Exotics flourish despite the rain - Wednesday 24Umbrellas are up again at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show this morning, although the sun is breaking through from time to time. The rain wreaked further havoc earlier by flooding Sloane Square tube station, which serves the showground. It closed briefly, but re-opened shortly after the start of the show. For the designers and exhibitors, today is the first 'business as usual' day: now the medals have been awarded, it’s time to relax a little and talk gardening.  For Hillier Nurseries, it's the morning after the night before. Yesterday they won their 61st gold medal in a row - the most ever won by an exhibitor at Chelsea. Their spectacularly rich display of trees, shrubs and perennials in a design of curves and soft lines includes five new introductions. Mark Pitman, managing the stall today, is quietly delighted. "It’s not a given that we’ll get the gold every year. Sixty last year was fantastic, but we work just as hard every year."
 It's also the last chance to see the first group of floral art exhibitors, in the Floristry Marquee and in the Floral Art Marquee. The wonderfully exotic display by the Barbados Flower Arranging Society won gold in the Floral Arrangements category, and in the Floristry Marquee, the Country Garden display also won Best Floristry Exhibit. Gnome on the roam - Wednesday 24A gnome has been secretly smuggled into the famously gnome-unfriendly RHS Chelsea Flower Show in a prank staged by a BBC radio reporter. The Today Programme reporter sneaked in the gnome, dubbed Nicholas, yesterday and photographed him on exhibits in the Great Pavilion and in show gardens.
 The RHS prohibits the use of gnomes by exhibitors in show gardens, along with ‘brightly coloured creatures’ and 'materials exuding a foul or unpleasant odour'. The sport of gnome-smuggling has become something of a Chelsea tradition ever since. View photographs of Nicholas’s trip to Chelsea and to listen to the Today Programme report.
| 
