RHS Chatsworth Flower Show
BBC TWO, 7.00PM; NOT SCOTLAND OR WALES
Anyone mourning the end of the Chelsea Flower Show can seek solace in the RHS’S newest horticultural event, the Chatsworth Flower Show. Although its debut last year was marred by inclement weather, the event deserves to become a magnet for enthusiasts, its USP being its setting in the glorious Capability Brown-designed gardens of Derbyshire’s most famous stately home.
This year’s occasion features a show-stopping installation of more than 100 varieties of orchid and a floral river display of 12,000 Cosmos. We begin with Gardeners’ World favourites Carol Klein, Adam Frost and Arit Anderson giving us an overview of the five-day event. Among the five show gardens, the most intriguing-sounding are Elspeth Stockwell’s John Deere Garden, which celebrates 100 years of tractors, and Chris Myers’s Hay Time in the Dales, which is a celebration of wildflower meadows. The gardening experts ask whether conifers are coming back into fashion and explore Chatsworth’s rich orchid history – the Victorian head gardener Joseph Paxton introduced 80 species there. If the weather holds, RHS Chatsworth should become a jewel in the RHS crown. Vicki Power