Joe Swift has criticised the and the Chelsea Flower Show after being dropped from the presenting line-up following 24 years on coverage of the event. The 60-year-old said he was so far removed from the VIP world around the show that he had to ask the Royal Horticultural Society for a ticket to the gala at Royal Hospital Chelsea.
Swift said he had been going to Chelsea for 30 years and spent 24 of them filming the show for the before splitting with the broadcaster in his 25th year. His remarks land in the same week the week-long flower show opened on Monday, May 18, with King Charles and Queen Camilla attending alongside Sir David Beckham, and come as the RHS looks for fresh sponsorship after Project Giving Back said this would be its final year funding the festival.
The replaced Swift with Rachel de Thame and Arit Anderson after years of him co-presenting the coverage with Monty Don, and fans protested online when the change was announced. Swift made clear he has not accepted the direction of the programme, saying: “You can't trust the young. They get obsessed with gimmicks, not real gardening, horticulture and good design.”
He also took aim at a new garden designed by Frances Tophill and backed by King Charles, Beckham and Alan Titchmarsh, mocking the footballer’s involvement with the line: “David Beckham, that famous garden designer... and he will take all the credit. He will bend it like Beckham.” Swift’s criticism was not limited to the presenters or the gardens. He said the event’s catering had been “amazing” before being cut back a few years ago, and added that the toilets at the show smelled of chemicals.
Swift said the changes reflected a broader decline in coverage. He said the corporation used to send him abroad for pre-films in places including France and Portugal, but that budgets had been cut repeatedly over time. “I used to do a lot of pre-films. When I first started filming for Chelsea they would send me all over the place. We would go abroad and film - like to France and Portugal. I think the budgets just got cut and cut,” he said.
His frustration also extended to the pressure inside the show itself. Swift said there was only one road around Chelsea and that the whole operation ran with military precision, creating tension between designers and gardeners. He said he still wanted to design his own Chelsea garden one day, but added that he would need £500 million to do it.
Swift is due to attend a private party hosted by Range Rover on Thursday, May 21, while the flower show continues through the week. What he has made plain is that his split from the was not just a personnel change: it was, in his view, the point at which the programme lost both money and some of the identity that made it matter to gardeners.
