Enjoy it on video: Harrogate Autumn Flower Show

The Harrogate Autumn Flower Show is celebrating its landmark anniversary this year and will see tens of thousands of visitors descend on the Great Yorkshire Showground over its three days.

This year’s show, which has carved out a reputation as Europe’s most prestigious autumn gardening event, will see a series of new classes for giant vegetables including marrows, tomatoes and cucumbers added to the traditional displays of hundreds of fruit and veg exhibits.

Representatives from more than 100 of the country’s leading plant nurseries will be at the show, and there will be daily demonstrations in the cookery theatre involving 17 of the region’s leading chefs, including Rosemary Shrager, Stephanie Moon and Paul Mackie.

This year’s show will feature a new competition for up-and-coming trainee chefs from catering colleges in Leeds and Harrogate who will compete in a Ready, Steady, Cook-style challenge.

Dozens of gardening organisations will be in the show’s marquee, which will include displays of more than 3,500 dahlias, nearly 1,000 chrysanthemums and in excess of 1,000 carnations as well as the biggest ever fuchsia show and the largest exhibition of Bonsai outside of Japan.

The show’s director, Martin Fish, said: “Our message is that autumn is a terrific time to plant.”

The show is run by the North of England Horticultural Society, a leading gardening charity established in January 1911.

The autumn flower show and its sister event, held in the spring, attract up to 100,000 visitors a year between them.

The show is open from Friday to Sunday, 9.30am to 5.30pm.