RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024 Part 2 – The Great Pavilion

When I finally gave in to temptation and ventured into the great pavilion, it hadn’t yet started raining. With hindsight I probably should have stayed outside a bit longer but as this was my favourite part of Chelsea on my last visit in 2021, I simply couldn’t pass another entrance. In we go!

Floral Creations

The entrance I had chosen was right by the floral installations, which at one time I wouldn’t have been that interested in, but in recent years I’ve developed much more of an appreciation for what we used to call ‘flower arranging’.

As well as the more traditional flower creations displayed on a plinth, there was a new category this year called Creative Spaces. They are much bigger than the usual floral creations, and more importantly they don’t have themes and rules like other categories, this means no RHS medals, but it does give florists free rein to let their imaginations run wild.

Creative Spaces

Just through the entrance I came across this creative space called ‘Heartwood’ by Acacia Creative Studio, and I absolutely loved it!

The display represented a fallen tree giving new life. The planting was exquisite, with all my favourite cottage garden plants. I walked through it numerous times soaking up the beautiful flowers.

There were plenty more of these creations including the arch, Seed to Ceiling: ‘As above, so below’ by Kitten Grayson, which was picked as the Floristry Ambassador’s Choice.

And the floral curtains were by a by a mother and daughter team, Lauren and Louisina that run a flower farm and design studio ‘Days of Dahlia’ in Scotland. They were featured on Gardeners World so it was interesting to see what they had created.

As with the show gardens there were plenty of foxgloves in evidence all around the marque.

Floral Creations

Top left is, the hot coloured display, ‘Spectrum of Fire’ by Lara Thorpe which not only won a gold medal but also RHS Chelsea Florist of the Year 2024! It it also at the top of the floral display section.

Next was a design very in keeping with the naturalistic Chelsea theme this year, ‘Inner Peace’ by Angela Turner, which also won a gold medal.

Top right was ‘Burst’ by Laura Pannitt – Gold medal, this was my personal favourite, a very pleasing shape and gorgeous colours.

Bottom left, ‘Nature’s Spectrum’ by Allison Hood – Silver-gilt medal. Middle, ‘Peach Perfect by Nicola Hill – Gold medal, and bottom right, ‘Colour & Transparency’ by Julie Pearson – Gold medal.

Celebraties

Well I didn’t expect to find Queen of baking, Dame Mary Berry amongst Darren Everest’s sweet pea stand. It was so lovely to watch Mary filming a piece for BBC2’s Gardeners World. What an inspiration she is to us all.

The great pavilion seemed to be full of celebs at every turn, as I came across Arit Anderson also filming for Gardeners World, then Nicki Chapman filming a pot planting demonstration for the RHS Chelsea Flower show afternoon programme. Last but not least one of the immaculately dressed Chelsea pensioners, stars of the show.

Growers Stands

The perfect condition of every bloom that these growers bring to Chelsea almost defy belief! The painstaking lengths they must go to in the months leading up to the show to create displays like this.

You could smell the David Austin rose stand as you approached it. As you would imagine it was full of every colour, shape and size of rose bush. A real feast for the eyes and nose.

I bought a new rose from their Wolverhampton base last year called ‘Gabriel Oak’ it’s just started flowering and looks remarkably like the pink one on their stand.

Most of these growers stands sell seeds, bulbs and plants for you to buy and take away. I was very restrained and only bought two plants throughout the whole day, one of which is featured here, top right, Aquilegia ‘Nora Barlow’.

Although there was temptation all around me…

Hosta

This wonderful stand from ‘New Forest Hostas and Hemerocallis’ was like a film set. Apparently it was inspired by a dream, which is easy to believe. With one figure relaxing in a bath of hosta’s and another sleeping in a bed of ferns. What an eye-catching display!

Gosh they must use a lot of garlic spray to keep those pesty slugs and snails away!

Carnivorous Plants

You could hear this stand before you saw it, as the dinosaurs roared away, what a fun idea to have dinosaurs on the stand.

But when you think that carnivorous plants are thought to date back over 85.6 million years, they’ve seen quite a few species come and go!

It was a wonderful stand and the garden apprentice would have loved it. We bought a small green pitcher plant, commonly known as a trumpet pitcher quite a few years ago and it had got so big that I’ve had to split it into three big pieces this year.

I couldn’t resit taking him one of the red ones home, Sarracenia hybrid ‘Juthatip Soper’. Lets hope it grows as well as the green one.

There was still a bit more to see in the great pavilion, with six small gardens categorised as ‘All About Plants’, but the small gardens of the show will have to wait until next time.

Take care & happy gardening.

RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024 Part 1 – The Show Gardens