Show gardens are all very well but for me the highlight of any trip to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show is looking around the Great Pavilion. The displays at Chelsea 2019 were stunning and because I had longer at there this year, I was able to spend a whole day among the flowers.
Here are just some of the many things that caught my eye.
The display by the National Dahlia Collection was a real showstopper with pastel coloured blooms down one side leading into sunset colours on the other. Bizarrely, the BBC’s Chelsea 2019 coverage picked out the dahlia as one of those plants that is due a revival, along with dianthus and fuchsias. They’ve actually been popular for some time, thanks to the amazing range of colour and shape.
Tulips are always top of my must-have list and the display by Bloms Bulbs didn’t disappoint. There’s nothing quite like seeing the flowers in bloom so much better than a catalogue.
I like iris and iris like my sandy soil. Cayeux Iris had several that tempted me. The smokey colours of ‘Regard Sombre’ were beautiful with dark aubergine falls and standards that reminded me of butterscotch.
A new introduction is ‘Vicomtesse de Curel’, which is a mix of sunny yellow and pure white. Quite beautiful.
Thorncroft Clematis were also among the nurseries launching new varieties at Chelsea 2019. This is Sugar Sweet Blue™ ‘Scented Clem’. It’s a sort of lilac-blue with star-shaped flowers and smells of almonds, not that I could get close enough to tell.
You can’t go far in the Great Pavilion without the scent of roses. There are big displays by the major growers and they are always packed with visitors. Among the ramblers, hybrid teas and others, I saw this rather curious rose. It’s not new – it was first released in 1989 – and is a modern shrub rose. I can’t decide if I like it. To me, it has the appearance of a rose that’s going over but the delicate colour is lovely.
RHS Chelsea is also the place to discover the flowers of other countries with displays by Trinidad & Tobago and South Africa.
I’ve seen the pink-red protea before but hadn’t encountered this white form. It’s rather beautiful.
Then there are the quite simply scary. I wouldn’t want to get too close to this, seen on the Ottershaw Cacti display.
Another nursery with some sinister-looking plants is Hewitt-Cooper Carnivorous Plants. This was pretty though. It’s an annual that is native to southern Africa.
More familiar were the dianthus opposite on Calamazag Nursery’s stand. Another plant that will tolerate my poor soil.
The display of lupins by Westcountry Nurseries drew a lot of praise with the blooms creating a long rainbow of colour – impossible to capture well in one shot but beautiful to look at. I just wish I could grow them but the resident slugs and snails always beat me.
I rather liked the colour of this on Millais Nurseries’ display.
The Great Pavilion also houses the RHS floristry competitions. This was the winning entry by Helen Pannitt, who was crowned RHS Chelsea Florist of the Year 2019. I love orange so this would have got my vote.
Mixed in with the displays at Chelsea 2019 were some that were educational. The National Collection of allium showed the range of these plants from flowering months to flower colour.
I rather liked the delicate pink of A. ‘Eros’.
There was even a section devoted to the seedheads.
RHS Chelsea has done a lot in recent years to minimise waste from the show with gardens going on to new homes and the traditional sell-off of plants. At Chelsea 2029, Wayward Plants were getting visitors to ‘adopt’ a plant that could then be picked up from Morden Hall Park, where a new House of Wayward Plants recycle reuse centre is going to be based.
Other plants, including the many ‘spares’ that are brought to the show by designers, are given to community groups and schools in London. Such a good idea.
Read about my look around the show gardens here
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