Alan Titchmarsh urges Chelsea Flower Show to stop 'pandering' to environmentalists
Alan Titchmarsh warned Chelsea Flower Show judges not to award this year's Best in Show title to another wild garden after 2022 winner.
Alan Titchmarsh has urged Chelsea Flower Show judges to weed out trendy wild gardens and instead reward straight-forward green-fingered excellence.
The TV gardener and RHS vice president accused the show – the crown jewel in the horticultural calendar – of “pandering” to environmentalists, which could be a turn-off to many traditional growers.
And he warned judges not to award this year’s Best in Show title to another wild garden.
Last year’s winners of the coveted prize were Lulu Urquhart and Adam Hunt with their entry called A Rewilding Britain Landscape.
But Alan said it showed “no signs of gardening – except that it had been put together by gardeners”.
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He insisted the “prime aim” of the annual show should be to “celebrate horticultural excellence”.
“I can’t think of anyone who would argue with that,” he said, writing in Country Life magazine.
“It’s only that, sometimes, it is obscured by the need to demonstrate that gardeners are not dyed-in-the-wool traditionalists, but vibrant folk with a finger on the current environmentalist pulse.”
Alan continued: “I do worry about the dangers of pandering to current trends.... The judges of the show gardens need to remember that the thousands who attend the show enjoy beautiful plants and gardens they feel they want to be in even more than off-the-wall design ideas.”
This year’s show runs from Monday to Saturday, May 27.