Children centre stage at Chelsea Flower Show as green issues high on agenda

Children are taking centre stage at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show, which is being billed as “one of the greenest” in years with a focus on sustainability and the climate crisis. The King and Queen, and celebrities will get the first glimpse of this year’s event run by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) in London on Monday, before the world famous show opens to the public on Tuesday. But it is children who are getting a special role at Chelsea this year, with a “no adults allowed” garden co-designed by a group of primary school pupils and the chance to judge the show gardens as junior judges for the first time. Charles will visit the show’s first garden to be designed by children, where adults who want to see it must pledge to plant a tree to help the environment, donate to the RHS school gardening campaign, or find a flower that starts with the first letter of their name. The deal to let grownups on the RHS no adults allowed garden, which is not being judged, if they make one of the three pledges, was secured after what was described as “tough negotiating” by the charity’s director general Clare...

Read more