Monty Don calls Chelsea Flower Show competitions ‘meaningless’ and says gardeners should instead give their ‘hearts and souls’ to their creations

Gardeners should avoid ‘meaningless’ competitions such as the Chelsea Flower Show and instead give their ‘heart and soul’ to their creation, Monty Don has said.

The Gardeners’ World presenter dismissed the popular annual show as a ‘game’ with a ‘medal mentality’.

He questioned how good the carefully curated and exotic gardens were, despite accepting they were ‘joyously inspiring’.

Writing in Gardeners’ World magazine, Mr Don, 68, called the annual event a ‘game that has very high stakes and is taken very seriously’.

‘But it is a game nevertheless’, he said.

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show takes place in May and is visited by members of the Royal Family.

But the elaborate constructions seen on the show each year, which often include paving, structures and water features, in addition to several batches of flowers in case some fail, as well as PR, can cost up to hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The broadcaster, who has fronted the BBC’s gardening show for 18 years, added that gardens are about ‘people, not plants’, the Telegraph reported.

He said that although large sums of money  can create impressive landscapes, but that a ‘truly wonderful garden’ required personal attention.

The broadcaster said that money and rare plants were not required to create a special garden. Pictured: A show garden at Chelsea Flower Show 2024

The best gardens in Britain, and in the world, were are nurtured by ‘one or at most two people who have given their heart and soul to its creation’, he said.

Mr Don described Britain as a ‘nation of gardeners’, and that people rather than money, rare plants or wide space should not be required to create a special garden. 

This would be reassuring to those without millions to design a garden to ‘measure to our inner sense of grandeur’, the TV personality said.