As the most successful exhibitor in the 100-year history of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Hillier Nurseries will be back again in the Great Pavilion this May with new plants, exciting fresh talent in the staging team, and a stunning Garden Exhibit on the theme of 'Risk'.
Whilst Hillier was not at the first show, the nursery certainly participated in the early shows before the war, with the record-breaking run of 67 Chelsea Golds to date starting when the show moved to its present site after WWII. The design of the Hillier exhibit has altered over recent decades to move from the grand design of a single large garden to realistically reflect the size of most modern gardens.
The vast area of the Hillier exhibit is now broken down into a series of garden rooms or garden scenes from which visitors can take inspiration for their own plots.
Another significant change is in the plant material shown at Chelsea. Even up until 20 years ago, the plant materials was lifted from the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens and brought to Chelsea for the Flower Show!
Today, the stock is taken from the beds of the commercial hardy plant nursery - including the large Living Label specimens - and trees are selected from the Container Tree nursery, which is home to semi and super-semi mature trees in up to 2000L airpots. This means that the stock visitors see at Chelsea is stock they could buy from hundreds of Hillier-supplied garden centres all over the country.
