Date: 12 – 14 September 2008
Venue: the Great Yorkshire Showground, Harrogate, England

The North of England Horticultural Society (NEHS) was inaugurated in 1910 to organise horticulture in the North of England and to arrange first class shows where northern exhibits could be judged by standards suitable for the northern areas of the country.

In those days, it was time consuming and expensive for exhibitors to travel to the Royal Horticultural Society’s (RHS) shows, at Vincent Square, London. Besides, growers in the north felt they were handicapped when in competition with growers in the warmer climates of the south.

The show had been a success until it was suspended during the First World War. It was then revived in 1921. Since 1927, the NEHS had focused on staging Spring and Autumn Shows each year.

The event was cancelled again during World War II. And it was not until April 1947 that the first Spring Flower Show was held in the Sun Pavilion in the Valley Gardens.

Gradually the Harrogate Spring Flower Show, as it became known throughout the country, increased in size and variety of exhibits. Soon the show became well known not only in the North, but all over the British Isles and overseas.

In 1971 the Fourth International Rock Garden Conference in Harrogate was staged in the auspices of the NEHS. The conference brought more than four hundred international delegates, representing almost every corner of the world, to the town.

Five years later, the NEHS organised an entirely new concept in flower shows by bringing together the National Dahlia Society, the National Chrysanthemum Society and seven other Societies and the North East Area of NAFAS to hold their shows within one show. It was done under the title, the Great Autumn Flower Show. This show, now incorporating 13 individual amateur society shows, has been more popular among the general public and the exhibitors.

The success of the Autumn Show led to the need to expand the Spring Show. Therefore, in 1997, the decision was taken that the Spring Show would be staged in the new location of the Great Yorkshire Showground.

This new location allowed an addition of Arts & Crafts and Fine Country Foods yet the show maintained a predominantly horticultural content. A Landscape & Garden Design section with a Student Garden Design competition, and a Plant Societies’ Marquee featuring the Daffodil and Tulip Shows have also been introduced to expand the Spring Show’s appeal.

The Society has helped to promote this art form from its earliest days and now has one of the largest marquees devoted to flower arrangements and floristry of any flower show in the country.

It has blossomed into the largest national early Spring Flower Show in Britain, with an attendance of around 60,000 visitors, and the premier Autumn Show in the country with more than 35,000 visitors. Each year the NEHS strives to make the Show more versatile and interesting, providing increasingly spectacular exhibits and improving facilities for both visitors and exhibitors alike. It is always seeking to promote all forms of horticulture for the benefit of everyone. From the window box gardener to the owner of acres, the Harrogate Flower Shows serve as a shop window on the gardening world of the future.

In 2008, the autumn show will be held between 12 – 14 September at the Great Yorkshire Showground. Please visit the Show’s official website at http://www.flowershow.org.uk/