The RHS Chelsea Flower Show’s objective is to inspire and educate people around the world. Roughly 150,000 people attend the show each year and its international coverage can reach more than six billion people.
Over the years, the RHS has made the event more sustainable by reducing plastic, rehoming show gardens and championing wildlife. Despite its unavoidable carbon footprint, it’s arguably one of the more sustainable large-scale public events, and is certainly pulling its weight in terms of promoting positive gardening. So the RHS has to be given a huge amount of credit.
The latest news from Chelsea 2026
- RHS Chelsea Flower Show to be sponsored by Range Rover in 2026
- Big changes for RHS Flower Shows in 2026: here's what's different
- The RHS has lifted its gnome ban for Chelsea Flower Show 2026 - for one important reason
However, as a designer with one leg in the world of ecology, the other in the world of community, and both arms in the drive for food security – like a crisis-themed game of Twister – I can’t help feeling the UK is restrained by our show formula. Chelsea is inspiring and will continue to promote gardening and businesses, but can its temporary, centralised model fully represent where gardening is heading?
While it’s wonderful that show gardens are increasingly rehomed, they are still transported and installed to a showground first, making them less sustainable than a normal garden from the outset. A garden built for one week is also at odds with the direction gardening is heading internationally.
By redeveloping town centres, we can involve communities alongside the best of British horticulture
The big trend is towards permanence and responsibility: sustainable planting, wildlife habitat, permaculture and edible food forests. We want to know our gardens are doing something good for us and the world. And we want examples of how to do it and see them mature. Unfortunately, by definition the current model of short-lived garden shows cannot deliver that, doing a disservice to the craft modern
gardeners are championing.
Discover more about the gardens at Chelsea 2026
- First details of the gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show 2026: discover who is designing what
- RHS announces five All About Plants gardens for Chelsea Flower Show 2026
- Chelsea Flower Show 2026: balcony and container gardens announced
It’s good to celebrate pollinators on a Chelsea stand, but the 20 acres of planting on display at Ranelagh Gardens is dismantled the following week to become a park for the rest of the year. A large garden that exists for one week cannot function as a meaningful habitat in ecological terms.
But perhaps there is another way – there are blueprints for something different. In Germany, the Bundesgartenschau (BUGA) moves to a new city every few years and the Netherlands has Floriade every decade. They have created lasting planting and infrastructure everywhere they have taken place, developing new boroughs with nature provision built in, and often revitalising surrounding neighbourhoods and towns. Sadly the future of both is currently uncertain – all of these projects are flawed and have significant financial challenges – but the core idea is reminiscent of the National Garden Festivals in the UK in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and worth revisiting.
What if we aimed higher and wider than the Chelsea Flower Show, and evolved garden shows into the Great British Gardening Festival, travelling to the heart of different communities every few years? The RHS Hampton Court Palace Festival is moving to Badminton in Gloucestershire this year, sure; but rather than moving a week-long show to another country estate, I’m talking about improving people’s lives in a more long-term way.
By embedding shows in communities and redeveloping parks or town centres, we can involve communities alongside the best of British horticulture – like Ground Force on steroids. This would give any and every community a chance to share in the promotion and investment, much like the City of Culture idea – perhaps even as part of the City of Culture idea? Of all these examples, ones with state funding are most likely to succeed.
Many communities outside London have growing, innovative gardening scenes that would benefit. It would also allow horticultural talent to invest time and energy into something permanent to benefit communities and wildlife for years to come. And if sustainability is key, food growing should be at the heart of shows, not a token gesture – though I appreciate cabbages aren’t everyone’s idea of glamour. This model could invest in permanent community food forests and support regional growers.
I can’t deny the huge challenges of what I’m suggesting, and it doesn’t fall solely on the RHS – this is an issue for all gardeners. But if modern gardening is about permanence, wildlife, community and responsibility, shouldn’t the nation’s flagship gardening event embody those values too?
