World Guinness Records

Chelsea Flower Show

It’s that time of year again when all the botanists, topiarists, landscapists, agriculturists, ecologist, herbalists, florists and lawn-mower specialists gather together to celebrate the majesty of nature in the medium of gardening. To celebrate this wondrous occasion I have a fine bouquet of horticultural records to get your irises on.

First and foremost, the record for Most Consecutive Gold Medalswon at Chelsea Flower Show goes to Hillier Nurseries with a blooming 60 from 1939-2004. The medals were all awarded for exhibits of ornamental trees and shrubs. Gold medals were also won in 1928, 1929, 1934, 1935 and 1937, but the consecutive run began in 1939.

“What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” according to Shakespeare. He obviously never came across the Amorphophallus titanium (pictured below). Also known as "the corpse flower", or titan arum as it is also known, is believed by many to be the smelliest plant on Earth. When it blooms, it releases an extremely foul odour comparable to that of rotten flesh that can be smelled half a mile away.

The mottled orange-brown and white parasite Rafflesia arnoldii is thelargest of all flowers. Native to southeast Asia, they measure up to 91 cm (3 ft) across, and weigh up to 11 kg (24 lb) and their petals are 1.9 cm (0.75 in) thick. I’d like to grow a Rafflesia arnoldii but what would I put it in?

Well how about this: the world's largest terracotta flower pot. It measured 1.95 m (6 ft 4 in) tall, with a circumference of 5.23 m (17 ft 1 in). It was hand-built by Peter Start and Albert Robinson (both UK)at The Plant Pottery, Barby, Northants, UK, in May 1985.

Topiary is the art of cutting bushes into attractive shapes and the Chelsea Flower Show has it in spades. But the record for the tallest topiary goes to Moirangthem Okendra Kumbi of Manipur, India. Since 1983, he has been shaping the shoots of a Sky Flower bush (Duranta repens variegata) in his 'Hedge to Heaven' garden, which has grown to a height of 18.59 m (61 ft). 

Here’s something you won’t see at the Chelsea Flower Show, theEncephalartos woodii, considered to be the rarest plant. A cycad, of which only one specimen has ever been found growing wild in the Ngoya forest of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, in 1895 by John Medley Wood (South Africa). This specimen has long since disappeared and others now exist only in botanic gardens.

Flowers are not usually famed for speed but the record for the fastest flower opening belongs to the bunchberry dogwood (Cornus canadensis, pictured above) . Research published in May 2005 by Dr Joan Edwards, Dr Dwight Whitaker and Sarah Klionsky of Williams College, Massachusetts, USA, and Dr Marta Laskowski of Oberlin College, Ohio, USA recorded a time of less than 0.5 milliseconds for the opening of the petals and the releasing of pollen. 

Now here’s one for all you gardeners who really do have too much time on your hands. The slowest-flowering plant is the rare species of giant bromeliad Puya raimondii, discovered at a height of 3,960 m (12,992 ft) in the Bolivian mountains in 1870. The flower cluster emerges after about 80-150 years of the plant's life (it produces an immense vertical stalk or panicle bearing numerous flowers). Once it has blossomed, the plant dies. One planted near sea level at the University of California's Botanical Garden, Berkeley, USA in 1958 grew to 7.6 m (24 ft 11 in) and bloomed as early as August 1986 after only 28 years.