'Are you knackered? I'm knackered!" laughs Joe Swift. It is 9am the Sunday before Chelsea Flower Show opens, and he's yelling down Main Avenue at Arne Maynard, a Chelsea veteran of many years. Behind the scenes here, with 36 hours to go before the Queen turns up, there is cameraderie and criticism, some dangerous forklift-truck driving, RHS assessors armed with clipboards, TV crews armed with blue ropes to mark their sightlines, and very tired people armed with rude jokes about "Diarmuid's erection" (an 80ft scaffolding pyramid of plants designed by former Grand Designs bad boy Diarmuid Gavin).

Fundraiser that was short on fun offers apologies and refunds to angry guests

Joe Swift, the BBC Gardeners' World presenter who was forced to stand down from this year’s coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show after new BBC rules banned anyone involved in designing a show garden, has won a prestigious gold medal for his efforts.

Of particular interest is the Oranges and Lemons Garden in Shoreditch, created with help from The Independent on Sunday

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The Chelsea Flower Show, for all its indisputable merits, is not cool. Manicured lawns, panama hats and nicely-trimmed clematis all have their place, but do they really express what it is to be a trowel-wielding, window sill potting urban green-fingers in 2012?

A group of gardening guerrillas has set up a hip alternative to the Chelsea Flower Show. Charlie Cooper meets them

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Chelsea's prospective move to the Battersea Power Station site will not be bankrolled by the club's owner Roman Abramovich, who is not planning to make up any shortfall on funds earned by the potential redevelopment of Stamford Bridge to finance the new project.

Torres and Drogba will run riot if they play in tandem, insists Chelsea goalkeeper

TheWind in the Willows offers humour and escapism but above all Kenneth Grahame’s classic is a hymn to the joys of childhood, says Griff Rhys Jones

Debenhams is counting on a Royal boost from the Duchess of Cambridge this summer, after the department store chain increased half-year profits and sales by a sliver.

Major consultations that led to proposals to close the children's heart surgery unit at a hospital engaged in "world-leading" research were today ruled lawful by the Court of Appeal.