How Leon Kluge, SA’s unofficial ambassador for Cape flora, struck gold at Chelsea for the third time

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:08]Leon Schultz, a South African born guru and master designer, has done it again at the 2026 Chelsea Flower Show in London. For the third year in a row, he's walked away with the top honors at the world's most prestigious garden show. Leon, welcome back. Always great to have you.

[00:00:26]>> Uh thank you so much. Yeah, it's nice to be back in South Africa now.

[00:00:30]>> But first, let's look at the moment when Leon and his team were presented with the best in show prize at Chelsea.

[00:00:38]>> The water is about to get a lot lot better. Oh.

[00:00:43]What is better than best in show? Thank you. Thank you very much.

[00:00:47]Congratulations so much.

[00:00:49]Okay.

[00:00:50]How good is this?

[00:00:53]It's about all of you cuz you keep winning. You come to RHS Chelsea Flower Show and you keep winning. This is about excellence and you have also uh you've won so deservedly. It's a fantastic garden, a fantastic concept. And I think it's a really exciting thing to see you here. And it's fantastic always see South Africa. You always turn up in such force. Then you do something wonderful and you bring the joy of gardening to so many people. Thank you, Seipati.

[00:01:17]>> Well, you now repeating the success year after year. Do you now have a recipe for gold at Chelsea?

[00:01:24]>> Well, it's um it's been a journey. I don't think there's any recipe for for that. It really is how all the little puzzle pieces come together in the end. And anything can how can I say cause a puzzle piece to uh get lost. And uh this year there were quite a few um factors that came into play that almost caused us not to be at the Chelsea Flower Show. And the main thing um would have been the weather.

[00:01:54]So, every year we have great weather. And it's my biggest obstacle, is my biggest fear because we can't pick any flowers if there's any moisture in the air, like heavy dew, mist rain, snow. And we had all of it at once, even wind. And um at that point, we were we were trying to organize all the flowers because I'm already in London building the base structures, all the hard stuff. All the ugly things. And then um whilst I'm there, the farmers start to pick the flowers. And they were just calling me and telling me, Leon, like, that listen, we can't pick anything. It's just too stormy here. It's way too wet. Because if the flowers go wet into the boxes, by the time they reach London, which is almost a week later the flowers are all full of um moth. Yeah, they're black.

[00:02:48]And um we can't use them. So at that point, I didn't quite know what to do. We were thinking of plan B, C, and D.

[00:02:56]Um never kind of materialized because I couldn't think of any other. Because you can't get these fynbos in in Europe or in the UK. It's just not possible. And um luckily, the storm let up for a limited amount of time. It was like 12 hours or something. And some of the areas, not all, but some of the areas told me, Leon, listen, we're going to make a plan. We're going to pick some flowers.

[00:03:20]Um we can't guarantee all that you wanted. Um maybe we see something else that's dry we're going to pick here. And so they did. And and they tried their best to dry it. And then um we managed to get enough flowers this year for the show. So a big relief and a one little silver lining in all of this because it was so cold and rainy and snowy in areas the flower quality was just excellent because of that cold weather. So um that was the only silver lining in regards to the weather element.

[00:03:55]>> Can you describe what you designed this year and what the thinking behind it was?

[00:04:00]>> So, this year the garden I designed was called life after fire. And the reason I went with that theme is because of all the major fires we had, especially in the Western Cape.

[00:04:13]And you know, fires are really destructive and it's a scary thing to have happen and we've a lot of properties were lost and you know, animal life and all of that is it's it's really not great.

[00:04:26]But from a fynbos perspective, from the flowers perspective, it is necessary.

[00:04:32]But it's necessary in a balanced way.

[00:04:35]But like it's been in the mountains here for hundreds of thousands of years. And we must remember that we live here in a fire-driven ecosystem, a fire-driven paradise. But the fire has to happen for us to have this biodiversity, this explosion of plants that's making the Western Cape so famous around the world for our floral kingdom.

[00:04:59]But we have a slight little problem.

[00:05:01]Because of human intervention, we have fires that become too often to the mountains, especially on the verges of the cities and towns. And that means that if a fire happens too often, say two to three years, that means the proteas don't have enough time to mature and to set seed and to let the seed go into the landscape to create new plants.

[00:05:26]So, they start to fade away and we already see that close to the towns. How the proteas are slowly but surely getting less and less.

[00:05:34]If the fire takes too long and it's prevented from having a burn, say every 30 years, then all the bulbs and annuals and orchids that sit in waiting underneath this big protea bushes, which is dark.

[00:05:49]It's completely dark on the ground level, so that doesn't help they grow. I sit and wait because there's no sunlight.

[00:05:55]They start to lose their energy in their bulbs and in their seed, and slowly but surely they fade away.

[00:06:01]That means either all. So, if there's too many fires, not enough proteas. If there's not enough fires, we lose all the other beautiful goodies underneath.

[00:06:11]And remember, a protea is a unique and a very, very protective mommy. So, she has all her seed on her from the from the first time she flowers. And I give her a her, female thing, because I've I always associated with that. She protects all her little seeds.

[00:06:31]And only once a fire comes through, then after the fire, after the flames have come through, then she opens up all the seed pods, which is on her been on her for the last 15 years or so, and then they get spread because she knows they have the best chance in life. She sacrificed her life, she is down to ashes. The ashes give energy in our poor soil in the Western Cape. There's sunlight on the ground, so these seeds have a big chance to grow up and strong.

[00:07:00]And um yeah, that's a very important thing to keep in mind with our proteas.

[00:07:06]So, in regards to the design of the garden, it is a two-way garden. So, the first side of the garden is this um very destructive force of the fire that went through.

