Update: although the week is over, you can catch up with the highlights of Virtual Chelsea online.
As The RHS Chelsea Flower Show had to be cancelled this year, Virtual Chelsea is the Royal Horticulture Societies’ morale boosting invitation to every gardener to immerse themselves in gardening online instead.
So, to ‘visit’ the Chelsea Flower Show in 2020, you don’t need a ticket, your most comfy shoes, to book a hotel or fly to England, and you won’t need to jostle with the crowds for the best view. RHS experts have curated a wide variety of special gardening features to share online during the week when the Chelsea Flower Show would normally be taking place.
If you love gardening, you’ll love Virtual Chelsea, whether your garden is massive, small or just few houseplants indoors or on a windowsill. We can look forward to demonstrations from the potting bench, to insights from award winning designers and celebrity florists, to virtual tours of private gardens and leading nurseries, and to spending time with plants people who specialise in many of our favourite plants. Horticulture experts will host daily lunchtime Q&A sessions to help us navigate some of the many gardening pitfalls so our fingers can get a little greener.
When is Virtual Chelsea?
While access to the virtual show is restricted to RHS Members on Monday 18th May as tradition dictates, from Tuesday 19th May to Saturday 23rd, the virtual show is thrown wide open for everyone around the world to join in free of charge. Once new daily features have been released, they will remain online all week so viewers can catch up at their own pace.
Six ways to get involved in Virtual Chelsea 2020
1. Watch and explore
The easiest way is to watch online at rhs.org.uk/Chelsea from Tuesday 19th May, read some of the articles and browse through pictures of award winning gardens and plants from recent shows. RHS members can register online to access Virtual Chelsea a day early.
2. Teach your children
Daily activities from the School Gardening Club include creating miniature allotments and floral front door decorations. On Monday, live at 11.30, astronaut Tim Peake will be sharing some gardening rocket science – his experience of growing rocket seeds in space. Everyone is welcome, not just kids!
3. Vote
Have your say by voting in the People’s Choice Awards from a shortlist of garden products of the year and plants and gardens of the decade. Results will be revealed on Saturday.
4. share
Social media buffs can join in the fun by using #RHSChelsea
5. Go back in time
A digital exhibition, Chelsea Stories, will take us through the history of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Highlights include Iconic Plants and The Show Must Go On about the trials and tribulations the show has survived and its onetime alternative title ‘The Chelsea Shower Flow’. You’ll find royal patron Her Majesty Elizabeth II in this section too.
6. Showcase your own garden
There’s still time to enter, but you’ve got to be quick! With plans for the prestigious show gardens thrown into disarray, those who live in the UK, Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are invited to fill the gap by entering their garden into the My Chelsea Garden competition. There are four categories:
- Back garden
- Front garden
- Indoor garden (e.g. balconies, windowsills, conservatories, terrariums, glasshouses, houseplants and indoor edibles)
- Kids’ corner garden (includes fairy gardens, container gardens and indoor growing)
The RHS have made it clear that they will not be judging the amount spent on the garden, or the technical quality of the picture sent to represent it (the photo should be unedited and taken between 1st and 18th May 2020). You’ll need to explain in 250 words or less how your garden is helping you in this very strange era. Entries close at midnight on Monday 18th May. Full terms and conditions can be found on the BBC One Show’s website.
My pick of the highlights of Virtual Chelsea
Monday 18th May
Raymond Evison’s clematis nursery
Growing a cutting garden in containers from plug plants
Chef Raymond Blanc on his beloved balcony herb garden
Advice on selecting perennials from Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants
Tuesday 19th May
Designer Sarah Eberle’s naturalistic, woodland garden
A tour of London’s public parks to find robust urban plants
Inside the greenhouses at David Austin Roses
Features on gladioli, acers and lilies and pressing flowers
Wednesday 20th May
Designer Ishihara Kazuyuki’s home garden in Japan.
Tips from Todd’s Botanics on growing show-worthy irises
Growing foxgloves with the Botanic Nursery
Thursday 21st May
A tour with Sarah Raven around her cutting garden at Perch Hill in East Sussex
The Chelsea Pensioners’ lockdown allotment garden
Secrets of growing vegetables at home
Friday 22rd May
Tom Massey’s mini-meadow: an organic, wildlife haven on a small scale
Designer Ann-Marie Powell’s Hampshire garden
Specialist grower Sienna Hosta’s giant plants
How to get the best from chilli pepper plants (I need this one!)
Saturday 23rd May
The UK’s oldest orchid nursery, McBeans Orchids
Chelsea Best in Show designer Andy Sturgeon’s own courtyard garden
How to propagate weird and wonderful houseplants
As a charity, RHS Chelsea has serious intent, but it’s more fun than you can imagine if you’ve never been, and genuinely exciting too. Everyone involved in Virtual Chelsea will be using it as their personal outlet for the passion and energy that makes the Chelsea Flower Show so special.
Virtual Chelsea might turn out to have been a once in a lifetime opportunity. Make a note to check it out in the week ahead so you can always say ‘I was there!’
Susan Rushton 
Thank you so much for sharing this.I have been to the Chelsea Flower Show many years ago. I will be taking a look for sure at the Virtual Show.
I hope it brings back some happy memories.
Thanks for the tip off. I shall definitely check in on Chelsea.
My pleasure – have fun!
That is virtually very cool Susan.
I’ve been trying to make a list of my fantasy Gardening Product Of The Year, but I’m not getting anywhere. They all end up sounding a little freaky.
Hi Susan,
I hope you do not mind, I have shared a link to your blog to the members of the Leicestershire and Rutland Gardens Trust.
Not at all – I’m very happy for you to spread the word, Steve!
Thanks for the heads up!
I enjoyed the discussion with Tim Peake on growing plants in space – the idea that the roots have no idea which way to go, and that green light is ‘wasted’ so they used pink.
Oh what fun. Always wanted to go to a flower show and now I will get my chance😊
I’m finding it more interesting as the days go on. I wonder what will happen when the show closes – whether it all just disappear or be archived for a while. I get the feeling it might disappear so we have to take a look while we can.
😊👍
Thanks for sharing! I will be taking a look.
You have to dig around the site to find the best bits. I enjoyed the astronaut talking about growing seeds in space. I once saw a tomato plant that had been grown from a seed that had been in space. The plant was not growing brilliantly, but at least it was growing!
I’ll be there, making plans and promises to myself that I’ll never keep. I’m short, plump and now silver-haired, but in my mind’s eye I’m always a tall, lanky, blonde. Same with my small garden, a long strip of raised bed, small patio with two side pieces, and lots of pots, which I seem to think is a half-acre plot with room for more and more plants (or was, when I was able to go to the nurseries).
Your comment made me smile. There are a good number of BBC programmes this week too, but not everyone around the world can get those.
Thank you for this information. I traveled to London last year but unfortunately I had booked my flight a week ahead of the the flower show and I was unable to change it. It will be do nice to visit virtually.
It is a long way from the bustle of the show, but it gives a very good flavour for the warmth and passion of those who take part.
And we can visit without the expense of trans-Atlantic flight.
I liked the ‘home made’ feel of some of the features too. I can imagine this becoming a regular thing.