A King, a Queen, a Princess and a host of children and celebrities attended London’s Chelsea Flower Show last week. There was also a wedding, when Manoj Malde, an ambassador for inclusivity at the Royal Horticultural Society, married Clive Gillmor in a traditional Hindu ceremony – the first time that the annual event, now in its 110th year, had hosted a same-sex wedding. Over the next 19 pages, we celebrate all the show has to offer.
REPORT: EMILY NASH
T he Princess of Wales made a surprise appearance at the first day of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Chelsea Flower Show, joining London school pupils for the annual event’s first Children’s Picnic.
Kate met youngsters from ten schools taking part in the RHS’s Campaign for School Gardening as they sat down to eat, before visiting three of this year’s show gardens with them. The Children’s Picnic, which is planned to be an annual event, was inspired by a conversation she had with the RHS in 2019 about involving more children in the show, following the success of her Back to Nature Garden .
Looking elegant in a pink dress by Me+Em, the mother of three sat on a picnic blanket with children from St Augustine’s Catholic Primary School in Hammersmith, asking: “Are any of you keen gardeners? Do you get the chance to plant things at school?
“What sort of things do you grow and then do you get to eat them? It’s so rewarding, isn’t it, when you see plants growing and then you have them on your plate.”
EXPERT KNOWLEDGE
The children discussed vegetables and herbs, and the Princess told them: “There’s a plant that smells like chocolate. I remember my granny showing me that when I was little. It has very dark leaves and you rub it and it smells like chocolate.”
Told that the pupils were growing sunflowers at school, she said: “They get so big, don’t they? [Her youngest child] Louis is growing broad beans at school. You put them in a cup and you can see the roots growing. They get big quickly, like sunflowers.”
Picking up on a favourite theme, Kate extolled the virtues of spending time outdoors, telling the children: “It’s so good for our bodies and our minds.”
She joined another group from Alec Reed Primary School in Northolt to discuss flowers and plants, admitting: “Lots of the names are in Latin and I can never remember them.”
She asked the children: “Is this different
