Garden festival

A festival held to celebrate the arts of gardening and garden design. There are local garden festivals, regional garden festivals, national garden festivals and international garden festivals. The idea probably originated with Germany's Bundesgartenschau. The UK held five garden festivals in the period 1984-92 but blundered through not planning an after-use for the festival grounds during their design and planning phase.

To qualify as an International Exhibition, a show must be recognised by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), which was established by a diplomatic international Convention, signed in Paris,in 1928. Shows can also be recognised by the International Association of Horticultural Producers (IAPH). To qualify as a National Exhibition, a garden festival must be recognised by a national government.

Because garden design is becoming more popular and featuring on TV, there is an ever-growing number of garden festivals: permanent and temporary, official and non-official. One of the best known is International Garden Festival held on a permanent site at Chaumont in France. Despite the name, Chaumont does not come within the BIE definition of an 'international' festival. Other shows feature garden design but describe themselves as 'flower shows'. The best-known example in this category, the Chelsea Flower Show is seeing a shift of emphasis towards garden design and there is talk of a Chelsea Fringe Flower and Garden Festival in 2008.

References

Andrew C. Theokas "Grounds for Review: The Garden Festival in Urban Planning and Design" (Liverpool University Press, 2004 ISBN-10: 0853235392)

ee also

* Bundesgartenschau List of German State Garden Shows(Bundesgartenschau)
* National Garden Festival List of UK Garden Festivals

External links

* [http://www.aiph.org/ AIPH]
* [http://www.bie-paris.org/main/index.php?p=214&m2=227 BIE]
* [http://www.chaumont-jardins.com/site/page/accueil/accueil.php Chaumont Garden Festival]