A Day of the Legendary Chelsea Garden Show

literally been dreaming of all the flowers I know Have to have

Author

Shane Cultra
May 30, 2025

Heaven for Gardeners (Before the Real One)

Hi there,

Sorry about missing last week. I was in London taking in the Chelsea Garden Show and figured it would be worth the wait to push the newsletter a week. Hope you had a great two weeks gardening in the meantime. The vegetables are probably starting to yield for some of you. I know my garden is in full glory, or at least I thought it was until I went to the show and saw what perfection looks like.

If you love plants, odds are the Chelsea Garden Show in London is on your bucket list. If it’s not, it should be. The show is 114 years old and widely considered the best garden show in the world. There’s a cost if you’re coming from the States—the flight, the hotel, and everything else you’ll want to do while you’re there but as a gardener, it’ll be one of your best spends of the decade. Just be ready to come home with a list of 100 new plants you “need.”

I’ve been growing plants for 30 years, and my first thought at Chelsea was: How in the world do they get every plant to look this perfect? Not only does every plant look amazing, but they stay that way for a full week. I might be able to pull off one great day, but seven? My only guess is they have truckloads of backup plants to swap in. I didn’t see a single wilted leaf. At any other garden show, there are always a few rough-looking plants, which we usually blame on the trip in or the setup. Not here. Chelsea is flawless. You’ll want every single plant and every single piece of hardscape.

I took my mom, who’s just as obsessed with gardening as I am. It was a bucket list item for her too, and we knocked out two birds with one trip. I’ll say this, if my mom had a million dollars walking into the show, she’d have had zero walking out. She’d have bought a second home just to have space for all the plants she wanted. Her “I wants” reminded me of taking my daughter to the Disney Store when she was five. And honestly, Chelsea is Disney for gardeners.

I’d heard people dress up for the show, and they did—but not in the way I expected. No big hats or Kentucky Derby costumes. Just smart, casual style. No shorts, no t-shirts. A lot of great hats, but nothing over the top. Stylish and classy, just like London.

The show breaks into three main parts:

1. The Show Gardens:
Picture an empty lot transformed into a mature, themed garden with trees, hardscape, and sometimes full buildings. Some feel like backyards, others like city balconies. It’s hard to believe these spaces aren’t permanent. They look like they’ve been there for decades.

2. The Great Pavilion (Display Tent):
This is plant heaven. A massive tent packed with perfect examples of tulips, delphiniums, clematis, succulents, roses, bonsai. Each section more jaw-dropping than the last. I’ve never seen begonias that big, delphiniums that tall, or clematis that floriferous. I filled my entire memory card in this tent alone.

3. The Vendor Section:
A quarter-mile of high-end garden booths. This is where your wallet gets a workout. Want a handmade greenhouse? Dozens to choose from. A floral tapestry made with needlepoint instead of print? It’s there. The best makers in the world show up with their best work. I walked away with a tiny flower bud holder that actually got a “how cute” from my wife when I got home…..a rare win.

A few tips if you go:

  • Stay in Battersea Power Station. It’s a short walk across the bridge to the show, has great food and shopping, and you can take the Uber Boat to other parts of London. It’s faster than the Tube and only a few bucks more.

  • Prepare to walk. You’ll easily cover five miles.

  • Pack for London weather. It might rain, then be sunny, then rain again. Bring a raincoat, snacks, and water.

  • Go early. Head straight to the display tent. It’s the only time of day you’ll get up close without battling a crowd.

Bottom line: if you love gardening, you’ll love Chelsea. I’ll go again. Might even organize a group tour next time. Because every gardener wants to see heaven—at least once—before the real one

The Chelsea Garden Show(and other Gardens) In Photos

Bare With Me. I Promise I Won’t Post all 5000 photos. Just a Few of My Favorites

I started the trip off with Kensington Palace. They have a beautiful garden trail and the Princess Diana Garden. Both are well done and despite having groundkeepers, I feel like they are gardens you could do yourself. They stuck to perennials and have issues like the rest of us. Weeds, plants that die. It was refreshing to see something so beautiful and know that I’m not the only one who battles. Beauty and reality

They used Lamium as a border for the shade garden, and it worked just beautifully with its contrasting white leaves

Diana’s garden is as beautiful as Diana was. The lilies in the pond lining up so nicely was a great touch. Another perfect English garden

Small Westminster Abbey Garden

Within the walls of Westminster is a courtyard with a few simple gardens. Gardens that epitomize an English garden. Small but full of plants. Utilizing the walls and small spaces. A combo of annuals, vegetables and perennials. This garden has been worked for 500 years and was a patio garden a couple of centuries before patio gardens became the hot trend.

