After cancellation and postponement, the show returns next week. Late-season plants and flowers will take centre stage
Say what you like about the Chelsea flower show – expensive, crowded, a little superficial? – the Royal Horticultural Society’s annual spring fixture wields considerable influence over gardening trends. Before the pandemic, only two world wars suspended the event. Covid-19 not only cancelled Chelsea 2020, but this year booted the springtime institution into an entirely new season: autumn. That’s the horticultural equivalent of Wimbledon on ice.
The RHS’s decision to postpone showtime until next week was made at the beginning of 2021, giving its designers only months to reimagine their long-proposed show gardens with late-performing blooms. Out with Chelsea staples such as primula, poppy, allium and iris, the surging greens and pastels that evoke the newness of spring; in with bolder tones, deepening leaves, hanging fruit and setting-seeds.