PC Landscapes is no stranger to competition within the numerous prestigious flower shows which take place across the UK throughout each year; Chelsea Flower Show, Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, Malvern, Tatton.
Beyond competition, Paul has also been a judge at these flower shows. More about the awards and accolades of PC Landscapes can be found here.
The most well-known of these flower shows is definitively Chelsea Flower Show, often known mononymously as Chelsea, which took place this year between the 20th and 24th of May and in which PC Landscapes built the Chelsea Pensioners’ Garden.
What are the origins of RHS Chelsea, why is it so famous, and what impact has it had on the world of horticultural competition?
The Royal Horticultural Society and the Great Spring Show
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) was founded in March 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London and adopted its first charter in 1809. It aimed to collect, cultivate, and study exotic plants, and the society was committed to generating and sharing knowledge of horticulture via books, journals, reports, herbariums, and artworks.
The RHS initially leased a garden in Chiswick from the 1820s until 1861 when the society received a Royal Charter and, supported by Prince Albert, who had become RHS President in 1858, the RHS received a new garden in South Kensington. The first Great Spring Show was held at this location in 1862, but proved to be a financial disaster, coming after a period of near-bankruptcy in the late 1850s.
In 1888 the RHS moved from South Kensington to Inner Temple. 1890 saw the first Royal visit to an RHS show, beginning the now entrenched tradition of Royal attendance at RHS flower shows, although the exact member of the Royal Family which attended in this year is seemingly unclear.
In the period 1888-1911 when the shows took place annually in the Temple Gardens, rock gardens were particularly popular, especially among wealthy gardeners, enabled by technological developments and the growth in railways across the Continent, allowing rocks from countries like Switzerland and Austria to be brought to London for the shows.
The First RHS Chelsea Flower Show and Royal Attendance
By 1911, the RHS was looking for a new location in London. In 1912 they selected part of the Chelsea Embankment near Chelsea Hospital. In 1913, the first RHS Chelsea Flower Show took place in the Royal Hospital Gardens, Chelsea and was attended by Queen Alexandra, the wife of the late King Edward VII. Two-hundred and twenty-four gardens were exhibited, although more than twice that many applied to get the chance to compete. The 3-day show was financially successful and made a profit of £4,000.
The attendance of Queen Alexandra was central to the beginning of the Royal tradition of attendance to the Chelsea Flower Show, yet it was the visit by Queen Mary, the wife of King George V, made to the show in 1916 which explicitly tied the Royal Family to the Chelsea Flower Show in particular. Royal attendance and financial success of the show catapulted RHS Chelsea to particular cultural and social relevance. King George V and Queen Mary visited the May shows annually, and from a young age the future Queen Elizabeth II would also attend.
Due to the Second World War the RHS Chelsea Flower Show did not go ahead, although it returned in 1947 and then-Princess Elizabeth attended with her parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The successful return of Chelsea after the Second World War and the continued Royal attendance due to their passions for horticulture ensured that the RHS Chelsea Flower Show continued to be a culturally important annual event after eight years of wartime cancellation.
Post-war Developments and Popularity
By the 1960s, rock gardens had fallen out of fashion and garden designers were beginning to be more influential in the exhibitions of Chelsea Flower Show. At the same time, the general popularity of RHS Chelsea was rapidly increasing, aided by the start of the show’s being televised by the BBC from 1958 which continues to improve the accessibility of Chelsea to the wider British and international public.
This raising of Chelsea’s public profile coincided with changes to the motivations of the gardens being exhibited, with an increased focus on social justice from the 1960s, with the first garden for the disabled being exhibited in 1967, and wildlife gardens becoming more popular from the 1980s.
With growing public popularity, the RHS made the decision to limit the number of tickets per day to 40,000 in 1988, and began charging admission fees to RHS members. Overcrowding had long been an issue for the organisers of RHS Chelsea, and in 1929 it had prompted the expansion of the show from three days to four days, with one exclusively for RHS members and VIPs. In 2005, this was increased to five days, and television coverage by the BBC, initially just a single show, now lasts a whole week.
The Chelsea Flower Show continues to be a huge cultural event and is watched by millions around the world each year.
The Wider Impacts of RHS Chelsea
Domestically, the RHS’ successes at Chelsea have influenced their expansion to flower shows in other locations. In 1993, the RHS took over the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, as well as the RHS flower show at Tatton Park, and the co-hosted RHS Malvern Spring Festival. In 2024, the RHS hosted the first RHS Urban Show in Manchester, showcasing developments in urban gardening technology.
Internationally, many other flower shows have been influenced by the prestige and popularity of the Chelsea Flower Show. Notably the PHS Philadelphia Flower Show held annually by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) since 1829. In Australia, the first Melbourne International Flower and Garden Festival took place in 1995 and has been held annually since.
Chelsea has also recently stood out as a leader in sustainability and biodiversity advocacy. Since 2024, all large garden exhibits have been judged partly via the new Green Garden Audit, aimed at reducing carbon emissions and encouraging sustainability among competing designs. Gardens which excel in sustainability have focused on strategies to reduce carbon emissions by changing their building methods or materials.
In this way, RHS Chelsea has allowed sustainable gardens to stand out – for example, in 2024, judged by a panel of our very own Paul Cowell, alongside Malcolm Anderson (Head of Sustainability at the RHS) and Liz Nicholson (managing director at Nicholsons, the firm which developed the new green audit tool), the garden designer Giulio Giorgi and Garden Contractor Landesigns were awarded the RHS Environmental Innovation Award for their efforts to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of their World Child Cancer Nurturing Garden.
Conclusion
RHS Chelsea has been described as the ‘World Cup of gardening’ and attracts top garden designers from around the world each year. By a long way it is the most prestigious and popular flower show in the world, and PC Landscapes is no stranger to it.
The show, emerging in the 19th Century in the form of the annual Great Spring Shows held by the RHS in Chiswick, Kensington, Temple Gardens, before finally settling in Chelsea, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show has developed an enduring and important cultural relevance. Royal attendance, broad public interest, and international influence have ensured that RHS Chelsea has achieved and maintained the status it does in its more-than-a-century long existence.
Regarding next year’s Chelsea, Paul Cowell is chairing the selection panel for the 2026 show gardens, as planning for the next Chelsea starts almost immediately as one Chelsea finishes and a rigorous process begins involving a panel of judges and experts that asses and choose the gardens that will be exhibited in next year.
Therefore, as we leave behind Chelsea 2025 and approach Chelsea 2026, it is helpful to remind ourselves how far Chelsea has come from its beginnings and how each exhibit is important in continuing its relevance and vitality. It’s also pertinent to think about where Chelsea can take the horticultural world in the future, and how the show can be used to help messages of sustainability and biodiversity reach a broader audience of millions.