[00:07:19]It burned all the big proteas. It's only the skeletons left and some burned uh branches, and the edging of the whole garden is really scorched wood.

[00:07:30]The reason I use that scorched wood and edging and very harsh burned elements is because I want to create this strong structure. Not a soft thing, not a floral installation that's very strong.

[00:07:43]It needs to pull your eye towards it and look twice.

[00:07:48]Also, the scent. So, when you walk past the garden, you will smell the scent of smoke, of a fire that went recently through it. That gives you another sense to this garden. But then, the bulbs, because it takes very quickly in the Western Cape, the bulbs immediately start to grow. Some of the earliest flowers that come after a fire is 2 weeks and after a fire to be in full flower and that's the satans, the fire lilies.

[00:08:14]But on my display, it was 2 months, 3 months. First rain has just fallen.

[00:08:20]There's a little bit of moisture and it's 3 months after the fire and the first of the flowers are starting to appear. A lot of greens are coming.

[00:08:27]There's a little stream that's has a little bit of moisture in it and the moisture is starting to green and some of the orchids are starting to flower. I have a little bit of smoke coming down the little stream in the valley just to give you that illusion of there's still a smoking ember somewhere and there was a fire that wasn't there too long ago.

[00:08:50]On the other side, where it starts to merge with the other side, it's 2 to 3, maybe even 4 years after the fire and all of these proteas have now again grown to teenagehood and they're starting to cover the soil base and all the bulbs and orchids and annuals that's on the other side are starting to rest again, disappearing and all of these well, proteas are exploding in their color and taking over the landscape as a healthy ecosystem would do.

[00:09:21]>> Just wow.

[00:09:22]Leon, I think you have kind of become an unofficial ambassador for South Africa's flora. When you speak about plants and I watch you on Instagram as well, when you talk about Cape flora, your enthusiasm is so palpable. Does that feel like responsibility now?

[00:09:39]>> Yes, it is a responsibility. I I I I take that on fully. And it's a responsibility not only on the world stage where we take our fynbos and showcase it to the world and tell them what we still have here available and promoting our cut flower industry and our green tourism, which I feel is so important. And that is to also in the long term saving some spaces from becoming developed. Because our natural spaces are becoming less and less, but more valuable. Because once it's lost, it's lost forever. You cannot get it back no matter how good you are at landscaping.

[00:10:17]That's not going to happen.

[00:10:19]And worldwide we are so so I think people are envy us because we have so many wild spaces here that's not so influenced by the human hand. And people come from all over to come and see all of these famous flowers. Very famous flowers that you can buy every nursery or garden center or flower market around the world. See them grow in their natural habitat. And I feel that is my responsibility to showcase us as South Africans to appreciate these flowers and show how vulnerable they are, but also give them a little story.

[00:10:55]Make them lighthearted. Give them life.

[00:10:58]Tell the story of how they develop and how they survive in their chosen little piece of land with other plants, insects, birds, or amphibians, whatever that could be.

[00:11:10]And um yes, and then protect those areas and uh even what we're doing now, bringing the whole garden back to Stanford, raising money money for the community, and also raising money to eradicate all of these alien plants usually from Australia out of our mountains and giving breathing space for our fynbos to grow.

[00:11:32]And that's another thing with the fires that a lot of people might not know because with the fires you know, fynbos fire with the Cape of Storms, right? We have a lot of wind.

[00:11:42]That means the fire goes very very very quickly.

[00:11:46]That means the fire might be hot, but it moves very fast.

[00:11:50]And it won't burn the seeds. It just scorches the outer in exterior before they explode. But if we have all of these alien plants like eucalyptus and pines and wattles in between our landscape, they make the fire extremely hot and they keep the fire there for longer and that is why we lose the seed bit because they absolutely burn the seed bit also.

[00:12:17]So, very important um to get that message across.

[00:12:23]>> You've just mentioned that the exhibition is also going home to Stanford in South Africa. So, tell us about the local show case. Is it going to be what people saw at Chelsea?

[00:12:33]>> Yeah, so we will be opening it on the 12th of September in Stanford, same place.

[00:12:39]And um I hope that, you know, everybody in the community and farmers and um flower because schools all the chums can come and have a look at it. And um how can I say? So, it is there for people to enjoy. Yes, we got to a lot of media coverage with our display abroad, but it's still not bringing it back to the South Africans.

[00:13:05]That is very special and we're so well supported by the people to come and see our flowers. And yes, it will be 98% the same, as close as I can. But there are one or two flowers that tell me, Leon, you can say whatever you want, but we're asleep then. So, you have to make an alternative. So, there's probably about 2% of the flowers that we'll find an alternative for, but for the most part of it, it will be exactly the same.

[00:13:32]>> There was a couple of years where funding for South Africa's exhibition at the Chelsea Flower Show was a real challenge. Are things more secure now?

[00:13:42]>> Look, funding is always a challenge. I'm not going to lie.

[00:13:45]It gets more expensive. This year, we had more challenges because of the the petrol and diesel prices that went up and and the flights to to London was just yeah, it was extremely expensive.

[00:14:01]And so, it it is a challenge. And in the beginning, it was a lot more, but now that we have kind of secured a name, we have a lot more people willing to to aid us because they see the message that we give out to the world and and and they see that's all about flowers, not about people or humans. It's it's about our flowers and that's it. So, we have a lot of um supporters. I would call them partners. Um which is Grootbos, uh the Rupert Nature Foundation, Hazendal Wine Estate, and Southern Sun. And they are really great partners and they speak the same language as us in um having projects that protect um our fynbos and our natural spaces.

[00:14:46]>> Well, may your success continue and Leon Kluge, thank you so much.

[00:14:50]>> Thank you.