The Show Flowers

I’ve grown hundreds of thousands of mums but these were next level. i thought they had stuck cut flowers into pots to get this effect. That would have been the easy thing, but this is Chelsea. I’m almost positive they grew the different types together and trimmed to allow the different types to appear in certain areas.

The Bonsai were as usual, stunning. Yet we all have the same thoughts, I’d love to borrow that, but no way do I want to be responsible for a 100 year plant. I’ll just enjoy the beauty

The best looking potentilla I’ve seen. This may be one plant I could take care of. Potentillas are pretty tough

We used to grow a lot of fuchsia but somewhere we stopped. When you see 100 hanging baskets that look like this, you want to grow them again

I love calla lilies but I had never seen this foliage in person. I see it in the magazines but never grown it myself. That might change

I wish I could have had something for scale in the photos and videos. These were 5 FEET tall and the begonias were a FOOT across. I stood in front of this section for 30 minutes taking it in. Perhaps the finest flowers I have ever seen. If I could get my begonias that large I would have 20 pots of them


Here is a nice video I took of the show. Make sure to follow the @botany Instagram for daily pictures and videos of my gardening life

We all love David Austin. They had this smelling station so you could smell the different fragrances that roses have. Also got a sneak preview of the new King Charles rose aka “The King’s Rose”. It smelled great but honestly it looked like a nice rugosa. One of the few things at the show I said “Meh”

This was my favorite color at the show. This Coral Sunset Peony vase of flowers. There were 25 other vases of Peony. Coming in to the show, Peony were one of my 5 favorite plants. After I left, it moved into my top 3. I’ll put a video of all of them on Instagram

I had never heard of Scadoxus or Blood lily. It looks like an allium on fire. Zone 9-11 so can’t plant like a normal bulb but treat it like other tropicals and mix it into pots and lanscaping for a neighbor stopping showcase

I had never seen Firewings open before. I had only seen pictures like poor quality photo below. To me, they are even prettier open, making them one of the best shows of color in the tulip world. A must add this fall

I could go on and on about the iris. This one, ‘Daring Deception’ caught my eye because the center was so light and the fringes match the center. Honestly, there were dozens I loved. I have one called ‘Raven’ in my yard that is a purple so dark it’s black, and they had a display of them that looked black from one angle and shimmery dark purple in other lighting. So glad I already have that one

I took this picture for the flat ‘Tab’ Aeonium. It was like a pancake. I would definitely sell out of these if we had had this one

The Hardscapes

I did a Facebook post about this gorgeous piece. If it were $5K I was going to buy it. It was $30K and I didn’t. A Sheik did. It was 6 feet tall and the handwork involved was so skilled. I knew it was not going to be $5,000 after looking closely. Stunning piece

I assumed these had rods in them to keep them stable. NOPE!!! 100% balanced and the team that made this does this for a living. Builds sculptures that are gravity based. I, like everyone else, thought you touch it and it falls. With hundreds of thousands of people passing by it has to be stable and safe. It was. It can take some pressure. Its not teetering. That being said, a big sign said “Do not lean on this” meaning it can still come down. I didn’t even ask how much it costs. I know I can get the rocks for a few thousand dollars but guessing it cost $20,000 to hire the talent to pick out THE rocks that balance with each other

From the same company as the Base Cello. These were $50,000 and made we want to become an artist. One because I wanted to have one of these in my yard. Two because I think I can make 4 of these a year. Not sure I can sell 4 of these a year is the issue

All I could think of when I saw this was all the rope we had sitting on the ground as we untied the trees. At the nursery, we probably had 10 of these piles. I never thought to dye the rope and make art. That’s why I’m a grower, not an artist

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND and thanks for reading…..it’s hard to capture the beauty of Chelsea but I hope it inspires you as much as I do to add a few more plants in the garden.

 


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