Let's celebrate gardening

WHAT is the point of the Chelsea Flower Show? Is it a highlight of the social calendar and the start of the Season?

- Alan Titchmarsh

Is it a chance to put gardening at the forefront of our minds as spring gets properly under way and an opportunity for garden designers to show off, to shock and, sometimes, to annoy? Or is it simply a way of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) publicising itself? It is, in reality, all of these things and, having attended this horticultural extravaganza every year since 1969, it has been interesting to watch it evolve and become increasingly high profile.

Perhaps that profile has something to do with the nation’s ever-increasing awareness of environmental concerns—of climate change, global warming and sustainability. But it would be a shame if that were the only driving force. Call me old-fashioned if you want, but I like to think that in the third week in May, on the greensward in front of Chelsea’s Royal Hospital, we have a chance to celebrate that middle initial of the RHS. It stands for horticulture, which the dictionary defines as: ‘The art or practice of garden cultivation and management.’