Chelsea’s gnome battle, marvellous mulleins and free plants with hidden costs
5/14/202632 min
Love them or loathe them, garden gnomes are back… and this time, they’ve even got royal approval as they’ll be appearing in the Kings Foundation garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, which returns next week. Fiona Davison, head of Libraries and Exhibitions at the RHS talks us through the history of the show’s infamous gnome ban.
Science and Horticulture Editor Olivia Drake joins us to marvel at the beauty of verbascums, which are this month’s wildlife wonder plant thanks to their multifaceted appeal to all kinds of garden insects, including birds, bees and mullein...
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Fiona Davison· Guest0:27
[gentle music] I would never say that the gnome ban is going to be forevermore. Chelsea evolves and changes, so maybe. Very famously, despite the ban, there was a gnome who got in regularly, which is Borage, who was, um, a little garden ornament. Brought good luck to Jecca McVicar, who's one of our most successful exhibitors. She would regularly s- smuggle Borage in the stand and hide him, you know, amongst her herbs. So whatever the RHS says, you know, maybe gnomes will find a way.
Nick Turrell· Host1:00
They've long been dismissed as tacky, even tasteless, but this year the garden gnome is staging a return to the world's most prestigious flower show. For only the second time in its history, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show is lifting its ban on gnomes, and surprisingly, it's thanks to a royal partnership. Fiona Davison, who's our head of libraries and exhibitions, has been inundated with questions about these controversial