Chelsea Flower Show kicks off with spectacular colour and pomp

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show officially kicked off on Monday showcasing a selection of the most beautiful gardens and blooms in the world.

Now in its 105th year, the prestigious horticultural show is the most well-known event of its kind and was opened, as always, by the Queen who attended yesterday’s press day alongside several members of the royal family.

Just two days after they watched Prince Harry exchange vows with Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle, Prince Andrew, Princess Anne, Princess Beatrice and Sophie the Countess of Wessex all turned out to mark the occasion.

The event will run from 22-26 May and the theme for this year’s flower show is “the role that gardening and growing plants can play in tackling some of the biggest issues facing us today”.

Sue Biggs CBE, Director General of the RHS said: “It is fantastic to see the gardens at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show reminding us all of the power of plants and the huge impact gardening and green spaces can have on so many aspects of our lives.”

Central to this is the RHS Feel Good Garden which was created by Matt Keightley and is a therapeutic space centred around health and wellbeing, intended to encourage show-goers to sit back and soak up the benefits that gardening has to offer.

Members of royalty weren’t the only famous faces to be seen though, as the show attracted a number of British celebrities including Prime Minister Theresa May, actress Joanna Lumley and TV personality David Walliams.

While the posh event is only accessible to members for the first two days, the general public can attend from Thursday 24th May where they can see some of the incredible gardens on display.

As well as trying to highlight the good that gardening can do for our health, this year’s gardens also have a strong focus on the environment and even provide some clever green-fingered solutions.

Urban Flow is a garden designed by Tony Woods, RHS Young Designer of the year 2013, which can accommodate the conditions of a changing climate. He has used clever planting within the design to show how gardens could deflect and process pollution and excess rainfall, as well as to attract and sustain wildlife.

Another impressive display is The Pearlfisher Garden which has been created to highlight the potential desertification of the ocean and is home to 300 live fish. The garden was created in partnership with Plastic Oceans to highlight the irrevocable impact of plastic waste on the earth’s ecosystem.

Garden designer, John Warland, said: “The Pearlfisher Garden has been a huge – but immensely rewarding – creative challenge as we bring the hidden beauty of our underwater world, and largest garden on earth, to the very heart of the city in SW1.

“Mother Nature is, of course, the ultimate designer, and we should all be thinking about the impact we are making and how we can work with, rather than against, nature to create a better, more beautiful and more sustainable world for us all.”

The first ever Chelsea Flower Show was held in 1913 and, incredibly, three of the original vendors who displayed at the debut show are still showing now. They are Kelways, McBean’s Orchids and Blackmore and Langdon.

Have you ever been to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show? Would you like to go?