{"id":22758,"date":"2023-05-24T07:30:21","date_gmt":"2023-05-24T05:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gardensillustrated.com\/?p=107486"},"modified":"2023-05-24T10:34:52","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T08:34:52","slug":"there-are-more-women-but-a-gender-divide-still-pervades-at-chelsea-flower-show","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/rss_feed\/there-are-more-women-but-a-gender-divide-still-pervades-at-chelsea-flower-show\/","title":{"rendered":"There are more women, but a gender divide still pervades at Chelsea Flower Show"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alice Vincent reflects on the attempts to address the gender divide at Chelsea Flower Show and what it means in real terms <\/p>

By Alice Vincent\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 24 May 2023 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Stride into the Great Pavilion at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show<\/a> this year and you\u2019ll see history among the flowers. Enormous plinths carry illustrated portraits of notable women from horticulture: plantswoman Beth Chatto<\/a>, designer Gertrude Jekyll<\/a>, writer Vita Sackville-West<\/a>, botanist Janaki Ammal and campaigner Wangari Muta Maathai among them. These, we\u2019re told, are \u201cHeroines of Horticulture\u201d: upheld this year by the RHS in an attempt to record the efforts of some of the women whose work has been hidden by patriarchal society over the decades.<\/p>\n

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The Monument. Heroines of Horticulture. Great Pavillion. RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2023.<\/span><\/figcaption> \u00a9 RHS\/ Tim Sandall<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

Chelsea\u2019s monument has had a feminist takeover. Polly Wilkinson\u2019s dreamy design, which leads off from the plinths, holds this fast in its very existence. Wilksinson has worked with all-female design and planting teams to usher her vibrant cottage planting from the ground up. From willow containers woven by Mollie McMillen of Field Farm rise specialist plants grown by women from Hare Spring Cottage Plants, Botanical Nursery and Claire Austin Hardy Plants<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This year there are more women designers at Chelsea than men for the first time ever <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>

The moment hasn\u2019t gone unnoticed by the RHS itself, which has been proud to announce this year as the moment when there are more women designers at Chelsea than men for the first time ever: 58 per cent of the garden designers competing for a medal in 2023 define as female, more than double the 27 per cent a decade ago, and a notable improvement on the 45 per cent of last year.<\/p>\n

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The Monument. Heroines of Horticulture. Great Pavillion. RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2023.<\/span><\/figcaption> \u00a9 RHS\/ Tim Sandall<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

Look more closely, though, and the news isn\u2019t as overwhelmingly positive. That majority sits only in two categories this year: the All About Plants<\/a> gardens, located in the Pavilion, and the Balcony<\/a> and Container<\/a> gardens, tucked away in the woodland enclave of the showground, a considerable stumble from Main Avenue,<\/a> where the gender divide remains deeply unequal with 11 male designers to four female. It\u2019s a worse story in the Sanctuary Gardens,<\/a> where men outnumber women designers three to one.<\/p>\n

More from Chelsea<\/strong><\/p>\n