The RHS Chelsea Flower Show
, officially the Great Spring Show
Popular parts of the Chelsea Flower Show include the show gardens designed by leading names and the centrepiece of the floral marquee.
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CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW TICKETS
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History
The Great Spring Show
The first
Royal Horticultural Society Great Spring Show
was held in 1862, at the RHS garden in Kensington. Before this date the RHS had held flower shows from 1833 in their garden in Chiswick, which themselves had been preceded by fetes.
The Kensington Garden was chosen as a site because the flower shows in Chiswick were experiencing falling visitor numbers due to problems such as poor transport links.
The Great Spring Show was held at Kensington for twenty-six years but in 1888 the RHS decided to move the show to the heart of London. The site chosen was the Temple Gardens, situated between the Embankment and
Fleet Street, which had a recorded history dating back to 1307 and which were said to date from the time of the
Knights Templar. The roses for which these Temple Gardens were famous were alluded to in
Shakespeare's
Henry VI Part 1.
Using two marquees requisitioned from the old Kensington shows the 1888 show was a success with exhibits from both amateurs and commercial firms. By 1897 five marquees were being used with many of the best known plant and seed merchants being attracted to the event including
Suttons and Sons.
Royal International Horticultural Exhibition
In 1912, the Temple Show was cancelled to make way for the
Royal International Horticultural Exhibition
.
Sir Harry Veitch, the great nurseryman, secured the grounds of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, for this one-off event. It proved such a good site for an exhibition that the Great Spring Show was moved there in 1913, where it has taken place almost every year since.
Royal Hospital, Chelsea - Early 1900's
The RHS first became involved with the Chelsea Hospital in 1905. Three years before, it had
leased the grounds of Holland House in Kensington to hold what was first advertised as a
Coronation Rose Show, but which turned into a more general show (with not many roses) by the
time it actually opened in June. Two further two-day summer shows took place at Holland House in 1903 and 1904, but then, to the general satisfaction of exhibitors and press, a three-day
Summer Show was staged in the Hospital grounds, a more spacious site than Holland House had
allowed, with room for five tents. The Summer Shows reverted to Holland House for the years
thereafter, except in 1911, when both it and Chelsea proved unavailable, and the Show was held
at the Olympia exhibition hall.
The Royal International Horticultural Exhibition of 1912 demonstrated, at a time when the complaints from the Temple were increasing annually, what an excellent site for a show the grounds of the Chelsea Hospital provided. Accordingly, for 1913, the Great Spring Show was moved there, while the Summer Show reverted to Holland House. Despite the First World War, the show was held 1914 – 1916, but was cancelled in 1917 and 1918.
By the roaring 1920s, the Chelsea Flower Show was back in full swing, the famous Chelsea tea parties were established and Royal visits resumed. In 1926 the show was held a week late due to the General Strike.
In 1937, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth celebrated their Coronation Year, and to mark the occasion, a superb Empire Exhibition was staged. It featured wattles from Australia, pines from Canada, brilliant gladioli from East Africa and even a big prickly pear from Palestine.
The show was cancelled during the Second World War, as the land was required by the War Office for an anti-aircraft site. Some doubt arose as to whether the show would resume in 1947. The majority of exhibitors wanted a postponement, as stocks of plants were low, staff much depleted and fuel for greenhouses was obtainable only with special permits, but Lord Aberconway (then RHS President) and the RHS Council felt strongly that the show should resume as soon as possible. As it turned out, the show went ahead in 1947 and it was a great success.
Royal Hospital, Chelsea - Latter 1900's
The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 was sufficient cause for a flower show that reflected the celebratory mood of the country. Most members of the Royal family attended that year. Unfortunately, due to a relentless stream of other commitments, the only Royal unable to attend was the Queen herself!
And the Show went on to increasing popularity throughout the second half of the century – until its popularity became its major problem. Crowding within the tents had been a recurring refrain during the interwar years, but always mastered by increasing the tentage; photographs
show heavy crowds in the open, especially in the vicinity of the rock gardens. As the 1970s
progressed, the attendance at the Chelsea Show climbed, by as much as 6000 visitors in a single
year (1978). In 1979, crowding became so severe in the mornings that the turnstiles were
temporarily closed, and it was clear that some emergency action was needed. It was decided to
open the Show at 8 am next year, and close it at 8.30 in the evenings, with a reduced price
for entry after 4 pm, to try to draw people away from the morning time-slot; and a one-way
system was laid out in the marquee (an expedient that had been rejected as impracticable 20
years earlier). The arrangements worked better than expected in 1980, when a bare majority of
Council voted for the imposition of a ceiling on the number of tickets sold. But numbers
continued to increase, and in 1987 the turnstiles were closed again. In 1988 a limit of 40,000
visitors per day was imposed – a reduction of 90,000 in total from the previous year – and
members were charged for tickets for the first time. An immediate response was a fall in
attendance; by April, ticket booking was so slow that national advertisements were taken out to
encourage people to come to Chelsea, and the original announcement that tickets would not be
available at the gates was rescinded. 1988 was also the first year that ticket touts made
their presence felt, and the RHS felt the frustration of seeing its tickets sold at a considerable mark-up without being able to do anything.
