Chelsea Flower Show😢😢😢

[Duke Ellington]

I was hoping to visit The Chelsea Flower Show for the first time this year until I discovered each ticket will cost me £105 !!!! + travel and something to eat I reckon it would soon add up to a £300 day out. I think I will watch it on tv! 🙁

Duke

[Duke Ellington]

[Obelixx]

It's a world class and a ticket gets you 12 hours of access to the gardens, plant and flower displays, sundries and so on which is much better value - and far more interesting - than a ticket to a premier league football game or the opera or ballet which only last a couple of hours.

If you join the RHS you get cheaper tickets as well as free access to all the RHS gardens and many partner gardens; a free monthly magazine full of interesting info on trial and plants as well as gardens and news about RHS activities; free access to expert advice on identification and treatment of plants, pests, diseases and the chance to order seeds collected from their gardens.

[lezelle]

Hi Ya, I am sorry but £105 per ticket is a bit much. You have to be very keen to pay that sort of money. London prices I suppose. Here the local show is only £10 for the day and the county show only £28. As said by the time you put on travel, overnight accommodation if staying, a bite to eat and drink you are talking a lot for a day out. Not all are on London wages. I will watch on the telly as well.

[Obelixx]

As a member, I'd get my ticket for £68.   Do the sums.  £37 is almost the cost of annual membership and you'd have all those free extras.   Cheaper entry to all the other shows too.

I really don't think you can compare a local show with Chelsea.  Whole different ball game.   Round here they're free to enter.

[lezelle]

Hi Ya, £68 is not a bad return. But for those of us who at getting on a bit it's still pricey. I will have to look up and see what RHS has on offer in our part of the world. I did enjoy the local show with the arrangements and looking at all the machinery. As I was a farm boy before military service I like to seethe cattle, pigs etc and was most surprised when I learnt that a stalwart of the cattle side, the Hereford, was in decline. As I still live in the rural area perhaps the thought of facing that there London and all the crowds now intimidates me. If you can do and enjoy it then I say do it and go. If you are going I hope you have a great time.

[pumkinlover]

I would only enjoy Chelsea if the other visitors were well like us. And just us, now that would be ok, I cannot cope with crowds, cities either these days. Or huge transport issues, so telly it is for me.

[Obelixx]

When I go I usually stay with friends in Ealing and I meet up with other friends at Chelsea as my hosts are not gardeners.   I take the tube into Sloan Square and buy a sandwich and a bottle of water on the way to the station.  I take a black bin bag to sit on because the seats provided are insufficient and in full sun and sometimes shade is good.   I get there early so I can see the gardens before the hoards arrive and I've usually seen everything I want to see and taken loads of photos from different angles by 3:30 when the half day ticketers arrive and it gets really crowded.

There is a very different atmosphere on the two members days when people chat more readily about the gardens and plants and swap plant names and experiences and also are much more willing to move along and let others in to see and enjoy.   I went once on a public day because I went with my group of Belgian scientists (English conversation) and it felt a lot more pushy and me, me, me and full of people not there for the plants and gardens but because Chelsea is on the "list".   No nice chats with strangers that day.

Didn't go last year and won't be going this year.  I would like to go again some time but it's a 6 or 7 hour drive to Calais from this new home and garden so will take some planning.

Lezelle - even if there is no RHS garden near you there are partner gardens all over the UK which give free entry to RHS members and, like I said earlier, you get the monthly magazine and free access to specialists as well as the chance to buy seeds from the gardens at very good prices.   Lots of info on the website too which is open to everyone but some more detailed plant finder and selector info is only available to members.

[caroline7758]

Hi, I'm in the RHS and enjoy reading the magazine and getting into some local gardens free (though some at very limited times!) . However, to say they have partner gardens all over the UK is a slight exaggeration- when we move up to Berwick upon Tweed there will be very few anywhere near us, for example and the nearest RHS garden will be Harrogate! I'll probably still be a member because we travel around a lot and they do a lot to support community ans school gardens etc.

[Tee Gee]

Alnwick Water garden which is not far from Berwick is lovely I visited it the year after it opened when it was in its infancy hoping to get back to see it this year

[caroline7758]

Yes, TeeGee, we were there 2 weeks ago and I bought a "Friends" annual pass already because it's not an RHS partner!

[lezelle]

Hi Ya, Talking to a colleague and he was telling me when the Chelsea show was mentioned he told his wife as he has got Friday off book a couple of tickets and they will go but, when she saw the price, (£112), decided they will go elsewhere. He also said the ticket was only valid from half three in th afternoon, but that could be a misread of the site, as there are full day half day and evening. They were saying on the radio that they will get visitor numbers of 150,000 +, that is a conservative one and half million at £100 a ticket.  Mind boggling figures. Amazing.

[Tee Gee]

I have never fancied Chelseaits seems too elitist for me.

When I look at the demo gardens at a show I am usually looking for ideas from them that I can put in my garden if I wanted too.

At Chelsea those mega bucks arty farty gardens never inspire both on ideas and costs hence my "Chelsea" is Tatton Park show where they cater for all ages and wallet contents.

For example there are the school gardens which are built by children between the ages of 8 & 10,then the gardens built by children aged 11 to 16 where many are as innovative as some at Chelsea.

Then they cater for the gardeners and designers of the future with the "Skills" gardens built by apprentice gardeners and Young Designer of the Year competition where the winner wins the chance to design a garden at " Chelsea"

Then when you get the "Back to Back" gardens I find that most of them I could afford to fit in my back garden.

