RHS Nation in Bloom by Matthew Biggs

Author:Matthew Biggs [Biggs, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Even in 1930, Chelsea Flower Show was all about style – in clothes, accessories and different ways to train your bay.

RHS London shows

The vast cathedral-like spaces of the RHS Lawrence and Lindley Halls in Westminster are horticulture’s holy places, where past and present entwine. The halls provide a powerful link with the old days when legendary nurseries would create displays of flamboyant showmanship, tempting aristocrats to buy plants for their gardens from the paradise conjured up by the London shows. Until the early 1990s, the large rhododendron nurseries still staged breathtakingly beautiful and large-scale displays at the spring shows. There is a real sense of history and knowledge here.

Traditionally, the great shows were in the spring and autumn, when the plants favoured by the aristocracy reached their peak. Head gardeners arrived in spring with alpines, magnolias, rhododendrons and camellias. They returned for the Great Autumn Show with displays of leaves, berries and fruit, gathered from the arboreta of the likes of Lord Aberconway from Bodnant Gardens; the Rothschilds at Exbury; the Williamses of Caerhays; and from John Bond, Keeper of The Crown Estate, Windsor.

From the time the Lindley Hall opened in 1904 until the 1980s, the London shows were held fortnightly with a gap at Christmas and around the dates of the summer flower shows. After that time, there were various combinations, with around eight shows a year plus the RHS National Orchid Show in March and the RHS Great Autumn Show in October. There were also additional shows like the Landscape Show and the Christmas Shows from 1993 to 2001 – when exhibitors were seen in fancy dress and reindeer made an appearance – and the Urban Garden Show from 2016 to 2018. The regular shows took on various themes. For example, in 2006 there were Houseplants (January), Fashion in the Garden (February), Unusual Spring Bulbs (March), Tulips around the World (April) and Winter Greenery (November). Three London shows that year also featured botanical art. By 2012 this was concentrated in one show, usually in spring.

RHS committee members of a certain vintage go misty eyed at the recollection of past glories, particularly the early spring show, when the scent of bulbs regaled the senses as you set foot in the foyer of New Hall (as Lawrence Hall, completed in 1928, used to be called). It was similar in autumn, when the Lindley Hall was transformed into an oversized village show with hundreds of plates of colourful fruit, grown to perfection, and a ripe fragrance filled the hall.

Produce has always been a major feature in early October, at what has become known as the RHS London Harvest Show. In 2004, the bicentenary of the RHS was celebrated with a display of 200 different apples and pears. Another memorable occasion was the centenary of the 1883 National Apple Congress in 1983, which was observed with an exhibition of regional apples and a selection of pears from RHS Garden Wisley and the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale, Kent.

In October 2015, Adrian Baggaley

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