Chelsea Flower Show
The Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show is held for five days every May in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, home to the Chelsea Pensioners. Starting in late April, a workforce of 800 transforms this small area of central London into a huge exhibition of all the latest novelties in plants, floral displays and garden design. By mid-June the grounds will have returned to their previous state and the Great Pavilion, at just under three acres in size, will have been packed away.
The first show on this site was in 1913. The idea was for nurserymen to set up exhibits in marquees and market the new specimens that plant hunters were bringing back from China, Japan, South America and elsewhere. One such plant was the rhododendron, which became extremely popular. The gentry with large estates were keen to have new types of colourful displays and royalty have been regular attendees of the Show.
Over the decades, trends have ranged from rock gardens to shrubberies and the floral arrangements section has expanded. From the 1980s onwards there has also been an increased number of ‘show gardens’ and tens of thousands of visitors each day flock to see them for inspiration.
(Image: Oast House Archive at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)