2014 will be the third year of The Chelsea Fringe Festival which runs from May 17 to June 8 and has grown exponentially to encompass some 250 events in 2013, from its beginnings in 2012 when 100 projects participated. The festival is a celebration of all things garden, landscape and environment related and involves community garden groups, individuals, artists, poets, restaurateurs, museums, galleries, schools, hospitals. In fact, anyone with an interest in gardening can get involved.

Confirmed participants for 2014 include the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the National Trust, as well as numerous community gardens and local groups. Online registration opens in January, with interested participants encouraged to contact the Fringe now at: info@chelseafringe.com. There are no entry criteria beyond the basic requirements that the project be on-topic, interesting and legal (with the emphasis on the ‘interesting’).

The Fringe has no adjudication panels, medals or judging. Among last year’s Chelsea Fringe hits were the garden made from an old gents’ lavatory at a Peckham artists’ studios, the miniature gardens made by schoolchildren at Mudchute City Farm and the installations and activities outside Battersea Power Station.

Picture by Gabriel Szabo/Guzelian
Hull has a bee in its bonnet for City of Culture 2017 – with Hull artist Adele Howitt’s [RED COAT, APPRON] black cab garden car creation visiting the Chelsea Fringe Festival in 2013.

The satellite fringes that took place in 2013 in Bristol, Brighton, Kent and Vienna are signed up again for 2014 and several more are coming on stream to join them, including an Australian satellite.

The Fringe is unsponsored and unfunded, with virtually everything done by a dedicated team of volunteers, who are now divided into regional groups across London and beyond. The Fringe offers participants a way of celebrating and publicising everything they do and has attracted a substantial amount of national and local coverage including broadcast media in both 2012 and 2013.

The 3rd Chelsea Fringe will begin on Saturday 17th May and run for three weeks, at a host of different venues and settings across London. It will feature a wonderful mixture of public spectacles, horticultural happenings and community celebrations. The Fringe is all about harnessing and spreading some of the excitement and energy that fizzes around gardens and gardening. Entirely independent of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show (though acting with its support), the Fringe explodes out of the showground geographically, demographically and conceptually. Events encompass everything from grassroots community garden projects to avant-garde art installations. The Chelsea Fringe is a community interest company (CIC) and was founded by Festival Director Tim Richardson. All progress to date has been achieved by a team of dedicated volunteers donating their time and money. Find out more at: www.chelseafringe.com.

Images courtesy of the Chelsea Fringe.