Then of course there are the Professional gardens which are often " Chelsea Like" most of which I can't get my head around how the judges judge them ???

OK I might be a grumpy old traditionalist but I think there are a lot of people like me as I have seen and llistened to when looking upon the show gardens.

Just one more thing and that is the RHS, and I am a member, someone mentioned you get cheap show tickets and generally this is the case but why is it if I attend Tatton Show on members day I have to pay an extra £5 to do so.

I visit quite a few shows and I find that any that are organised by the RHS are generally more expensive to enter.....why???

OK that's enough griping for today, I had better get down to the allotment and see if I can resurrect my ' cooked' plants.

[Obelixx]

The hard landscaping and water features are clearly beyond the financial range of we ordinary gardeners and I don't know anyone who loves plants who'd rather devote more space to hadr stuff than growing stuff but some of the planting combinations are sublime and there are ideas one can adapt.   Every RHS has different things to offer and different special features and themes.  Chelsea began as a means for head gardeners - the chaps who got their hands dirty - to show off their plants and skills.  It is still about plants and skills and you'd be surprised how many ordinary amateur and professional gardeners attend to see the plants and learn and enjoy rather than go to be seen.

The judges on RHS committees and at the shows are professional gardeners, nurserymen and women and and designers - very down to earth and know their stuff and they come from all backgrounds in society.

It costs a great deal to run the shows, especially Chelsea.   The money raised all goes to fund projects and research and eduction. The RHS does a great deal of work with children in schools, disadvantaged people in community gardening, the handicapped, greening grey Britain and much more.   Its research helps gardeners choose disease resistant plants, good pollinator plants, best varieties for certain situations and also best practice and techniques and products.   It is a force for the good.

Please do get over this idea that it is only for toffs and the rich.  It isn't.  It's for people who like plants and gardens and gardening.

[Tee Gee]

Sorry Obelixx if I offended you

The money raised all goes to fund projects and research and eduction.

Totally agree! although my article may not have conveyed that!

The money raised all goes to fund projects and research and eduction. The RHS does a great deal of work with children in schools, disadvantaged people in community gardening, the handicapped, greening grey Britain and much more.   Its research helps gardeners choose disease resistant plants, good pollinator plants, best varieties for certain situations and also best practice and techniques and products.   It is a force for the good.

Totally agree! although I will say again: my article may not have conveyed that!

The above reasons and more are why I am a member.....sorry if I came across differently.


OK I only see what is produced on telly which in itself part of the problem as this is often somewhat biased.

When at Tatton I have often watched the excerpts that are shown on telly being made and I am afraid they are sometimes a bit of a farce particularly when the producer gets into the ribs of the experts (Monty & Co)and tells them what to do.

The Producers know " what they want" so the experts and sometimes even the plants are often "staged) so that they ( the producer) get the shot they want.

So OK I am a traditionalist not a modernist  and I guess I will often have differences in opinion such as this.

Perhaps I will have to learn to WRITE between the lines not read between them then my opinions might cause less offence.

Sorry to all those I may have offended....Tg

[laurieuk]

I used to go to Chelsea back in the fifties n act I worked there for a nursery one year. It used to be a very different show and in my opinion much better. No it seems there is so much put into designing rather than plant growing. Much can be learnt at local flower shows when all the effort is put into growing rather than putting. We all have our own ideas , there used to be all the small stalls where you could talk to others about the plants.

[ACE]

I must disagree, Design is the reason for the show gardens but growing is a bigger part. I have grown plants especially for the shows it takes a lot of knowledge to know which soil, aspect and flowering times which I always passed on to any visitor to the show that asked. Staging plants for the camera, don't be silly, the plants are placed strategically to win a medal not for the BBC to film. If the garden is good enough for the telly the apparatus they use to get the right shot costs thousands and it is down to the eye of the cameraman as well. The reason you cannot reproduce parts of these gardens at home is down to cost. A tray of busy lizzies from B&Q ain't going to cut it. If you add up the nurserytime, cost of the right growing medium, wages etc it was £750 a square metre back when I was doing the rounds of the show. The judges get a brief on the garden when judging and you have to state the aspect of the garden and if some of the plants would not naturally thrive in that aspect you lose points even if it does look nice to Joe public.

[Tee Gee]

Staging plants for the camera, don't be silly, the plants are placed strategically to win a medal not for the BBC to film.

I agree entirely but I have seen plants being moved then returned to their original position hence my comment!

[Obelixx]

Not offended Tee Gee.

There is the largest floral marquee in the world for anyone who wants to talk to growers at the top f their game - new and okd, fruit, veg, bulbs, ornamental, succulents, bonsai (why?) and the displays are amazing in there too and you can talk to the people about their plants.

TV coverage is frustrating - they don't show some gardens at all and are repetitive with others.  Why they bother interviewing Z list celebrities and visiting their gardens is beyond me.  I want to see interviews and visits to the experts and their nurseries.   Whey they have none gardening presenters - Sophie R and Nicky thing is also beyond me.  There's any amount of personable horticultural experts who would do a better job and be less ditzy.   That is the one thing that frustrates me about the RHS - their contract with the BBC allowing it all to be dumbed down and made gimmicky!   

[ACE]

Friends of mine got their 23rd Chelsea gold today, I might just pop along and congratulate them. A quick phone call will sort out the free entry.

[caroline7758]

Good to know that most of the gardens will be rebuilt/recycled  in schools, hospitals etc this year, not just destroyed.