It's Thursday 22nd May; the RHS members' days are over and the Chelsea Flower Show is now open to the public. We've been at the show, scouting out all the most interesting features and ideas.
Here are five fascinating things to look out for around the Chelsea showground today, chosen by content assistant, Alice Tuffery.
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Don't forget to keep checking back in during the week. Every day you'll find a preview for that day's highlights.
What to look out for at Chelsea today
See Adrian Gray's towering three-boulder balance
One exhibit I was intrigued to see was Adrian Gray's stone balance. The Devon-based artist has created his largest Chelsea work yet; it's 16 tonnes and five metres tall, consisting of three Cornish granite boulders, seemingly impossibly balanced in a towering stack.
The three-boulder balance is surrounded by smaller stone balances, all of which are available to buy, priced between £300 and £5,000, so you can go home with your very own art piece to impress guests.
Step inside Plankbridge's dog-friendly shepherd's hut
Don't miss the chance to step inside Plankbridge's latest luxurious guest house in Ranelagh Gardens. In keeping with the buzz around Monty Don's dog garden, it's a dog-friendly shepherd's hut, complete with a pull-out dog bed on casters, an oak dog bowl, pegs for leads and shelves for food tins.
But there's plenty to admire for human guests too; the king-size bed and beautifully tiled bathroom are a treat.
The space around the shepherd's hut has been planted up by trainees from The Urban Garden, a Bath-based social enterprise focussed on improving wellbeing through horticultural training, and was awarded four stars. It includes naturalistic planting featuring foxgloves, sweet peas, lamb's ears and 'Splish Splash’ geraniums, as well as vegetables.
Spot mycelium in the show gardens
Chelsea gardens are increasingly putting repurposed and recycled elements centre stage, but one particularly interesting feature of two gardens this year is mycelium; a root-like fungal network used innovatively here to craft structural garden elements.
In Allon Hoskin and Robert Beaudin's Pathway Garden, pillar-like blocks were created with mycelium grown by fungi on waste from last year's RHS shows. In Tom Massey and Je Ahn's Avanade Intelligent Garden, the pavilion's mycelium wall panels are made from waste wood pulp inoculated with fungus, its complex networks reflecting AI's data pathways.
See Catherine's Rose in the Great Pavilion
Head to the Great Pavilion for a chance to see (and smell!) Catherine's Rose, bred by Harkness Roses and newly named this month by the RHS to celebrate the healing power of nature. It's a floribunda with coral-pink petals, and exudes a rich perfume with hints of Turkish Delight and mango.
Catherine's Rose is available to buy online, and £5 from each purchase goes to The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity, where the Prince and Princess of Wales are joint patrons.
Discover how the Colorado beetle threatens food security
Amongst the floral displays in the pavilion is the GreenSTEM section, showcasing horticultural science exhibits. One particularly important one is the Colorado Potato Beetle stand by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), which highlights the threat of this little creature to our food security, following the most recent outbreak in 2023.
Learn more about the beetle through information panels, interactive graphics and immersive elements, and spot the host plants in the central planter that can carry them into the UK.
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