Chelsea flowers will bloom again in Stanford from 10 to 24 September, when Leon Kluge, the creative mastermind behind the South African team that won the gold medal at the RHS Chelsea Royal Flower Show for the second consecutive year, visits Stanford, where a replica of his and Tristan Woudberg’s display will be recreated and showcased.
As part of the event the genius will also visit farms, selecting the flowers to open at the specific time.
Winning this prestigious honour is not something everyone can achieve. It takes months of planning. According to team members 25 000 flowers were transported in a temperature-controlled refrigerated container a week before the exhibition.
The same effort the team put into winning gold at Chelsea will be used to showcase the masterpiece to South Africans. The Kluge-Woudberg display can be seen at the Stanford in Bloom Festival, which takes place from 10-24 September.
This special event would not have taken place without support from the Grootbos Foundation. The flower show, this time, will also contain a selection of botanical artworks from the Grootbos Florilegium.
This unique collection of botanical illustrations by local and international artists, depicts the rare, endangered and charismatic plants found in the Grootbos Private Nature Reserve and surrounding regions. What makes the artworks especially distinctive is the inclusion of insects, pollinators and other creatures associated with specific plants.
The collection pays homage to the environment’s greater ecology, with art an expression of the deep commitment to research and conservation that Grootbos has.
Stanford in Bloom Festival
Talks in town: Don’t miss out on the experience of the 2025 Chelsea Flower Show in Stanford and get to appreciate “Stanford in Bloom”! Tickets are available via Webtickets.
• Kluge will talk on “South Africa’s Journey to The RHS Chelsea Flower show 2025”. His displays have represented South Africa on the world stage, including Chelsea, where SA has won multiple gold medals. His passion for South African plants and contemporary approach to garden design have made him an ambassador for the horticultural industry both in South Africa and abroad.
• Woudberg will talk on ” The Great Flower Hunt”. Take a journey from the mountains of the Cape to the lush grasslands of KwaZulu-Natal to discover the incredible adaptations of plants and their pollinators. Woudberg is an artist-gardener and self-taught botanist documenting South Africa’s diverse flora on his extensive travels. A prolific hiker, he has explored many of South Africa’s diversity hotspots to capture rare wildflowers in bloom.
Having created many gardens all over SA, Woudberg is the artistic force behind multiple gold-winning displays at international flower shows, including the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. He will also inform festivalgoers about the Richtersveld in bloom.
• Tanya Visser will share all her gardening secrets, thrillers, fillers and spillers, and grown-to-eat. South Africa’s very own gardening guru has turned her lifelong passion for plants into a vibrant career and a digital gardening movement. Today she shares her love for gardening far and wide, not just through TV shows and live events, but daily on social media. Visser’s pages are a mix of practical gardening tips, seasonal advice, plant care hacks, DIY projects and behind-the-scenes glimpses into her own garden life.
• Melanie Walker’s Spring Bulb Talk will showcase a garden girl and landscape enthusiast’s grand passion. The presenter of Design-a-Garden, My Garden Diaries, Gardening 101 and Beyond the Hedge on the Home Channel and host of the radio shows such as Grounded and Blooming Lovely as well as her Grounded podcast series, is a qualified garden designer and horticulturist.
• Andy de Wet – Innovative Breeding of South African Plants: This well-known botanist, nurseryman and plant breeder is coming to Stanford to present the latest, exciting advancements made in the improvement of ornamental Southern African plants. He will focus mainly on aloes and agapanthus as well as other water-wise colourful garden plants.
For more information on the Stanford in Bloom Festival and any of its key features and presenters, or to buy tickets, visit www.stanfordinbloom.co.za
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