The Royal Chelsea Flower Show 2026

Chelsea Flower Show.

It's the Mecca for all horticulturalists. I don't know if this is what I am, an horticulturalist, but I do like to garden. I don't breed plants and wouldn't know where to start with that but I am drawn to planting things, nurturing them and watching them grow. I think horticulturalists would be considered plant experts, at the forefront of creating new varieties and cultivating the perfect specimen but I'm not about that. I won't be winning prizes. I just like flowers.

And this is what is at the heart of Chelsea. It is a place to see flowers although it has become so much more than that now. It has a status which sees it as a global phenomenon, drawing visitors and gardeners from all over the world to look at what is arguably the best of the best in garden growing.

It's a place I've always wanted to go. I watch the highlight show every day during Chelsea week and look for inspiration for my own garden. Some ideas I go with; some get left out as too ambitious or not easy to accomplish. What I love about it though is the imagination and the designs that people create but most of all, it's got to be the colour.

It may seem a long time to wait for a Christmas present but that's what this was. May soon comes around and it decided that Chelsea week would be one of sunshine, making it the hot outing in more than one sense. Our tickets were for the Saturday and we decided that it would be best to set out early. The alarm was set for 5.00am and we were on the road for 5.30am. although we were woken by the birds with the sun, a spring treat that I never tire of.

Two hours on the motorway and we're in London and parked up and ready to cross the city to Sloane Square tube station where we had a short walk to the gardens of the Chelsea Royal Hospital grounds where the show is set.

Gates opened at 8.00am and we were there along with other likely punters. It's the best way to get a look at the show gardens without having to muscle your way through or wait for a strategic gap to appear. The first garden that we saw was The Campaign to Protect Rural England: "On the Edge", the centrepiece being Gaia, carved in wood, a figure lying on her side.

It's striking, is it not? And as a metaphoric figure, it does much to point out, in the sleeping (or dying) form of Gaia, how we are in danger of losing much of what we love; that it is in crisis. I am lucky enough to live in a part of England which is distinctly rural and I am conscious of the fact that its delights are being eroded and encroached upon ever more by development: housing, roads, even solar farms. I crave the peace and the green but it would seem that we are not all like that.

But the RHS are all about sustainability and so, you know that the products that you are seeing at the show have that in mind, making it truly feel like an organic experience in all ways.

And a lot of the show is not about flowers. One of the gardens which caused a lot of controversy this year was The Project Giving Back Garden (pictured below) which has a distinct lack of floral colour although the installation of the peach-coloured rocks provides a vibrant backdrop to the foliage and trees. It reminded me of places I've visited in America although the inspiration for it was the south of France.

It's striking but perhaps not normal Chelsea fare. It grabbed my attention although I can't say that I loved it. It felt barren to me. However, it did make me think: with climate change, could this be a vision of the gardens of the future? It felt like another planet, a Star Trek set. It contrasts so much with my wildly planted, green and fecund woodland garden that I struggled with its landscape - but is it something that I would have to adjust to? Sobering thoughts.

Moving on from here, this was mine and my husband's favourite garden, The RHS and The King's Foundation Curious Garden.

This has everything that I love about imagining a green outdoor space: copious planting; a rustic building; vibrant colour; varying heights; multiple interest; pathways weaving between it all.

What I especially liked about this and which seems to be a new thinking in terms of growing in gardens is flowers and vegetables next to each other. In this garden, rainbow chard and its bright stems glowed alongside the softer hews of flowers with pastel petals. Just lovely and you can go to the same bed, smell the scent of the flowers and pull out something wholesome for dinner! I liked the lack of regiment to this - that soil is for growing and it doesn't matter what is side by side. It felt organically right somehow.

Finally, it would only be right to mention The Great Pavilion and what a treat this was! Exhibit after exhibit of beautiful plants and the best of the best. There was one stand from South Africa which was centred around how fire can cause new growth and is needed for new plants to be able to reproduce and this actually smelt of seared earth. And the tropical plants of Grenada were bright and immediately transported to you to the Caribbean. Magical.

There were many displays to wonder at and one of these was of willow trees, their young slender stems having been woven together to form a shape on top of which was a crown of vibrant green and tender leaves. They were advertised as living sculpture and I could see why. The criss cross of the young wood with its plume of green created a feature that I instantly wanted in my garden and so, I bought one! Yes, readers, I went to Chelsea and came home with a small tree! Good job I brought the husband too for help transporting it, especially when you know you'll have a crowded tube journey! In our case, our tube was cancelled which meant walking through the streets of Chelsea and Kensington with a tree to get back to the car park. A unique experience indeed and one that tested the arms of a certain man to the limit.

What you may not know about the last day of Chelsea is that at 4pm, everything is sold off. This means that the dismantling of the displays happens in front of you and you can reserve and select the finest plants to take home and transplant in your garden. Hence, the tree.

However, getting to Chelsea so early meant that, despite the size of the show, we were done by the middle of the day. We'd brought a picnic and had an ice-cream and wandered about the show but we had exhausted it and its displays. We couldn't leave until after 4pm because of the tree purchase - Chelsea are very strict about when things can be taken apart - so what to do? We tried to find a table in one of the eateries - all full of people like us, either getting refreshment or seeking shade. There were limited places to sit beyond this on picnic benches but finding one where the sun wasn't blazing was hard. There were crowds and crowds so getting around was a feat in itself. In the end, we decided to sit on the grass and the space devoted to the balcony gardens has tree cover as well so we found a shady if less manicured spot under the canopy and rested. Music played from a concert stage and before long, I could hear the soft sonorous rumble of my husband's snores. Putting a bag under my legs to act as a improvised picnic blanket, I lay down using my backpack as a pillow and before long, I too felt the hazy-hot drifting into sleep that only a summer afternoon in the shade can produce.

Time passes when you're relaxed and relatively comfortable and before long, it was time to collect the tree and leave Chelsea behind. It felt sad watching what had been glorious displays of blooms and foliage gradually reduced down to show the bare bones of the stand on which they had been the ornament but then, they'll be living on in some small piece of British soil and I love the idea of that, of these specially cultivated items finding new homes in an ordinary garden.

And my tree will be one of those items.