A garden festival is a

festival A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival c ...

and

exposition Exposition (also the French for exhibition) may refer to: *Universal exposition or World's Fair *Expository writing **Exposition (narrative) *Exposition (music) *Trade fair * ''Exposition'' (album), the debut album by the band Wax on Radio *Exposi ...

held to celebrate the

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

s of

gardening Gardening is the practice of growing and cultivating plants as part of horticulture. In gardens, ornamental plants are often grown for their flowers, foliage, or overall appearance; useful plants, such as root vegetables, leaf vegetables, fruits ...

garden design Garden design is the art and process of designing and creating plans for layout and planting of gardens and landscapes. Garden design may be done by the garden owner themselves, or by professionals of varying levels of experience and expertise. ...

landscaping Landscaping refers to any activity that modifies the visible features of an area of land, including the following: # Living elements, such as flora or fauna; or what is commonly called gardening, the art and craft of growing plants with a goal o ...

and

landscape architecture Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...

. There are local garden festivals, regional garden festivals, national garden festivals and international garden festivals. The idea probably originated with Germany's

Bundesgartenschau The Bundesgartenschau BUGA is a biennial federal horticulture show in Germany. It also covers topics like landscaping. Taking place in different cities, the location changes in a two-year cycle. BUGA cities *1951 – Hannover *1953 – Hamburg ...

. The UK held five garden festivals in the period 1984–1992. To qualify as an international exhibition, an expo must be recognised by the

Bureau International des Expositions The Bureau international des expositions (BIE; English: International Bureau of Expositions) is an intergovernmental organization created to supervise international exhibitions (also known as expos or world expos) falling under the jurisdiction o ...

(BIE), which was established by a diplomatic international convention, signed in Paris, in 1928. Horticultural expos can also be recognised by the

International Association of Horticultural Producers The International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH / IAHP) is a trade association dedicated to promoting horticultural producers and held the international garden / flora festivals or expositions. AIPH aims to put flower, plant and l ...

(IAHP / AIPH). 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 The RHS Chelsea Flower Show, formally known as the ''Great Spring Show'',Phil Clayton, ''The Great Temple Show'' in ''The Garden'' 2008, p.452, The Royal Horticultural Society is a garden show held for five days in May by the Royal Horticultural ...

, emphasises garden design. It spun off a Chelsea Fringe events in 2012 which featured a variety of unusual gardens and gardening across London.

List of International Garden Festivals (BIE recognised)

List of other garden festivals

References

*Andrew C. Theokas ''Grounds for Review: The Garden Festival in Urban Planning and Design'' (Liverpool University Press, 2004 )

External links

AIPH official websiteBIE official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Garden Festival Landscape

Festivals A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival co ...

Flower festivals