Kate follows in royal footsteps with Chelsea Flower Show debut

Kate follows in royal footsteps with Chelsea Flower Show debut

The Duchess of Cambridge is not the only member of the royal family to stage a garden for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016
Kate, William and Harry at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2016 (Alpha Press/PA)

The B&Q Sentebale ‘Forget-me-Not’ Garden by designer Jinny Blom aimed to raise awareness of work to help children who are victims of poverty and the HIV/Aids epidemic in Lesotho.

RHS Chelsea Flower Show
Harry gives the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duke of Edinburgh a tour of the B&Q Sentebale Forget-Me-Not Garden at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2013 (Geoff Pugh/PA)

Blom said it symbolised Harry’s loss over the death of his mother and represented a memorial to Diana, Princess of Wales. It won a silver gilt medal.

In 2015, Harry took a keen interest in another Sentebale garden – this time by Matt Keightley, who took inspiration from a children’s centre the charity was building in Lesotho.

2015 RHS Chelsea Flower show
Harry takes the Queen on a tour of the Sentebale garden in 2015 (Julian Simmonds/The Daily Telegraph/PA)

In 2002, his Healing Garden – dedicated to his grandmother the Queen Mother in the year of her death – was awarded the Silver Flora medal in the Best Show Garden category.

Prince at Flower Show
The Prince of Wales looks at the Healing Garden, which he helped to design in 2002 (Toby Melville/PA)

In 2001, the heir to the throne also scooped a silver medal for an Arabic-influenced Carpet Garden, which drew on his interests in Islamic culture.

Chelsea Flower Show carpet
Garden designer Mike Miller puts the finishing touches to the Prince of Wales’ Islamic garden in 2001 (John Stillwell/PA)

The royal family visit the Chelsea Flower Show each year en masse.

RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016
The Queen next to a regal floral exhibit by the New Covent Garden Flower Market during the RHS Chelsea Flower Show just weeks after her 90th birthday (Adrian Dennis/PA)

They will use wild planting and natural materials to provide visitors with a “sense of wonder and magic”.

But the event will not be Kate’s final foray into show gardening.

She will also co-design two further RHS Gardens with the same team, maintaining many of elements from the garden at Chelsea, for the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival in July and the RHS Garden Wisley in Surrey in the autumn.

– Advertisement –
– Advertisement –