Six days of gardens in the grounds of a Tudor palace, with room to actually walk around them
Hampton Court Flower Show: Chelsea’s Larger, Easier Sibling
About the Hampton Court Flower Show
The Hampton Court Flower Show — officially the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival — is held over six days in early July in the grounds of Hampton Court Palace, on the Thames west of London. The Royal Horticultural Society took the show over in 1993, and it is now the second of the society’s flower shows after Chelsea and by some distance the largest in area.
That space is the whole difference. Chelsea occupies eleven acres and is famously crowded; Hampton Court has the palace’s grounds and the Long Water to spread across, which means show gardens can be built at a scale Chelsea cannot accommodate and visitors can see them without queuing along a rope.
How It Differs from Chelsea
Chelsea is the industry’s showcase: late May, tightly judged, heavily photographed and effectively a trade event that the public is admitted to. Hampton Court is a festival. It has the show gardens and the floral marquee, but it also has a growing plant market, food and considerably less ceremony — and because it runs in July, the planting is summer planting rather than the forced spring displays Chelsea depends on.
The other practical difference is that Hampton Court sells plants. Chelsea’s exhibitors clear their stands at the end of the week in a scramble; at Hampton Court buying is part of the point, which changes the character of the day for anyone with a garden rather than an interest.
Where to Start
- Take a members’ preview day — the gardens are at their best and the site is not yet full
- Plan the palace as well as the show — the grounds are the reason the festival works, and they are worth the extra hours
- Arrange transport deliberately — parking is a field and the trains are busy; the river is the pleasant answer
- Buy on the day if you are buying — unlike Chelsea, this is a show where plants leave with visitors
One thing the show does better than any other in the RHS calendar is the plant market. Several hundred specialist nurseries attend — the people who actually breed and grow rather than retail — and for anyone planting a garden properly it is the most concentrated source of good material in the British year. Orders placed there arrive in autumn, which is when planting should happen anyway.
The gardens themselves also read differently in July. Chelsea is a late-May show, which means almost everything in it has been forced or held back in polytunnels to flower on a fixed date. At Hampton Court the planting is doing what it would do in a garden in high summer, and the designers work with that rather than against it.
And unlike Chelsea, children are welcome and the site is large enough that bringing them is not a mistake, which for a family weekend in July matters more than any of the judging.
The festival also runs later into the evening than Chelsea does, which turns the last two hours into the best part of the day once the afternoon crowd has gone.
Arrange It With Perfect.Live
Tell us which day suits and we will arrange the show and the palace around it
The Days That Matter
The first two days are for RHS members, and they are the quiet ones — the gardens are freshly finished, the designers are on their plots and willing to talk, and the site is walkable. By the weekend the show is at full attendance and the experience is a different one.
Hampton Court itself is the other half of the day. The palace, the Great Vine, the maze and the formal gardens are open, and most visitors underestimate how much there is beyond the show. Arriving by river from central London is slow, expensive in time and far better than the alternative.
How We Help
- Preview-day access and hospitality inside the show
- Introductions to designers and nurseries where a commission is the point rather than a walk-round
- Private tours of the palace and the formal gardens alongside the festival
- Tables in London either side, via our Fine Dining & Nightlife service
- River or road transport arranged around a site with one entrance — ask your Business Concierge
For anyone following the horticultural calendar properly, the two shows are a pair rather than alternatives: Chelsea in late May for what the industry is doing, Hampton Court in July for what a garden can actually look like in summer.
Frequently Asked Questions
Over six days in early July, in the grounds of Hampton Court Palace.
Larger site, summer planting, less ceremony and plants are sold to visitors. Chelsea is the industry showcase; Hampton Court is a festival.
The first two, reserved for RHS members, when the gardens are newly finished and the designers are on their plots.
No — the palace is a separate ticket, on the same site.
By train from Waterloo, by road into a field or by river from central London, which is the slowest and best option.
Two to three months. Preview access and hospitality are the parts that need notice.
