Fire and Fynbos on the Global Stage
The Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show is the world’s foremost garden show, featuring a beautiful array of plants and designs from around the world. This year, the award-winning South African team, led by Leon Kluge, presented “Life After Fire” – a garden inspired by the recent, severe wildfires that swept through large areas of the Cape.
The 9 x 9 metre display included a hillside of striking protea cultivars, now synonymous with South Africa’s Chelsea displays, contrasted by a burnt landscape erupting with rare bulbs and other species stimulated by fire. Framed by charred protea branches and softened by a trickling mountain stream, the design showcased the resilience of fynbos under a natural fire cycle.
Life After Fire was met with critical acclaim, with the team taking home a gold medal for the third year in a row, and was awarded Best Display in the Great Pavillion. South Africans will be able to see the display in person on their home turf at the Stanford in Bloom festival in Stanford, Western Cape, from the 12th to the 27th of September 2026. Stay tuned for more details!
The Life After Fire display at Chelsea was sponsored by Grootbos Private Nature Reserve, Hazendal Wine Estate, the Rupert Nature Foundation, and Southern Sun Hotel Group.
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Glad to see you!
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A picture paints a thousand words. As part of their efforts to document post-fire recovery of the fynbos landscape, the conservation team on Grootbos Private Nature Reserve selected sites for fixed-point photography and have already witnessed a striking transformation. From bare, sandy soil dusted with ash in mid December, to the first signs of fresh […]