The RHS produced a special badge for visitors to the show who made a donation to the RHS Chelsea Appeal 2014.
The appeal raises funds to help the charity engage with more secondary schools as well as creating more horticultural apprentice positions over the next five years at its four gardens.
In another fundraising bid, fashion designer Paul Smith and TV personality Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen joined a collection of other RHS supporters to create drawings of gardens, which were auctioned off on online auction site eBay during RHS Chelsea Flower Show week to raise funds for the appeal.
There were also a limited number of new premium charity tickets available for the sell-out show, with all proceeds going towards creating horticultural apprentices.
RHS Director General, Sue Biggs, recently gathered together some of Britain’s best-known and most inspiring horticulturists and went to Deptford Green Secondary School in southeast London to ask pupils aged between 14 and 16 what they knew about horticulture, and to talk about careers in horticulture – see a short film of the day here.
Sue continued, “It was extraordinary how quickly the pupils went from being quite unengaged with the subject, mainly as they knew so little, to being very enthusiastic and asking lots of questions – which makes us even more confident that once we get into secondary schools we can quickly make a positive impact.”
