RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026 episode 1 opens with an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Press Day, one of the most anticipated days in the gardening calendar. Presenters Nicki Chapman and Angellica Bell are front and centre, guiding viewers through the spectacle as the show’s famous showgardens reveal themselves for the first time. It is the moment Chelsea watchers have been waiting for — and this year’s coverage promises to deliver both inspiration and practical guidance in equal measure.
Press Day at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show is unlike any other day on the horticultural calendar. Designers, growers, and exhibitors gather to showcase months of painstaking work, and the atmosphere crackles with anticipation. Nicki Chapman and Angellica Bell bring their characteristic warmth to the coverage, keeping viewers close to the action as each garden makes its public debut. Joining them is a team of experts ready to translate what they see into ideas that any gardener can take home.
Frances Tophill is among the first to share her expertise, and she has a compelling reason to be there. Tophill designed The RHS and The King’s Foundation Curious Garden, one of the standout commissions of the 2026 flower show. Having taken on such a distinctive brief, she speaks with genuine authority about the choices she made — from planting philosophy to spatial design. Her insight gives viewers a designer’s perspective on what it actually takes to create a garden that commands attention. The Curious Garden represents the kind of considered, purposeful design that Chelsea has always championed.
Garden design at this level is never accidental. Every plant, path, and planting combination serves a deliberate function, and Tophill’s involvement in the 2026 show illustrates how closely concept and craft must work together. Her conversation with the presenters peels back the finished surface to show the thinking underneath. For viewers planning their own outdoor spaces, that behind-the-scenes perspective is as useful as any practical tip.
Carol Klein brings a different kind of knowledge to this episode of RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026. A seasoned Chelsea contributor, Klein focuses her attention on something gardeners ask about every season — how to grow big, beautiful flowers throughout the summer months. Her tips and tricks are specific and actionable, drawn from years of hands-on experience. Klein understands that the gap between a good garden and a great one often comes down to the details: timing, feeding, deadheading, and knowing which varieties reward the extra effort.
Growing for maximum flowering impact across a whole season demands planning well before the first blooms appear. Klein walks viewers through the approach she relies on, offering guidance that applies whether the garden in question covers an acre or a single border. Her advice is grounded in practice, not theory. That directness is part of what makes her such a reliable presence at Chelsea — she speaks to gardeners as a gardener herself.
The flower show has always been a place where ambition meets expertise. What sets this episode apart is its structure: the combination of Tophill’s design-focused perspective and Klein’s seasonal growing knowledge gives viewers two distinct lenses through which to engage with the show. Nicki Chapman and Angellica Bell hold these threads together, ensuring the coverage moves at a pace that feels both exciting and digestible.
Viewer questions form a central part of the broadcast too. Throughout the episode, the expert team fields questions from the audience, addressing concerns and curiosities that reflect what gardeners across the country are actually grappling with. This format keeps the programme grounded. Rather than existing at a level of aspirational abstraction, the rhs chelsea coverage stays connected to the practical realities of real gardens and real growing seasons.
The decision to feature viewer questions alongside high-level garden design and expert growing advice is a smart one. Chelsea has always occupied a peculiar position — simultaneously the most prestigious flower show in the world and a genuine source of ideas for everyday gardeners. This episode leans into that duality. The prestige is there in Tophill’s commissioned garden and in the spectacle of Press Day. The accessibility is there in Klein’s summer flowering guidance and in the questions that come in from viewers at home.
RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026 episode 1
For anyone who follows the flower show each year, this opening episode sets the tone clearly. Nicki Chapman and Angellica Bell establish a coverage style that is engaged and knowledgeable without feeling remote. The experts they bring with them — Tophill on design, Klein on growing — represent the two pillars that make Chelsea enduringly relevant: the vision of what a garden can be, and the practical knowledge of how to get there.
RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026 arrives at a moment when interest in garden design and outdoor spaces continues to run high. Press Day is the ideal entry point — chaotic, colourful, and full of the energy that only comes when months of preparation finally meets the public eye. This episode captures that energy while grounding it in the kind of expert guidance that sends viewers back to their own gardens with renewed purpose. Carol Klein, Frances Tophill, Nicki Chapman, and Angellica Bell together make a strong case that Chelsea remains the flower show that matters most.
RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026 episode 1
Press day at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026 episode 1 arrived with all the electricity that only the world’s most famous flower show can generate. Nicki Chapman and Angellica Bell opened proceedings from the showground as the floral displays and meticulously crafted show gardens caught the attention of the world’s media, setting the tone for a week dedicated to one central theme: how to make a real impact with your green space, whatever its size. From bold borders and cascading water features to transformative recycled materials and centuries of royal tradition, the 2026 show delivered ideas and inspiration in generous abundance.
The episode was anchored by expert guidance from across the horticultural world. Frances Tophill unveiled her landmark design — The RHS and The King’s Foundation Curious Garden — a commission built on biodiversity, sustainability, and royal collaboration. Carol Klein scoured the showground to identify the summer’s most beautiful standout plants, from peonies to agapanthus. Design expert Toby Buckland decoded the principles behind high-impact garden spaces, both grand and compact. And the Chelsea Garden Clinic opened its doors for the first time, fielding real questions from gardeners across the country. Together they built a programme brimming with practical intelligence, beauty, and genuine horticultural depth.
RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026 Press Day Opens to a World Watching
Press day at Chelsea is unlike any other day in the British gardening calendar. The show gardens are complete, the Great Pavilion is packed with specimens refined to perfection, and an entire global media presence descends on the Royal Hospital grounds in search of the season’s defining images and ideas. The RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026 episode 1 captured that charged atmosphere from its opening moments, with Nicki Chapman and Angellica Bell greeting viewers from the heart of the action.
The show’s theme this year sharpened itself around impact — the idea that every garden, regardless of scale, can create a powerful and lasting impression. Bright flowers and water features dominated the visual landscape of the showground. Statement plantings commanded attention. But the hosts were equally clear that none of this required a vast budget or a sprawling plot. A patio, a container, a balcony: every space was considered fair territory for transformation.
What gave the episode its texture and momentum was the interplay between the grand ambitions of the show gardens and the grounded, practical advice threading through every segment. Chelsea has always been aspirational. The best coverage of it has always made that aspiration feel achievable.
The Children’s Society Garden and the Japanese Art of Making Something New
The first stop for design expert Toby Buckland was The Children’s Society Garden, a space designed by Martin Kluck that immediately challenged assumptions about what luxury looks like. The garden possessed genuine visual drama — impact delivered not by extravagance but by ingenuity.
Kluck’s concept drew directly from Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken objects with gold and celebrating imperfection rather than hiding it. Applied to garden design, the philosophy translated into reclaimed and repurposed materials given new life through careful craftsmanship. The paving that appeared to have come from an Italian showroom was, in fact, salvaged municipal stone — sliced, polished with olive oil, and transformed into something that looked genuinely expensive. A structural steel frame, also recycled, served as a design element in its own right, catching the light and giving the garden its bones.
Toby’s message was direct: to be a “design magpie” is to look at salvaged and discarded materials differently. The frame around any composition gives it definition. A water feature, meanwhile, does not need to exist at Chelsea scale to carry its weight. Sound, reflection, fragrance amplified by moving air — these are the gifts a water element brings to even a modest outdoor space. Less, as Toby noted, is sometimes more. You do not need to fill every border to create impact.
How to Create a Garden Full of Colour — Sue Kent’s Guide for First-Time Growers
Garden designer Sue Kent delivered an elegantly structured primer on using colour to transform any green space, with particular focus on annuals as the entry point for beginning gardeners. The logic was economical and encouraging: annuals complete their entire lifecycle in one growing season, which means the investment of a single seed packet produces a generous and sustained display.
