Chelsea Flower Show highlights

THE horticultural showstopper of the year, RHS Chelsea Flower Show, is almost here – returning to its usual May slot, after last year’s event in September. Billed as “the world’s greatest flower show” the extravaganza will run from May 24 to 28, drawing gardeners from far afield to London to admire stunning garden designs and floral displays.

Featuring 39 gardens including 13 show gardens, 12 sanctuary gardens, nine balcony and container gardens and a new category All About Plants in the Great Pavilion, plus four installations to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee, there will be so much to see. Here are some of the highlights you won’t want to miss.

1. DOBBIES GREEN GARDEN

Dobbies will showcase how to embrace your green sanctuary as well as sustainable gardening solutions. Following its five-star award winning trade stand in 2021, Dobbies’

2022 garden will highlight a broad spectrum of ideas for different spaces. The stand will showcase how to make the most of your green space, blurring the lines between indoors and out, the importance of grow your own for wellbeing and sustainability, and innovative ways to introduce plants into alternative areas of the home.

2. WELLBEING WONDER

Check out the swim spa, outdoor gym and yoga area in Kate Gould’s Out Of The Shadows sanctuary garden

– a lush, tropical-looking creation featuring palm trees, bamboo, false pepper trees and ferns and a subtle muted palette of whites, blues and pinks. Then there’s The Mind Garden, Chelsea winner Andy Sturgeon’s garden for the mental health charity Mind, designed to encourage people to sit, share and listen.

3. ZEN SPACE

An impressive wooden water wheel takes centre stage in designer Yoshihiro Tamura’s Circle Of Life sanctuary garden, a city respite in which the wheel symbolises nature’s circle of life and flows to a human landscape with fluctuating heights and bending curves, reminiscent of life’s

ups, downs, twists, and turns.

4. JUBILEE TRIBUTE

A floral sculptural portrait of the Queen will be among the tributes in celebration of her Platinum Jubilee, created by renowned florist Simon Lycett. This special silhouette of the monarch will be made in the official Platinum Jubilee shade of purple.

5. TEXTILE TREATS

Ever dyed you own clothes? A Textile Garden for Fashion Revolution from designer Lottie Delamain solely features plants which can be used to make or dye our clothes, in the new All About Plants category in the Great Pavilion. It aims to re-establish the connection between plants and textiles and challenge the impact of the fast fashion industry.

6. BEE BONANZA

An eye-catching silhouette of a bee wing which forms the centrepiece of the BBC Studios Our Green Planet & RHS Bee Garden is likely to create a buzz this year. Designer and TV gardener Joe Swift has created this one, aimed at inspiring garden lovers to play their part in balancing our ecosystems through planting more species that sustain bees.

7. FORAGING FUN

If foraging is your bag, the Alder

Hey Urban Foraging Station is one to explore through a landscape of blossoming hedgerows, crab apples and a Crataegus tunnel.

Chelsea Flower Show takes place at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, from May 24-28. For details visit rhs.org.uk.