Dust off your best frock – it’s time for the gardening world’s premier event of the year! The RHS Chelsea Flower Show opens this week and we can’t wait to see what the world’s best designers have come up with this year. Expect groundbreaking designs, superb plants, drama and above all glamour from the moment it starts this Tuesday.
This year peonies are set to be the stars of the show, their blowsily romantic flowers featuring on many gardens and in the Great Pavilion. The trend towards natural garden designs continues: among the most hotly-anticipated gardens is the M&G Garden, created by multi award winning designer Cleve West and inspired by Exmoor. And plants we normally think of as weeds pop up in show gardens, too: look out for wild garlic, bracken and horsetail.
Among new plant launches are a peach-coloured shrub rose, ‘Roald Dahl’, and Chrysanthemum ‘Princess Charlotte’, named for the newest member of the Royal Family. Indeed the Queen’s 90th birthday is another excuse to party at the show: there will be two floral arches created in her honour as well as a photographic exhibition showing the Queen’s visits to Chelsea over the years.
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show runs from 24th-28th May: for more details visit www.rhs.org.uk/chelsea.