Pot marigolds led her recommendations for beginners. Large, easy-to-handle seeds that produce ornamental and edible flowers — they plant sunshine into any space and are forgiving in almost every garden condition. Cosmos came next, a plant many assume exists only in pink and white. In reality, the range of cosmos varieties includes shapes and forms of considerable ingenuity. Pinwheel pink turns its petals inward to form tubes. Fondant fancy fuses petals into a bowl-like cup. Compact varieties suit containers, taller forms fill and lift borders. The non-negotiable task with cosmos is regular deadheading, which keeps them flowering continuously through summer.
Nigella — love-in-the-mist — completed her selection. Free-draining soil and a sunny position are all it requires. Scatter seeds into damp ground, step back, and wait for the filigree leaves and floating flowers to appear. A note of restraint applies: do not remove every flower head, because the seed heads that follow will scatter themselves and begin the cycle again the following year. One seed packet, generously managed, effectively becomes perpetual.
Carol Klein on the Summer Standouts That Keep Gardens Beautiful from May to Autumn
Carol Klein’s contribution to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026 episode 1 was one of its most substantial, a survey of plants that deliver maximum visual impact across the full arc of the British summer — beginning at Chelsea’s own late May moment and extending into the warmth of early autumn.
She opened with peonies, which she positioned as the peak of early summer perfection. Fleeting, yes — but while in flower, they demand every ounce of attention. Their petals carry the translucent quality of tissue paper. Their colours begin concentrated and fade through the season to softer, subtler hues. Nothing in the garden rivals their impact at their moment of peak bloom.
As summer progresses, Carol turned attention to verbascums — specifically a fairly recent introduction called Clementine. The spikes and spires of the verbascum produce flowers that continue for months, requiring only decent drainage and a sunny position. They are structurally distinct in a way that adds vertical interest to borders where everything else sits at the same level.
For late summer, agapanthus offered a different kind of grandeur. Carol described their colour range as evoking the oceans of the world — the deepest Pacific blues, the brilliant Aegean, the white froth of breaking waves. They grow perfectly well in pots for anyone without a garden, and their presence in a container can transform a terrace. The lesson threading through her entire tour: with careful planning across these three plant groups, a British garden can carry beautiful, dramatic blooms from spring’s end through to the first frosts.
The One Show Rose and the Rose Advice Every Gardener Needs
One of the more celebratory moments of the episode came at the Peter Beales Roses stand, where Nicki Chapman met The One Show’s Alex Jones and Roman Kemp alongside head rosarian Ian Limmer. The occasion was the launch of a new rose created to mark The One Show’s 20th anniversary — a bloom combining the show’s signature pink and red with a yellow centre in recognition of Children in Need. Alex Jones, who moved to the countryside partly to give her children garden space, already had a spot earmarked in her border.
The conversation with Ian Limmer yielded some of the episode’s most practically useful rose advice. Beginners, he explained, have little to fear. Roses want to grow. The priorities in the first year are consistent watering and regular liquid feeding — tomato feed works perfectly well, because the balance of nutrients it provides encourages flowering rather than excessive foliage. Rely on rainfall alone and the roots will not establish properly. Water once a week through the summer and the plant will build the foundation for years of reliable performance.
On variety selection for shaded positions — a common garden challenge — Limmer recommended Rosa de la Haye and Ivor’s Rose, both capable of flourishing in less sunny aspects. The shrub roses, he noted, tend to have a more relaxed, open habit than modern hybrid teas and can adapt to a wider range of conditions. The maintenance burden, once past that first year, is genuinely low. Pruning is straightforward. Established roses require little beyond a seasonal feed and the occasional deadhead.
Balcony and Small-Space Gardening — Flo’s Clever Zone-Based Blueprint
For those working with confined outdoor spaces, a segment from one of the show’s balcony gardens offered some of the most transferable design thinking of the entire episode. The principle Flo presented was the zone system: dividing even a small balcony into distinct areas with distinct purposes rather than treating it as a single undifferentiated space.
