Chelsea Flower Show

RHS Chelsea Flower Show is one of the highlights of the year for the lifestyle reading, horticultural enthusiast. We have featured many beautiful hotels, spas and destinations from across the globe with spectacular gardens for our readers to awe over, so it was only right for us to make our own trip to the biggest flower show of the year here in London and write an article for our readers situated across the world.
We emerged from Sloane Square tube station mid morning, prepared for the typically unpredictable English weather for the day ahead, umbrellas in hand. We followed the eager crowds in the direction of the show with a buzz of excitement in the air. Clouds parted and the sun appeared, so the temperature soared, queuing through the ticket barriers to the show we were in dire need of our first Pimms of the day.

The Great Pavilion

“Time for Tea” by Interflora

After a quick stop at the refreshment stands we made our way to the Great Pavilion, which showcases the larger magnificent displays of the show. There is far to many to tell you about each in this article that we marvelled over for the next couple of hours, so to name the top two that had us lost for words were the Interflora display and the Nong Nooch Tropical Botanical Garden’s display.

Interflora’s ‘Time for Tea’ was one of the top wonders of the show, a spectacular display celebrating 150 years of Alice in Wonderland. The display was the show stopper for its sheer magnitude and stunning floral arrangement incorporating a beautiful range of British grown flowers.

The magical scene created by the Nong Nooch Tropical Botanical Garden of Thailand included a pagoda and an elephant composed of hundreds of thousands of flowers of tropical orchids.

Exploring the Artisan Gardens

After Main Street, we escaped the hustle and bustle to make our way to the artisan retreats, a series of enchanting little hideaways that would have inspired the strongest of city dwellers into escaping London city life for a little piece of the country.

‘Inspired by Nature, Shaped by Steam’ was our highlight of the artisan retreats, inspired by the beauty and tranquillity of the designer Tom Raffield’s Cornish surroundings, it was a clear celebration of nature in its purest form. His work is particularly special because the stunning shapes in his work have all been created through using steam to bend the materials.

Personally we preferred exploring our way through the artisan gardens, the gold medal winning ‘A Trug Makers Garden’ by Future Climate Info was our personal favourite with its quintessentially English garden workshop, the kind of place you could relax for hours without a care in the world, pure tranquillity, flicking through the latest issue of lifestyle Magazine.

A glance at the exhibitors

Breaking out of the Artisan Gardens to snap back to reality, we found ourselves heading towards the stands of the luxury brands pitched at the show. We were pleasantly surprised, being the lifestyle-listing elite brand specialists that we are, making our way through the stands we spotted some of the exceptional niche brands that we have been keeping a close eye on as of lately.

Michael Michaud botanical-inspired jewellery Collection

The Michael Michaud Jewellery Collection is very elegant and powerful eye catching range of botanical-inspired jewellery, capturing all the beauty and exquisite details of nature the collection fits marvellously within the RHS Chelsea flower show. The work was commissioned by the exclusive leading museum the Château de Versailles.

The unique jewellery pieces are created using a slow and very specialist lost-wax casting mould technique, allowing the creator to copy the finest details of botanical elements into beautiful wearable piece of jewellery. Soft patinas on bronze accented with pearls, beads, coral and stones are used by the ingenious craft-man who work with precise attention to detail to create a true to nature botanical jewellery collection.

Dubarry of Ireland

Another exhibitor that particularly caught our attention was the 4 star award winner, Dubarry of Ireland.

Standing out among their fellow exhibitors, the Irish brand lived up to their reputation for excellent workmanship and quality, with a gorgeous display in line with the spirit of the Chelsea Flower show, bouquets of white flowers alongside their natural colour items representing the country lifestyle element of the brand.

Originally known for their hand crafted sailing and country leather boots, Dubarry’s range has expanded over the years to include clothing and accessories. Always working with the best of components and raw materials to ensure high performance and protection, Dubarry take inspiration for their unique designs from the heart of their homeland in Ireland.

The Irish brand will next be attending the South of England show on the 11 to the 13^thof June.

Our thoughts

The Chelsea Flower Show is a glorious day out for the Lifestyle Magazine UK reading horticulturist, back in our idyllic rural office location we have since found ourselves gazing out of the window dreaming of turning the surrounding farm land into an Ad Astra Lifestyle garden.