Chelsea unveiling is star-studded affair

Actress Emilia Fox was among a host of famous names enjoying the sights and smells of the world’s best-known flower show ahead of an official visit by the Queen.

Miss Fox posed in a garden created by Prince Harry’s Sentebale charity, which helps vulnerable children in the African country of Lesotho.

The mother-of-one said: “Because it’s about mothers and children, it’s particularly close to my heart. It’s heartbreakingly beautiful in every way – it has simplicity but it also has symbolic patterns. It’s so delicate.”

Other celebrities admiring the blooms included actress Joanna Lumley, baker Mary Berry and former Beatle Ringo Starr.

Also in attendance was former Yorkshire and England cricketer Michael Vaughan, who said: “This is my first Chelsea. I expected it to be big, but it’s absolutely spectacular. It’s a brilliant family day out. I’m not a huge gardener but I know when I see something special.”

This year’s horticultural highlights include a giant orchid sculpture by renowned artist Marc Quinn and miniature gnomes decorated by stars such as Dame Helen Mirren and Sir Elton John.

The Welcome to Yorkshire tourism agency is represented by Le Jardin de Yorkshire, which celebrates the White Rose county’s successful bid to host the opening stages of next year’s Tour de France cycling race.

It also marks this year’s dual centenaries of the Tour de France and the Chelsea Flower Show itself.

Ilkley-born TV presenter and gardener Alan Titchmarsh used the occasion to warn that the show would cease to exist in its current form if more young people did not take up careers in horticulture.

He said: “We have the best jobs in the world – growing plants, designing gardens, managing open spaces, feeding the population, looking after historic trees and famous gardens, conducting scientific research into plant breeding, pests and diseases, collecting plants in far-flung parts of the globe, writing and broadcasting about our passion – the list goes on, 60 different areas at least, by my reckoning.

“And yet our role is undervalued by Government, by the population and by young people in particular – in every instance because they just do not understand the breadth of what we do and its importance in terms of the well-being of the planet and its population.”

Around 165,000 people are expected to attend this year’s show, which features the work of 500 exhibitors and runs until Saturday in the grounds of the Royal Hospital in Chelsea.