Caribbean Gardens at Chelsea Flower Show

This past week the awards were made at the annual Royal Horticultural Show Chelsea Flower Show. There were exhibits from several Caribbean countries including St Vincent and the Grenadines who had not entered in 34 years; they won a Silver-Gilt medal as did Antigua and Barbuda with their first ever entry. There is a brief video about them here and about 4 minutes you can see how they used strips of palm leaf to reference the 'chains of slavery'. Barbados' entry won a Gold medal, as did Grenada. Huge congratulations to them all.

What is fascinating about the display of flowers at shows such as RHS Chelsea is that the growing importance of plants for their beauty over their practical use, is seen in the St Vincent Botanical Garden. In 1785 when Alexander Anderson took over as the Second superintendent he noted just 60 species; most of them were plants used for medicines or in construction work, for food or practical purposes (dye for clothes, making into fishing lines etc). However, by 1806 there were over 1,300 different species growing in the Garden of which around three-quarters were plants that were exotic (pretty, ornamental and with limited or no, practical use). Below is a pie-chart that shows this change over 4 of the plant species catalogues Anderson complilled. And enslaved workers were fundamental to this growth, so the palm-chains that Antigua and Barbuda included in their entry really resonates with the largely hidden history of pretty plants.

Pie chart by Welch (2022)