On the balcony she explored, one side dedicated itself to productivity — a potting table for seedlings, a second surface for potting on and nurturing, modular containers on the floor at various stages of growth. A pomegranate tree in a substantial pot provided height and divided the space without blocking it. Height, specifically, was identified as one of the critical tools in compact garden design: it lifts the eye, creates a sense of scale, and uses vertical space that would otherwise go to waste.
The opposite side was given over to relaxation — quality outdoor furniture within reach of all the growing activity, positioned so that sitting and gardening felt like one continuous experience rather than two competing uses of the same space.
A pergola at the back demonstrated the potential of vertical structures, with a grapevine trained across it to create canopy and shade. For those unwilling to commit to a full pergola, Flo offered a budget-conscious alternative: garden wires or tension wires achieve essentially the same effect at a fraction of the cost, providing support for sweet peas, roses, or anything else that scrambles. A curved raised bed completed the productive zone, planted with cabbage, pak choi, fennel, and perennials. Nasturtiums trailing at the edges provided edible colour. The philosophy was integration: edibles and ornamentals together, productivity and beauty as inseparable partners.
Frances Tophill and The RHS and King’s Foundation Curious Garden
The most emotionally resonant moment of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026 episode 1 came when Nicki Chapman walked into Frances Tophill’s debut Chelsea garden — The RHS and The King’s Foundation Curious Garden. The relief, the disbelief, the pride in Tophill’s face as she stood in the completed space were all entirely evident.
The commission itself was remarkable: a collaboration with His Majesty The King, David Beckham, and Alan Titchmarsh, shaped by the King’s well-documented commitment to sustainable practices, biodiversity, and his deep belief in the connection between people and plants. Tophill spoke candidly about the weight of that responsibility. The RHS and the King’s Foundation as dual commissioners made the stakes even higher. But the collaboration itself, she said, had been genuinely rewarding — Alan Titchmarsh a steadying presence throughout, David Beckham closely engaged with the plant choices, showing a genuine curiosity that went beyond the surface.
The garden’s concept centered on what Tophill called a Museum of Curiosities — a space designed not just to be looked at, but to be explored. Drought-tolerant herbs were planted in pots with gravel to provide the free drainage they need in what is a wet climate where she lives. Pomegranate trees, not entirely hardy in British conditions, were included as an expression of ambition. Flowering broccoli was left to bolt deliberately, its blooms serving as a pollinator magnet. Vegetables were placed front and centre rather than hidden in a utility corner, a statement about their inherent beauty and value.
Tophill also disclosed a detail that became a minor talking point of the episode: a garden gnome placed in a prominent position. The Chelsea gnome ban, lifted for only the second time in the show’s history in 2026, was acknowledged in the garden through the King’s own well-known habit of hiding a gnome somewhere in his garden each year, with gardeners moving it to different spots. Given that the King was due to tour the showground later that evening with members of the Royal Family — on BBC Two from eight o’clock — the detail carried a particular charm.
Multi-Stem Trees Transform Ordinary Borders into Living Sculpture
Toby Buckland returned to the showground for a second design masterclass, this time focused on the transformative potential of trees in garden borders — a pairing many gardeners overlook. Standing in a garden designed by Christina Cobb, surrounded by birdbaths, water features, a greenhouse and borders brimming with plants, Toby directed attention to the trees. Specifically, to multi-stem trees.
A hazel, a hornbeam, a spindle bush — all native hedgerow plants, all grown as multi-stem specimens. Where a single-trunk tree offers one line and one canopy, a multi-stem tree creates multiple lines from the ground upward, the stems growing together to produce what Toby described as a living sculpture. The visual effect of five trunks is categorically different from one. The branching structure filters light differently. The overall silhouette possesses a complexity that reads as mature and dramatic even when the specimens themselves are relatively young.
