Judi Dench to unveil Queen’s tribute garden at Chelsea Flower Show

Dame Judi Dench will open the Queen’s Green Canopy (QGC) garden at the Chelsea Flower Show when the world-famous event welcomes back visitors next week.

The celebrated actress – famed for her James Bond movie role as M – is an ambassador for the QGC, an initiative celebrating the monarch’s platinum jubilee next year by inviting people to “Plant a Tree for the Jubilee”.

The garden is one of the star attractions at the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) show, and will be unveiled on Monday.

Later that day members of the royal family – including the Princess Royal and the Earl and Countess of Wessex – will tour the green space.

Sir Nicholas Bacon, chairman of the QGC, said: “We hope our garden at the world famous RHS Chelsea Flower Show inspires millions of people across the United Kingdom to get involved and ‘Plant a Tree for the Jubilee’.

“The jubilee is an historic occasion – in 2022, the Queen will become the first monarch in British history to celebrate a platinum jubilee – 70 years of service.

“The Queen’s Green Canopy is giving everyone the opportunity to celebrate this remarkable milestone by planting trees with care, at the right time of year, in the right place, so they will thrive for generations to come.”

Designed by David Dodd, the garden features a tapestry of grassland beneath a canopy of 21 trees – a living picture of biodiverse regeneration in its various phases.

The Chelsea Flower Show was cancelled last year and postponed from May this year because of the pandemic. It is expected to have a very different feel due to the change in season for the event, which will be for one year only.

Under the QGC project the public are being encouraged to begin tree planting on October 1, when the season begins, through to March, and it will start again in October until the end of the jubilee year in 2022.