Stanford – The historic Overberg village of Stanford has been transformed into a celebration of South Africa’s world-renowned floral heritage, with the return of Stanford in Bloom and Chelsea Flowers in Stanford for their third consecutive year.

Running from 12 to 27 September, the festival’s centrepiece is nothing less than a world champion: the full-scale recreation of South Africa’s Gold Medal-winning RHS Chelsea Flower Show display, Life After Fire.

The display, created by internationally acclaimed landscape designer and botanist Leon Kluge and artist-gardener Tristan Woudberg, is being rebuilt on home soil for South Africans to experience first-hand – at 32 Queen Victoria Street, Stanford, open daily from 09:00 to 17:00.

A hat-trick at the world’s most prestigious flower show

At the 2026 RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London – widely regarded as the “Olympics of gardening” – Team South Africa walked away with not one but two of the show’s highest honours: a Gold Medal and the coveted Best Exhibit in the Great Pavilion award.

The win marked Kluge’s third consecutive Chelsea Gold, following triumphs in 2024 with Cape Flora of South Africa (which also earned Best Exhibit and Best New Design) and 2025 with Living Oceans (which received the Lawrence Medal for the best floral exhibit across all RHS shows).

It also brought South Africa’s tally to 40 gold medals over 50 years of competing at Chelsea.Life After Fire was inspired by the devastating wildfires that swept through the Western Cape, but its message is one of renewal rather than destruction.

In the fynbos ecosystem, fire is not a disaster but a catalyst – triggering an extraordinary explosion of bulbs, orchids and wildflowers that lie dormant in the soil, sometimes for decades, waiting for the heat of a blaze to coax them into bloom.

The exhibit featured approximately 20 000 cut protea stems arranged alongside thousands of burnt protea branches, creating a dramatic post-fire landscape. A babbling fonteintjie – a small stream – wound through the display, edged with delicate Disa orchids and carnivorous sundew plants.

Bulbs and orchids from across South Africa, including the star-like Rhodohypoxis from the high Drakensberg, emerged from beneath charred canopies of blackened wood. The scent of charred timber filled the Great Pavilion, creating what Kluge described as “a truly multisensory experience.”

Against the odds

Getting the display to London was a triumph over adversity. Floods, snow and relentless rain in the weeks leading up to the show nearly derailed the entire project, while soaring flight costs added further pressure.

Yet Kluge, Woudberg and their team – supported by the Rupert Nature Foundation, Hazendal Wine Estate, the Grootbos Foundation, Southern Sun and Cape Flora SA – spent two gruelling weeks on site in London assembling the installation.”It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster because we didn’t know whether we were going to get a gold,” Kluge admitted after the win. “It’s a very special moment for us.”

Holding up the gold medal, Kluge said the victory belonged to South Africa and its unique flowers – a sentiment that resonated deeply given the display’s celebration of the Cape Floral Kingdom, one of the most biodiverse and threatened plant habitats on Earth.

From a Chelsea garden to a Stanford streetNow that same display is blooming again – this time in Stanford. Kluge and Woudberg have painstakingly recreated the exhibit in the Flower Building at 32 Queen Victoria Street, giving South Africans a two-week window to experience what captivated the world’s horticultural elite in London.

All profits from the exhibit go to the Grootbos Foundation, a non-profit organisation based in Gansbaai in the heart of the Cape Floral Kingdom, committed to the conservation and preservation of fynbos and local communities.

Meet the creators

Throughout the festival, both Kluge and Woudberg are presenting behind-the-scenes talks offering a candid look at what it takes to win Best on Show at Chelsea. Kluge’s talk, Life After Fire – South Africa’s Journey to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026, covers the challenges, laughs and unexpected surprises along the way.

Woudberg’s talk, Flowers out of the Ashes, delves into the artistic vision behind the display. Talks are scheduled on multiple dates between 14 and 27 September at the NG Kerk on Church Street, Stanford. Separate tickets are available via Webtickets or at the door.

More than flowers

Stanford in Bloom offers far more than the Chelsea exhibit alone. The Village Green hosts a tented market featuring craft vendors, a botanical gin and wine garden, live music – including performances by Koos Kombuis and the Cape Town Philharmonic Youth Orchestra – and a pop-up fynbos plant nursery.

The Klein River Cheese Demo Kitchen returns with a line-up of foodie demonstrations and workshops featuring top local chefs and winemakers. Over 20 creative workshops range from horticultural masterclasses to candle making, lino printing and dried flower design.

The Grootbos Florilegium Art Exhibition showcases botanical art inspired by the region’s extraordinary plant diversity, while a special conversation hosted by TV presenter Jak de Priester adds further star power to the programme.

A family legacy in bloom

For Kluge, the journey to Chelsea gold was written in his roots. His grandfather was the curator of the Betty’s Bay Botanical Garden and his father was the curator of the Lowveld National Botanical Gardens in Nelspruit, where Leon spent his childhood.

“I never had a dream of becoming a doctor or a firefighter like other kids in my class,” Kluge recalls. “I knew from very young that painting with plants would always be part of my life.”

He studied landscape design in Israel and began his career in the Comoros before going on to design gardens for celebrity clients and luxury lodges across the globe, including all the Singita lodges, Klein Constantia Manor House and Hazendal Wine Estate.

His accolades include Best Designer at the Philadelphia Flower Show, Gold at the Gardening World Cup in Japan, and the South African Landscape Institute’s National Chairperson’s Discretionary Award. He was also named House and Garden Landscape Designer of the Year in 2024.

Tickets are available at webtickets