An alarmed Council now began to look seriously at the idea of moving the Show to a larger
venue. Battersea Park, Osterley Park, and Wisley were suggested; one proposal was that Chelsea
should be limited to plant sales, and the sundries rerouted elsewhere; the firm of Land Use
Consultants was hired to prepare a feasibility study, and after examining all these options,
concluded that the Show should stay at Chelsea. The real rescue came from the expansion of the
shows programme into other venues, and in particular from the takeover of the Hampton Court
Palace Flower Show in 1993: the increased options for both members and for exhibitors meant
that the intense criticisms and conflict of the 1980s over the future of the Show did not return.
The Chelsea Flower Show today
The Chelsea Flower Show receives a lot of publicity. It is attended by 157,000 visitors each year (a number limited by the capacity of the ground), and all tickets must be purchased in advance. From 2005 the show was increased from four days to five, with the first two days only open to RHS members. The show is extensively covered on
television by the
BBC. An official DVD of the show is produced on behalf of the RHS by
Twofour. Several members of the
British Royal Family attend a preview of the show, as part of the
royal patronage of the RHS. The area of land devoted to show gardens increased steadily between 1970 and 2000 and the show has become an important venue for watching trends. New plants are often launched at the show and the popularity of older varieties revived under the focus of the horticultural world. It is the garden design equivalent of a
catwalk at a fashion show.
Awards
There are four grades of award presented, gold, silver-gilt, silver and bronze, in each of the categories listed below. Bronze grade exhibits do not actually receive a
medal.
Awards categories
- Flora
Gardens and floral exhibits
- Hogg
Exhibits of trees
- Knightian
Exhibits of vegetables, including herbs
- Lindley
Exhibits of special educational or scientific interest
- Grenfell
Exhibits of pictures, photographs, floral arrangements and floristry
Special awards
- Best Show Garden Award
- Best Courtyard Garden Award
- Best Chic Garden Award
- Best City Garden Award
- RHS Sundries Bowl
- RHS Junior Display Trophy
- RHS Floral Arrangement Trophies
- RHS Floristry Trophies
- Show Certificates of merit
- Certificates for Junior displays
- RHS President's Award
Significant Gardens and Exhibits
- 1929 Mrs Sherman Hoyt’s exhibit of American cacti, complete with painted backdrops depicting the Mojave desert, which was acquired for Kew and had its own glasshouse there for over half a century, before being absorbed into the Princess of Wales Conservatory
- 1930s J. Macdonald’s grass gardens – the lone voice declaring the merits of ornamental grasses for his generation
- 1936 Hilliers’ ‘Dingley Dell’ exhibit
- 1937 Coronation Year: the Empire Exhibition, with displays of ornamental and economic plants from around the Empire
- 1953 Another Coronation Year: William Wood of Taplow staged a ‘Cutty Sark’ garden
- 1959 The Times ‘Garden of To-morrow’, complete with radio-controlled lawn mower
- 1960 The great orchid display to accompany the Third World Orchid Conference
- 1964 Popular Gardening’s ‘Garden of Today’
- 1967 The first garden for the disabled at Chelsea
- 1968 Wisley’s exhibit of hostas, which gave a great boost to their popularity
- 1980 Display of penjing from China
- 1982 Brenda Hyatt’s display of auriculas, which launched these plants back into popularity
- 1988 John Chambers’s honeybee garden
- 1993 Julie Toll’s seaside garden controversially won the last Wilkinson Sword award for best garden, described by David Stevens as ‘a sand dune garden that was well planted and beautiful, but visitors said it wasn’t a garden’
- 1994 Isabel and Julian Bannerman’s Daily Telegraph Old Abbey garden, with a virtuoso display of mature tree transplanting
- 1996 Dan Pearson’s London roof garden for the 1990s
- 1997 Christopher Bradley-Hole’s Latin Garden, the first garden at Chelsea to exhibit the new fashion for sparse planting
- 2000 The Garden History Society’s Le Nôtre Garden, and Piet Oudolf’s winning ‘Evolution’ garden
Show Dates
The 2009 show was held 19-23 May
The 2010 show will be held 25-29 May
Show gardens picture gallery
See also
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- Royal Horticultural Society
- Tatton Park Flower Show
- Hampton Court Palace Flower Show
- Garden festival
- Cultural icon
- List of cultural icons of England
References
- Phil Clayton, ''The Great Temple Show'' in ''The Garden'' 2008, p.452, The Royal Horticultural Society