HIS flamboyant personality and even more flamboyant garden have been the talk of the Chelsea Flower Show. But now Diarmuid Gavin has been accused of far worse than self-promotion.

Royal Horticultural Society officials say the television gardener has broken show rules and should have behaved in a more honourable manner. In the process he had denied other gardeners the career-making opportunity of displaying at Chelsea. They have warned him that he may not be allowed to return next year.

Nevertheless, Mr Gavin is still in the running to win one of the show’s coveted awards for his garden, A Colourful Suburban Eden, which features a collection of lottery balls.

The main charge against him is that he he kept show organisers in the dark about the sponsorship of his garden. This may seem a trifling matter, but to be accepted at Chelsea is the pinnacle in the career of many designers. If those turned away suspect that everything is not as it should be, they are not slow to voice their grievances.

Sorting out the funding for a garden is one of the priority qualifications for the show. While design, choice of plants and a construction plan are vital, Chelsea, conscious of its prestige, cannot afford a loser or a vacant plot.

The organisers said that Gavin told them he had financial backers when, they say, he did not. Even more galling, he had disclosed on his own BBC show that he did not have a sponsor and had been seen asking people for support. The broadcast had brought a flood of complaints from Chelsea’s rejects.

Stephen Bennett, the show director, said last night that Gavin’s behaviour was entirely unacceptable. He said that the organisers were “very cross” about the sponsorship issue. “We had 60 applications for this year’s 21 big gardens. We had to turn down 40. Funding is as important as the design, plants and construction. If someone’s not sponsored we might have had a gap. Remember, we had to turn down ten fully funded gardens.”

When Mr Gavin did eventually find a sponsor, he entered the wrong name, with the result that the catalogue for the RHS’s bicentenary year was wrong.

Mr Bennett said that this was “another example of his scatterbrained approach”. “He said it (the sponsor) was the National Lottery Fund, and it’s in our catalogue, but they didn’t fund it and they haven’t. It’s Camelot, a private company, that has sponsored it.

“A number of people have raised concerns about taxpayers’ money being used in this way, but it wasn’t. On reflection it did look odd on the form when he said the National Lottery was funding it, but we depend on our exhibitors to tell us the truth.”

Mr Bennett said he was not sure how the RHS would react if Gavin applied to enter another garden design for Chelsea. “Well certainly, in future, if he says he’s got a sponsor I think at the least we would expect to talk directly to that person and find out if he or she is funding the scheme.”

Michael Balston, an RHS council member and chairman of the Chelsea Garden Panel, which selects the gardens, admitted: “It has caused a certain amount of grief. A lot of other exhibitors feel it unfair and he’s getting special treatment so we’ve had to weigh up what action to take. No decision has been made but if he applies again he’ll be under a lot of pressure to behave himself in a way that is a bit more honourable than he has so far.

“What we don’t want is to be complete sticks-in-the-mud. We are looking for people doing new and interesting gardens. His result in terms of the artistic element that he’s produced is a good one, but the behaviour in getting there has given everyone a load of grief.”

When approached about the furore, Gavin appeared shocked that he had caused such ructions. Asked why he had apparently misled the organisers about having a sponsor when he did not, he said: “That’s not what happened and everyone knows that. I had a sponsor, but it wasn’t working out. I said I might need to change my sponsor and I would also need more money.

“As for the catalogue, we have done everything according to what the lottery wanted. Camelot wanted it to be called the Lottery Garden, but we’ve always made clear that no money was used that was intended for good causes.”

Mark Robinson, operations director for Diarmuid Gavin Garden Designs, said: “We went into Chelsea with the full commitment of a sponsor. It was an Irish company, that is all I will say. It did not materialise and so we had to find a sponsor.

“As soon as we got the sponsor we changed it. The catalogue was a mistake: we should never have said the funding was from the National Lottery. The funding was from Camelot. We’ve explained it on our show and made clear no taxpayers’ money was used on the garden. I really am surprised by all this fuss.”

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Revealed: how Eurocrat leaked secrets over dinners
• Politicians use the net to brainstorm
• British spy in longbow plot to kill Himmler