliant plantsman and designer.

Been lots of time but stopped when we moved to France until I went in 2022. It was then £100 entry so that, along with travel expenses means I'm unlikely to go again.

It is definitely a show designed to show innovation with new plants, old plants, materials and technologies but the RHS has strict rules about plant hygiene and sourcing and quarantines against disease and every garden has to have a community home to go to and that can be schools, hospitals and hospices. They are not just ripped up and binned after the show.

There is more and more emphasis on sustainability and, since Brexit, the use of home grown plants except for certain stands in the floral marquee.

The show is a a great shop window for British gardening ingenuity from designers to landscapers to plantsmen and women as well as garden technology from watering systems to machinery and structures and generates millions in revenue for the industry. You can order everything for later delivery and buy plants to take home on the last day.

There are other shows around the country with different programmes and focus. The RHS has a schools programme, a communities programme, initiatives to support mental and physical health in gardens and it runs Britain in Bloom which brings communities together to brighten up their local area. The individual RHS gardens all run community events as well as craft and plant fairs that support local artisans.

Yes, there are a lot of toffs and rich people in there running it but also a lot of seasoned managers and plenty of down to earth gardeners and plants people who began their gardening careers as apprentices. They're the ones that run the plant committees and do a lot of the judging and that's all about expertise and not origins.

 

I always wondered why Chelsea is just on for 5 days, always thought they. Thought they could stretch it for 10/14 days?

 

Many of the displays wouldn't last a fortnight, I suppose. It would make for a different and possibly more realistic show, though.

 

When you look at how many of the Chelsea gardens are constructed and planted and how many of the flowering plants are not "seasonal",and have been forced, I imagine trying to keep everything looking good for much more than a week would be rather problematic.
It is a "show" after all and little point in expecting visitors to pay to see withering plants and shrubs.

 

Thanks for your post @Obelix-Vendée . I was beginning to think everyone on here was anti it.
It's not my place to over defend the RHS but I would say this.
1, It's a SHOW, as Obelixx said it's to show what is possible and dare I say stimulate debate.
2 , On cost it's in London, have you seen the price of theatre or concert tickets lately? Yes it's a lot of money but as its my wife's birthday on Friday we thought we'd treat ourselves.
3. You can buy plants any day of the week at a GC or nursery
As Obelixx said you can order plants and there are plenty of shopping opportunities, for other things if that's what you want.
4, TV coverage is great but it's not the same as seeing it for real. We are watching the coverage so we can home in on things we really want to see when we're there.

 

A couple of years ago OH and I went to the international garden festival at Chaumont-sur-Loire where the gardens are on display for months. It was certainly different from Chelsea, Tatton, Malvern and Hampton Court but also rather underwhelming.

Designers from around the world create a garden in a given space and have to give it a name and description and reason but then it is "maintained" by the chateau's staff who clearly don't have the time to take care of weeding it all or watering so, if planted in a dry spring like we had that year plants fail to thrive leaving great gaps. Pruning and training aren't done and there's lots of gimmicky stuff.

One or two of the gardens were really good, some had good concepts but poor execution and some failed because of the lack of rain which had clearly not been considered in the designs. The main things I learned there were not to plant large flowered clematis in hot, dry spots if I wasn't prepared to pamper them and to keep plastic gimmickry out.

Chelsea and its successors have always filled me with joy at what can be achieved with plants and ideas about combinations of colours and textures. The designers and landscapers pay incredible attention to detail and the plants are in top condition. I dare say they could keep it all going for 2 weeks but they're already exhausted by judging day and it's a 12 hour day in front of the public. They also have projects and nurseries to get back to and manage for the next show as well as filling orders and selling to visitors.

 

I'm not anti-it, @Allotment Boy, and I hope you have a lovely time. I watch bits on TV, though what I would really like would be slow drone footage over all the gardens, with separate online plans where you could match up plant names with what you could see. Presenters would be entirely optional ... and you could mute them whilst still hearing natures' soundtrack.

I love grass court tennis, but, again, I'd rather watch on TV. No uncomfortable seats or crowds or poor views ... or weather!

 

I thought the buzzword of the year was "elevate". I'm hearing it everywhere. There's a really tedious car advert that ends with the line "Elevate your urban drive". Elevating a landscape would be interesting.

 

@Philippa the planting is much more seasonal these days hence there always being lots of irises and so on.

@ViewAhead you can get more info, including some of the plants used, by visiting thispage and clicking on the garden Show gardens at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2025 / RHS