Today, I’ll be at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show Press Day and I’m so looking forward to seeing all the exhibits and gardens! Every blog post this week will be Chelsea related and I thought that I’d start with details of florists who are involved in this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Chelsea in Bloom and Chelsea Fringe.
RHS CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW
Larry Walshe has been commissioned again by M&G Investments to create this wonderful floral dress above to celebrate their seventh consecutive year as title sponsor of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. It features over 2,000 Peruvian ferns, spray roses, achillea, alstroemeria, dahlias and gloriosa lilies. Here’s a link to a video showing the making of the dress. And Larry will be creating another spectacular design which will be revealed in Cleve West’s woodland themed show garden today.
As mentioned previously on Flowerona, Veevers Carter are creating New Covent Garden Flower Market‘s debut stand at the show. Titled ‘Behind every great florist’, their exhibit is the story of two sides bound together : London’s famous wholesale Flower Market on one side and its customers, independent florists, on the other.
This year, the RHS will celebrate the 90th birthday of HM The Queen with floral arches at both the Bull Ring and London Gate entrances to the show. The primary arch, by leading designer Shane Connolly, will span the iconic Bull Ring gate entrance, while its sister arch will welcome visitors to the London Gate. Shane will be using all British blooms donated by UK growers and the arch will be installed with the help of design students from several UK colleges.
Joseph Massie has designed an installation using 5,000 fresh-cut roses and 1,000 preserved rose petals suspended in the air to create a romantic, sensory tunnel. The five different types of fresh rose varieties from Meijer Roses include Sweet Avalanche, Pearl Avalanche and White Avalanche. The roses and preserved rose petals will dry naturally over the course of the week and will be recycled into new artworks after the show has finished. The design, entitled ‘Rosa’, will be 20 metres long by 10 metres wide and suspended four metres above the ground. It will be beneath the Rock Bank restaurant, which connects Main Avenue and Ranelagh Way.
Today, Simon will be creating the royal posies as he did last year. But this year, he will also be filmed doing so by the BBC. Helping him make the posies will be two residents from Angell Town in Brixton, Joshua and Travesha. Angell Town is part of the Greening Grey Britain campaign by the RHS.
Tomorrow, Simon will be a roving reporter with Jo Good on her show live on BBC Radio London from 1pm–4pm. Then, after being interviewed himself on national radio on Thursday, Simon returns to Chelsea on Friday to be filmed with Nicki Chapman for the BBC and he’ll be creating the ‘Best of Chelsea’ in a vase.
Simon is also contributing floral displays to the Daily Telegraph stands and he will be creating a container of flowering plants to represent what you could grow at home to give you a weekly vase of flowers through the summer months for Ann-Marie Powell’s RHS garden.
Tina Parkes | The Academy of Floral Art
Tina, one of the Directors of the Academy of Floral Art will be taking part in the ‘RHS Chelsea Florist of the Year 2016’ competition, where the candidates are required to design and create a floral Brazilian Carnival Headdress in honour of the Olympics. The Academy of Floral Art is delighted that out of the 16 candidates, they also have three past students exhibiting: Amanda Winsor, Caroline Crabb and Sherrie Phelps.
Good luck to all the florists taking part in the ‘RHS Chelsea Florist of the Year 2016’ and ‘RHS Chelsea Young Florist of the Year 2016’ competitions!
CHELSEA IN BLOOM
This year’s Chelsea in Bloom theme is ‘Carnival’ inspired by the Rio de Janeiro Carnival. Here are details of just a few of the florists involved.
Larry Walshe | The White Company
White wooden plantation shutters will adorn The White Company window and appear to have been veritably ‘flung’ open by a baby elephant, crafted from moss and embellished with white bead and crystal detailing. The surrounding scene, seeks inspiration from flora and fauna indigenous to Brazil and features large tropical plants and suspended foliage.
Larry Walshe | 11 Cadogan Gardens
Larry and his team have created a large and theatrical tropical cascade featuring a range of textural and exotic flowers and foliage that will tumble from the first floor of the building to the ground below. From here, a vibrant carnival parrot will ‘burst’ from the building.
CHELSEA FRINGE
From 23rd – 28th May, Neill Strain invites members of the public to visit his store which will host an exceptional variety of Vanda and Phalaenopsis Orchids sourced from bespoke growers in Holland.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this insight into florists taking part in this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Chelsea in Bloom and Chelsea Fringe. I’ll be sharing photos and videos from the show this week on Flowerona, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google+ and of course, Snapchat!
