LONDON – The alternative garden festival called Chelsea Fringe will celebrate its fifth year in 2016 with a wonderful mixture of public spectacles, horticultural happenings and community celebrations. Fringe goers can look forward to 23 days and four weekends bursting with exciting gardening projects and events. The event runs from May 21 to June 12 across the UK and internationally.

The festival is growing year on year from 100 events in 2012 to over 250 in 2014. 2015’s Fringe saw 350 events taking place across the UK and in Europe, Australia and Japan.

Themes of festival events range from gardening and gardens; landscape and the environment, and contributors include community garden groups, individuals,
artists, poets, restaurateurs, museums, galleries, schools and hospitals.

“I can hardly believe we are celebrating the fifth year of the festival, which was started on a wing and a prayer and remains unfunded and volunteer-run. I think the Chelsea Fringe is now an established part of the gardens calendar and plays a unique role in the horticultural and artistic life of the country,” said Tim Richardson, festival founder and director. “And not just this country,” he added, “Last year about half of the 350 events in the Fringe occurred outside London, in places like Melbourne, Nagoya, Sicily and Ljubjljana, and closer to home in Bristol, Brighton, Kent and Henley-on-Thames. The idea was always to burst out of the environs of the Chelsea showground and inspire gardening activity anywhere and everywhere.”

The Chelsea Fringe aims to harness and propagate some of the excitement and energy that fizzes around gardens and gardening. This unique festival includes
events that encompass everything from grassroots community garden projects to avant-garde art installations.

More information can be found online at chelseafringe.com.