Gnomes at Chelsea Flower Show

Flower growers from the South of England are putting their best blooms on display at this years RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

Exhibitors were very pleased to have a special visit from the former Beatle Ringo Starr.

Click video: we caught up with Ringo Starr at the Chelsea Flower Show.

It was a family affair today as Prince Harry showed the Queen around his charity Sentebale's garden at the Chelsea Flower Show.

The prince welcomed his grandmother into the garden moments after also giving the Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall and Duke of Edinburgh a guided tour.

Gnomes, appearing at the Chelsea Flower Show for the first, will be sold on auction site eBay to raise money for the RHS Campaign for School Gardening.

The decorated figures will all be auctioned off on eBay from today to raise money for the £1 million RHS Centenary Appeal, marking 100 years since the first Chelsea Flower Show.

Celebrities have flocked to the world's most famous flower show for a sneak preview ahead of the Queen's official visit. The Chelsea Flower Show marks its centenary this year.

Two men have dressed as gnomes at the Chelsea Flower Show. A historic ban on gnomes at the show is being overturned this year to mark its centenary.

Read more: Gnomes steal the limelight at Chelsea Flower Show

Celebrities have been given a sneak preview of this year's Chelsea Flower Show, ahead of its public opening. The Queen will also make a special visit later today.

The Queen, as Patron of the Royal Horticultural Society, will today attend a sneak preview of the Chelsea Flower Show.

The Chelsea Flower Show has become a regular fixture in the Royal calendar since it was first held in 1913. Since then it has been an annual event and takes place in late May.

The aim of the exhibitions is to encourage amateur gardeners of all standards to try to achieve similar displays in their own gardens.

One of the most outstanding displays in the shows history was the Coronation Empire Exhibition in 1937.

Created to celebrate the Coronation of King George VI, exhibits included plants representing different parts of the Commonwealth.

• The RHS Great Spring Show was first held in the now vanished RHS garden in Kensington in 1862.
• Between 1888 and 1911 it was held in the Temple Gardens. It moved to its current site at Chelsea Hospital in 1913.

• The Chelsea Flower Show has been held in the grounds of the Chelsea Hospital every year since 1913, apart from gaps during the two World Wars.
• Of the firms that exhibited at the first Show in 1913, only two are still showing: McBean’s Orchids, and Blackmore and Langdon.

• It is the flower show most associated with the Royal family.
• The Chelsea rules forbid the use of coloured sculptures. So garden gnomes have been forbidden throughout its history.

More than 100 gnomes have been decorated by artists and celebrities including Sir Elton John and Dame Helen Mirren to mark the centenary of the Chelsea Flower Show.