Garden festival

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A garden / flora festival or exposition is a festival and exposition held to celebrate the arts of gardening, garden design, landscaping and landscape architecture. There are local garden festivals, regional garden festivals, National Garden Festivals and International Garden Festivals. The idea probably originated with Germany's Bundesgartenschau. The UK held five garden festivals in the period 1984-92 but blundered through not planning an after-use for the festival grounds during their design and planning phase.

To qualify as an International Exhibition, a show must be recognised by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), which was established by a diplomatic international Convention, signed in Paris,in 1928. Shows can also be recognised by the International Association of Horticultural Producers (IAHP / AIPH). To qualify as a National Exhibition, a garden festival must be recognised by a national government.

Because garden design is becoming more popular and featuring on TV, there is an ever-growing number of garden festivals: permanent and temporary, official and non-official. One of the best known is International Garden Festival held on a permanent site at Chaumont in France. Despite the name, Chaumont does not come within the BIE definition of an 'international' festival. Other shows feature garden design but describe themselves as 'flower shows'. The best-known example in this category, the Chelsea Flower Show is seeing a shift of emphasis towards garden design and there is talk of a Chelsea Fringe Flower and Garden Festival in 2008.

The last International Garden Festival is 2010 Taipei International Flora Exposition (2010 Flora Expo), it's open on November 6, 2010 to April 25, 2011 in Taipei, Republic of China (Taiwan).

[edit] List of host nations and cities

Country	City	Festival name	Year(s)	Dates	Type	AIPH classification^[1]	BIE recognised^[2]
Netherlands	Rotterdam	Floriade	1960		International	A1	Yes
Netherlands	Amsterdam	Floriade	1972		International	A1	Yes
Netherlands	Amsterdam	Floriade	1982		International	A1	Yes
United Kingdom	Liverpool	International Garden Festival	1984		International	A1	Yes
Japan	Osaka	Expo '90	1990	Apr 1 - Sep 30	International	A1	Yes
Netherlands	The Hague	Floriade	1992		International	A1	Yes
United States of America	Columbus, Ohio	AmeriFlora '92	1992	Apr 3 to Oct 12	National		No
China	Kunming	1999 World Horticultural Exposition	1999	May 1 to Oct 31^[3]	International	A1	Yes
Netherlands	Haarlemmermeer	Floriade	2002		International	A1	Yes
France	Dijon	Florissimo	2005		National	B2	No
China	Shenyang	International Horticultural Exposition 2006	2006	May 1 - Oct 31	International	A2/B1	No
Singapore	Singapore	Singapore Garden Festival	2006 and biennially since	Dec 16 - Dec 25	International	n/a	No
Thailand	Chiang Mai	Royal Flora Ratchaphruek	2006–2007	Nov 1 - Jan 31	International	A1	Yes
France	Dijon	Florissimo	2010	Mar 11 - 21	National		No
Taiwan	Taipei	Taipei International Flora Exposition	2010–2011	Nov 6 - Apr 25	International	A2/B1	No
Australia	Melbourne	Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show	2011	Mar 30 - Apr 3	International	n/a	No
China	Xi'an	International Horticultural Exposition 2011	2011	April 22 - Oct 28	International	A2/B1	No
Netherlands	Venlo	Floriade 2012	2012		International	A1	Yes
China	Qingdao	International Horticultural Exposition 2014	2014	April - Oct	International	A2/B1	No
France	Dijon	Florissimo	2015	March	National		No
Turkey	Antalya	Expo 2016	2016		International	A1	No