From celebrity-spotting to fuscia hangings – my first visit to the Chelsea Flower Show was a hit

This week, poet and artist Frieda Hughes attended the annual gardening event in London

THE CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW 2025

Men in flowered suits jostled for room to display their petals

Among women in their gilts and brightly coloured plumage.

Piers Morgan, dogless, was on his way to the dog garden as if to find a dog,

And Prue Leith was not cooking today, but might have roasted later

Beneath the fledgling sun as the hours stoked its lazy blaze

Over the quiver trees on Press Day.

Claire Austin and Adam Frost were circled by press,

Their passage impeded by their known faces,

The long-lens camera carriers tripping over each other

As celebrities multiplied among the many hundreds of thousands

Of nerines, peonies, irises, roses, lilies

And waxy-looking African flowers. I thought of marzipan and fondant

And wanted to reach out and eat whole blossoms

From the blanket-mass of clematis blooms, the protea mountain

With internal fountain, and the fuscia hangings

Of pink and purple danglings. My plant-lover’s joy at this floral heaven

Before the King and Queen’s arrival and despite missing Joanna Lumley,

Had been polished with all the anticipation of a forty-year wait

And I wanted to celebrate,

But the champagne bar did not open till seven.