This year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show is going to be extra special. Not only is the world’s most prestigious flower show celebrating its centenary year but they’re doing so in style with a fabulous program of events and a line-up of inspiring exhibits guaranteed to make this one of the most memorable shows in its 100 year history.
Here are just some of the delights in store for this year’s 163,000 visitors….
Spectacular Floral Pavilion
At the heart of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show is the Great Pavilion where you’ll find magnificent displays showcasing today’s most exciting flowers and plants. Amazingly three of this year’s exhibitors have been at every show! The Great Pavilion also houses some of the finest floral exhibits and is where you can see this year’s RHS Chelsea Florist and Young Florist of the Year designs.
Show Gardens
Always the big crowd pullers, this year’s 15 gardens blend a century of achievement with today’s most innovative design thinking. Inspiring, challenging and totally enthralling, you’ll find themes from urban living to health, regeneration and the threats to British trees.
Fresh Gardens
A concept introduced only last year to challenge designers to come up with exactly what the name implies – something refreshing, innovative, bright and eye-catching. This year visit the Fresh Gardens to see what happens when top designers set their imaginations free. Outlandish, outrageous, colourful and controversial, these 11 gardens are guaranteed to fascinate.
Artisan Retreats
The Artisan Retreats will also return for a second year to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Here visitors can relax among beautiful summerhouses decorated by top UK designers and artists, including Wayne Hemmingway, Cath Kidston and Rob Ryan.
The Evolving Garden
The new theme for the RHS Environment area of the Great Pavilion shows how the big environmental issues have affected our gardens past, present and future.
Artisan Gardens
Packing craft, skill and beauty into such small spaces, marvel at this year’s eight imaginative and delightful plots.
Generation Gardens
This year’s Generation Gardens will highlight the changes to gardens and gardening over the last 100 years, and a special RHS Chelsea Flower Show Plant of the Centenary will be decided by a public vote.
Revisit ‘London 2012′
Other exhibits to look out for this year include Delancey’s East Village, a garden modelled on London’s Olympic Park and Prince Harry’s garden designed in collaboration with B&Q to promote the charity Sentebale.
100 years in pictures
A spell-binding exhibition of historical photographs, capturing the sights, styles and personalities which have given Chelsea its unique place in the world of gardening. Not to be missed.
Centenary Chelsea Opera Concert
A very special concert is set to be held at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show as part of the celebrations of the show’s centenary year. On the evening of Friday 24th May, the show’s grounds will play host to Opera Holland Park, which will present a concert featuring some of the most famous and best-loved opera classics, including flower-themed performances including The Flower Duet from Delibes’ Lakmé and The Flower Song from Carmen.
Garden Gnomes
Garden gnomes are going to be all over Chelsea this year, thanks to the RHS lifting it’s 100 year old ban on them being shown. Don’t get too excited though- the ban has been waived for this year only so make the most of it and see how many garden gnomes you can spot across the grounds of the Royal Chelsea Hospital.
Source: Interflora – What’s New at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2013?
