RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016: Joyful displays launch with twirling trees and royal blooms

Sue Biggs, director general of the Royal Horticultural Society, said: "It’s time to put the fun back into gardening"
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A “fun, colourful and accessible” Chelsea Flower Show aims to put the joy back into gardening, organisers said today.

Members of the royal family and showbusiness stars were turning out in force for the opening gala, with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge making their first appearance to admire the Princess Charlotte chrysanthemum named after their daughter.

Sue Biggs, director general of the Royal Horticultural Society, said innovations included show gardens with multiple moving parts and a garden that, for the first time, all visitors can walk on. She said: “It’s time to put the fun back into gardening. Sometimes, there is real need to feel better about our own wonderful country and the world in general. Just looking these plants can make us feel better. Nobody does gardening to make themselves miserable. Everywhere you look you see people looking at the wonderful plants and smiling.”

The upbeat message was echoed by maverick TV gardener Diarmuid Gavin, who has designed a remarkable garden inspired by the drawings of cartoonist Heath Robinson. His Harrods British Eccentric Garden features pop-up flower beds, twirling bay trees, a hidden sundial reveals itself every 15 minutes and a rotating herb bed.

‘Sometimes, there is a real need to feel better about our wonderful country and the world in general’

&#13; <p>Sue Biggs, RHS director general</p>&#13;

Mr Gavin said: “We’re not exactly the judges’ favourites, perhaps what we do is too wacky or too individual, but gardening needs a sense of fun. It’s been a nightmare in some respects this year because the RHS has these huge restrictions on how far you can go down because of the sewers underneath. We can only go down 1.5 metres and it’s been very hard to accommodate all the machinery underneath. We just want to make people smile.”

Gardening stars were putting the finishing touches to the 17 show gardens this morning, ahead of visits by RHS judges and later by the Queen and Prince Harry, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and his daughters Beatrice and Eugenie and the Countess of Wessex.

The Great British Bake Off hostess and RHS ambassador Mary Berry, 81, is having a pale yellow rose named after her and an English shrub rose, Roald Dahl, marking 100 years since the author’s birth, is being launched by his widow Felicity.

Also being unveiled was a spectacular floral portrait of the Queen, in celebration of her 90th birthday year. The 10ft tribute in the shape of her head features 10,000 flowers, including roses, carnations, chrysanthemums, arum lilies, hyacinths, freesias, gerberas, gladioli, clematis and sweet peas and took a team of 35 people six months to create.

The exhibit marks the debut at the event of New Covent Garden Flower Market, which has for decades provided plants for Chelsea’s designers. Ming Veevers Carter, the tribute’s designer, said: “I’ve been coming to New Covent Garden Flower Market for many years and know first-hand how integral the market and its traders are to London’s florists.”

The Queen was also set to admire a stunning 21ft floral arch of 10,000 pastel blooms created by the RHS to mark her 90th birthday.

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