The technique for creating a multi-stem tree from scratch is accessible: plant five hazel saplings in the same hole, and allow them to grow upward together. Alternatively, an overgrown or gloomy evergreen shrub already in the garden can be converted by crown lifting — removing the lower branches up to the canopy level and allowing light to flood in at ground level. Toby called this “showing some knee,” a technique he had used during his nursery years. The benefit beyond visual impact is layering: at ground level, an underplanting of silver-leaved plants like lavender and catnip, tap-rooted plants like foxgloves and fennel, spreading geraniums, and self-sowers creates a complete, self-sustaining composition beneath the tree canopy.
The Chelsea Garden Clinic Answers Gardeners’ Most Pressing Questions
A new feature of the 2026 broadcast — the Chelsea Garden Clinic — gave the episode an interactive dimension, with Toby Buckland answering real questions submitted by viewers through WhatsApp and social media under the hashtag #ChelseaGardenClinic.
The best British native plant for impact? Foxgloves — the Chelsea favourite, a biennial that sows itself into position one year and flowers the next with tall, plump spikes that fill borders beautifully and provide a remarkably tactile quality. They are, as Toby put it, dead easy.
For Angela Rippon’s question about maintaining a city garden through winter, the answer centred on evergreens. Shaped into balls, grown in window boxes, combined into a tapestry of different colours and textures — evergreen shrubs and soft-leaved perennial herbaceous plants keep a garden alive and visually interesting on even the darkest, grimmest days of January and February.
A jasmine houseplant that had stopped flowering after two years of producing only leaves received a characteristically direct prescription: shock it back into bloom by moving it outside, feeding it with tomato fertiliser, and giving it a light prune. Overwatering and overfeeding are the most common causes of houseplants abandoning their flowers in favour of foliage. Being a little meaner with water and food is often the intervention that breaks the cycle.
A struggling trailing rosemary presented a harder verdict. When a pot plant dries out completely and becomes bound, water struggles to penetrate and the plant swings between drought and saturation — a cycle from which recovery is difficult. Toby’s advice was bracingly honest: take cuttings and begin again. Drop a rosemary cutting on the floor and it will root. A handful of cuttings in a single pot will outperform the original plant, as long as watering is maintained and the pot is repotted occasionally. Be brave. Plants sometimes need a reboot, and rosemary is particularly suited to it.
Dame Elaine Paige, Daffodils, and the Next Generation of Horticultural Talent
The episode also made room for warmth and celebrity connection. Dame Elaine Paige — whose career across Evita, Cats, and Chess spans more than fifty years — revealed a lifelong love of gardening that began in a maisonette on Barnet High Street, where her family kept pots in the absence of a garden.
The family later moved to East Barnet, where her mother built a rockery, her father tended a lawn he aspired to match Wimbledon’s courts, and an apple tree produced fruit for pies. A life spent largely in theatres and recording studios — indoors and in the dark, as she described it — made outdoor green space feel genuinely restorative. She now tends four small terraces at her London flat, following the sun around the apartment through the day and looking out across Battersea Park in full bloom.
At the Great Pavilion, a visit to the National Collection of daffodils introduced a quieter form of Chelsea excitement. Grower Adam — pursuing what would be his 33rd consecutive gold medal — discussed the new varieties introduced for 2026, including Wordsworth Golden, created to mark the National Garden Scheme centenary, and Hever Castle, named in honour of the castle’s famous daffodil festival. The extended season of daffodils — from January to May, with the peak in March and April — means successive varieties can carry that burst of yellow through the darkest months of late winter and into early spring.
Finally, four social media gardeners arrived at Chelsea for the first time — Eli Appleby-Donald, Izwe Nkosi, Jude Lamph, and Naomi Saunders — all discovered through a BBC, RHS, and TikTok search for the hottest horticultural talent online. Their reactions captured the show’s enduring power: a Japanese garden stopped Jude in his tracks. Naomi hunted for the perfect knobbly cactus. Eli found inspiration in unexpected edibles. Izwe surveyed the whole showground with the eyes of someone building a business.
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026 episode 1 made clear, again, why this event commands the attention it does. It is not only a display of horticultural excellence. It is a conversation between generations, between experts and beginners, between the grandest gardens on earth and the smallest balcony in a city somewhere waiting to be transformed.
