EUROPE : Scandal Wilts Confidence in London Flower Show

Since 1888, the Chelsea Flower Show has been the most genteel of British institutions: a magnificent display of flowers, shrubs, exotic plants and everything else imaginable for a garden.

Sponsored by the Royal Horticultural Society, the show attracts hundreds of exhibitors and tens of thousands of dedicated visitors to the grounds of the Royal Hospital in London’s Chelsea for five days in May.

There they view orchids, violets, begonias, delphiniums, roses, azaleas, freesias, daffodils, lupins, clematises and dozens more in elaborate displays.

After visits by Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the Royal Family, highly prized gold medals are awarded to those exhibitors with the most attractive displays from nurseries across Britain.

But this year--horror of horrors!--a scandal has rocked the flower show and dealt a blow to a great British tradition: It has been revealed that many of the exhibitors have shown flower displays not from their own gardens.

Worse, many of the flowers came directly from London’s huge Covent Garden Market.

Worst of all, many of the flowers came from abroad--from Holland!

The disclosure caused an uproar this week, shocking the thousands of innocent visitors who assume the flowers are grown in the green fields of England.

Apparently the practice of “buying-in,” or purchasing flowers from outside sources for exhibition, has been going on for years with the knowledge of the Royal Horticultural Society.

Some observers regarded the revelations as evidence marking the decline of another bastion of gentility. The Chelsea Flower Show, the world’s largest, is the highlight of the year for lovers of Britain’s favorite outdoor pastime--gardening.

As one mourner noted, “First it was our disastrous cricket season. Then the BBC went on strike for a day. Now the flower show. What next?”

John Metcalf of the Four Seasons nurseries in Norwich, who displays only blooms he himself has grown and was awarded a silver medal, was angered by the buying-in and called for a ban on exhibitors displaying other people’s plants.

“It’s like an athlete in the Olympics letting someone else run their race,” he said, “and then going on to collect the medal.”

More than a quarter of the 51 exhibitors who won gold medals admitted buying-in some of their stock. Many of the flowers displayed came from the “glass house” area of the Netherlands, which year-round grows lilies, chrysanthemums, freesias and peonies for wholesalers in Britain. Those wholesalers sell to Covent Garden companies.

The Chelsea organizers maintain that they have no way to monitor where blooms are grown, so they have not prohibited buying-in but simply asked exhibitors to note whether they originated their own flowers.

Besides, organizers argue, medals are awarded for showmanship and the artistry and quality of a display.

That explanation has been lost on many.

“When someone shows a product they have not grown without making it clear, they are cheating,” one flower lover said. “It is not right. I am surprised they allow it at Chelsea.”