Every year, 145,000 people attend the Chelsea Flower Show. Visitors in 2025 enjoyed an amazing range of garden designs and floral displays … including a world debut. This year, funeral floristry was exhibited on stage for the first time.
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) showcased the first installation of funeral flowers at its annual show in its Grand Pavilion. In addition to placing funeral floristry at the forefront of visitors’ minds, the display highlighted the importance of sustainable flowers.
Most people assume funeral flowers are environmentally friendly, as all flowers are compostable. However it’s plastic and foam that support the flowers, keeping them in place for picture, name and shaped arrangements. Every year, the equivalent of six Olympic-size swimming pools could be filled with the amount of foam discarded from funeral flower arrangements.
To avoid waste, a solution is to create casket sprays made up of bouquets wrapped in special hydrating paper, which can be separated after the funeral so people can take the flowers home and give them new meaning. ‘The creative display demonstrates that beauty doesn’t have to be sacrificed for sustainability,’ states RHS Chelsea. ‘It features exclusively British-grown cut flowers and foliage and will be entirely free of plastic floral foam and single-use plastic.’
‘Funeral flowers need somebody to advocate for them. People feel uncomfortable because death is such a taboo in our society, and even florists often hide this service from their websites,’ says Carole Patilla co-founder of Farewell Flowers Directory. ‘But there’s nothing threatening or depressing about them. They are just lovely flowers – no different from the ones used for weddings … there’s no reason why we can’t celebrate the beauty of this kind of floristry.
‘We’ve got a massive mountain to climb, but it takes just a few people with an idea and some energy to make the difference,’ adds Carole. ‘A little enthusiasm goes a long way, and I think this topic is already creeping into public awareness more.’
The RHS Chelsea installation by the Farewell Flowers Directory was sponsored by the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management and Green Funeral Flowers by Tuckshop Flowers.
Images: Farewell Flowers Directory display at RHS Chelsea
