Reflections on the Chelsea Flower Show 2024
Here’s what I thought of this year’s Chelsea Flower Show 2024
It might seem like an odd time to post a review of the Chelsea Flower Show 2024. The logic is simple, I wrote this article for my local parish magazine in June and having only joined Substack in August, I’ve got only a short window to publish it. Plus, I’m working on a review of my gardening year, so this links in nicely to that forthcoming post.
Chelsea Flower Show 2024
It was 20 years ago when I last went to the Chelsea Flower Show. At the time I was working as a part time lecturer in garden design at Pershore College and a group of my students built a small garden for Sunflower Street. Time flies by and suddenly I realised I was really due another visit. So, on members day in May I returned, pleased to find that, although fashions and exhibitors may have changed in the last 20 years, the essence of the show remains the same.
One of my favourite Chelsea past-times is celebrity watching and the high-light this year was watching Mary Berry filming a sequence about sweet peas. All of the usual TV presenters were there too, including Monty Don, Joe Swift, Toby Buckland, Carol Klein, Frances Tophill and Alan Titchmarsh.
For me though, Chelsea is not just about demonstrating first class horticulture it’s also about providing direction in terms of design and horticulture trends. The show has also become a forum for discussing the most urgent and important issues in the gardening world. So, here’s my reflection on some of the key themes from this year’s show.
1. Sustainable
Sustainability was the key theme for this year’s show, with all of the show gardens, both large and small demonstrating sustainable construction and planting. In the Stroke Association’s Garden for Recovery by Miria Harris, hemp paving was used with no concrete or cement used anywhere in the garden. Chelsea itself was recycled in the RHS Chelsea Repurposed Garden by Darryl Moore and Toby Magee , which featured structural elements recycled from previous year’s show gardens and used crushed concrete as the planting medium. Since 2023 all show gardens must complete a sustainability checklist and describe how the garden will be permanently relocated to a new site after the show is over.
2. Woodland gardens
The National Garden Scheme Garden by Tom Stuart Smith
Several of the gardens featured woodland planting, these included The National Garden Scheme Garden by Tom Stuart Smith and Muscular Dystrophy UK – Forest Bathing Garden by Ula. Both featured a soft, romantic and native pallet of plants. Wildlife friendly and native planting were seen throughout the show gardens including plants such as Telima, Digitalis (foxgloves), Geranium, Epimedium and Aquilegia. Colour pallets were pale and pastel, often cream based with few gardens using the brighter spectrum of colours.
3. Sanctuary
Places to heal, somewhere to reflect or to escape to seemed to be another a key theme. I remember when large finance houses and blue-chip businesses sponsored the show gardens, whereas today charities seem the predominate sponsors, all with very clear messaging around the health benefits of gardens. Not just places to garden in, but places to experience, be present in and to spend time mindfully. Since covid, I do think that many of us now really appreciate the benefits of our gardens much more. Two beautiful examples were The Freedom from Torture Garden: A Sanctuary for Survivors by John Warland & Emma O’Connell and World Child Cancer’s Nurturing Garden by Giulio Giorgi, plus several other gardens which cited themselves as sanctuary gardens. The Terrance Higgins Trust: Bridge to 2030 Garden by Matthew Childs was a striking example of a sanctuary garden and was very evocative of the AIDs awareness adverts of the late 80s. All of the charity sponsored gardens will be relocated to sites where multiple community users will have access to and benefit from them.
4. Water conservation
Another key theme this year was water conservation and mitigating flooding, triggered no doubt by the run of droughts and flooding we’ve experienced in recent years. Flood Re: The Flood Resilient Garden by Naomi Slade & Dr Ed Barsley demonstrated how we can design our gardens to more resistant to flooding and drought. Whilst WaterAid Garden by Tom Massey and Je Ahn used a futuristic organic shaped pavilion to provide shade from the sun and heat whilst being able to capture and store water for future use. The Water Saving Garden, sponsored by Affinity Water by Sam Proctor was one of the small courtyard gardens though packed with clever water saving ideas designed in from the start including both rain and grey water harvesting for use later in the garden.
For any keen gardener the Chelsea Flower Show is always educational, thought provoking and inspirational. The RHS has announced that from next year some of its other shows, including Hampton Court and Tatton will move out to new locations on a rotating basis, so I’m looking forward to reviewing one of these new shows next year.
You can find out more information about the garden from the RHS website, just follow the link Gardens for the future at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024 / RHS .
Happy gardening
Craig
Although an RHS member and co designer/ exhibitor at two RHS shows I’ve been reluctant to engage in the “circus” of shows as a spectator. I am of course mindful that these shows have to economically viable but this doesn’t have to favour financial opportunism. However I’m of the belief that positive organisational changes within the society, that put it at the forefront of advocacy and a genuine aspiration to encourage sustainable practices, so will I continue to support the society through this transition
I project managed a show garden at Chelsea in 2007. It was the first garden to be broken down and moved to a permanent site (which everyone at the time, including the RHS, thought was completely bonkers). It was also one of the first gardens to have a campaigning cause, which was also a bit frowned on at that time. Good to see that Chelsea has changed.