FAQ RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026 episode 1
Q: What is the theme of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026?
A: The 2026 show centres on making an impact with your green space, whatever its size. Bright flowers, bold water features, and statement planting dominated the showground, but the core message was that impact is achievable for any gardener — whether working with a large border, a balcony, a patio, or a container.
Q: Who designed The RHS and King’s Foundation Curious Garden at Chelsea 2026?
A: Frances Tophill designed The RHS and The King’s Foundation Curious Garden, a collaboration involving His Majesty The King, David Beckham, and Alan Titchmarsh. The garden celebrates biodiversity and sustainability, featuring pomegranate trees, drought-tolerant herbs in gravel-topped pots, flowering broccoli for pollinators, and a Museum of Curiosities concept encouraging visitors to explore plants hands-on.
Q: What are the best plants for keeping a garden colourful all summer long?
A: Plant expert Carol Klein recommends starting with peonies in late spring for dramatic early impact, followed by verbascums — particularly the variety Clementine — which flower for months given decent drainage and sun. For late summer, agapanthus delivers bold blues and whites and grows well in pots. Together, these three plant groups can carry a garden from May through to early autumn.
Q: How do you grow roses successfully if you have never grown them before?
A: Roses are more straightforward than their reputation suggests. Water them consistently in the first year to establish roots, and feed with tomato fertiliser, which encourages flowers rather than excessive foliage. Once established, they need far less attention. Shrub roses such as Ivor’s Rose and Rosa de la Haye also perform well in shaded positions, making them versatile options for most gardens.
Q: What are the best budget-friendly ways to make a garden look expensive?
A: The Children’s Society Garden at Chelsea 2026, designed by Martin Kluck, demonstrated the power of reclaimed materials. Municipal paving stones, sliced and polished with olive oil, looked indistinguishable from premium stone. Recycled steel framing added structure and caught the light beautifully. Sound from even a small water feature adds atmosphere. Simple, restrained planting often creates more impact than a crowded border.
Q: How do you design a small balcony garden for both growing and relaxing?
A: Divide the space into zones — one side for productivity with potting tables and modular containers, the other for relaxation with quality outdoor furniture. Add height using a pomegranate tree or similar container specimen to lift the eye and divide the space without blocking it. A pergola or simple tension wires supporting a grapevine or sweet peas create canopy and shade without significant cost.
Q: What is the easiest annual flower to grow from seed for a first-time gardener?
A: Pot marigolds are an excellent starting point — the seeds are large, easy to handle, and produce ornamental flowers that are also edible. Nigella (love-in-the-mist) is equally simple, needing only free-draining soil and a sunny spot. Scatter the seeds into damp ground and they self-sow, returning year after year. Cosmos are another reliable choice, flowering prolifically through summer when deadheaded regularly.
Q: How do you transform an ordinary garden shrub into a statement multi-stem tree?
A: Crown lifting — removing the lower branches up to the canopy — turns a gloomy evergreen shrub into a light-filled living sculpture. Alternatively, plant five hazel saplings in the same hole and allow them to grow together; over time they develop the appearance of a mature multi-stem specimen. The technique keeps overall height manageable while creating striking structural drama and valuable layering space beneath.
Q: Why has my jasmine houseplant stopped flowering and how do I get it to bloom again?
A: Overwatering and overfeeding push jasmine into producing foliage at the expense of flowers. Move the plant outside to give it a shock, reduce watering to dry it out slightly, feed with tomato fertiliser, and give it a light prune. The change in conditions interrupts the constant foliage production and redirects the plant’s energy back into flowering. Consistency with the new, leaner regime is key.
Q: What is the significance of gnomes being allowed at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026?
A: Gnomes have been banned at Chelsea for over a hundred years, making their return for only the second time ever a notable moment in the show’s history. The 2026 lifting of the ban connects directly to The King’s Foundation garden, as His Majesty is known to keep a gnome that his gardening team moves to different spots each year. Frances Tophill included one in a prominent position within her garden design.
