A trip to RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024

Yesterday we booked tickets to attend RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024. It’s a place we’ve wanted to visit for years and this was the year. We booked tickets for Thursday and were really thankful we had as day was warm and sunny (not like the days before). We dropped the youngest at school before heading into London for our day out.

A trip to RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024

The RHS, or Royal Horticultural Society is the UK’s leading gardening charity. They aim to enrich everyone’s life through plants, and make the UK a greener and more beautiful place. We have visited RHS Gardens Wisley before but were looking forward to visiting one of their Shows. RHS Chelsea and RHS Hampton Court are the best known, but they also have Shows at RHS Tatton Park and some of their other sites across the UK.

RHS Chelsea is all about the flowers so we were expecting to see some beautiful displays of flowers and some gardens, as well as lots of shops and places to eat. A quick 10 minute walk from Sloane Square station and we were there, buying an extortionately priced guide book just to be able to see a map.

RHS Chelsea takes place in the beautiful grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, the home of the iconic Chelsea Pensioners since 1692. Impressive.

I took this photo hanging over the fence between the Royal Hospital and the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. That side was quiet and calm, the other side was loud and busy. Although we got there first thing, the crowds were already building. Everyone was dressed in their finest floral dresses and hats!

To our surprise there weren’t many gardens to see. The ones that were there were beautiful, but there weren’t many. We were glad we got there early so we could look round them, and hear the designers talk about them. I liked the Bridgerton inspired garden.

We also spotted lots of celebrities, many were being interviewed in the gardens.

We saw some gorgeous flowers, gardens and greenhouses and garden rooms. There were also lots of shopping opportunities, places to eat and drink, as well as a grandstand where there was live music.

Our final stop was the marquee which housed all the flower displays.

We walked about 4 miles (10000 steps) and were beginning to feel hungry. The site was getting very busy so we decided to head out to the Kings Road to catch Chelsea in Bloom, the free and alternative flower show. We saw some fun floral installations around shop doors – definitely worth a visit if you’re in the area.