Leon Kluge’s fynbos triumph at Chelsea - with foxes sipping rooibos

South Africa’s fynbos stole the show at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, earning three prestigious awards with an unprecedented display of 25,000 stems of cut flowers. Leading the team in London was Leon Kluge, a renowned botanist and landscape designer with global accolades. Kluge told BizNews that the team - including Tristan Woudberg - faced logistical challenges, from coordinating harvests across 30 farms to transporting delicate blooms via Dubai to London. He said that having overcome funding uncertainty in previous years, South Africa’s future at Chelsea looks far more secure, thanks to backing from the Grootbos Private Nature Reserve. The display will now return to South Africa to Stanford - the heart of the fynbos cut-flower industry - so everyone who helped bring it to life, as well as the local community, can enjoy it. What was particularly special this year, according to Kluge, was an unexpected set of visitors: London’s foxes. They came to drink from a river that he and his team recreated in an amber hue, coloured with rooibos tea to reflect Cape rivers, leaving their footprints in the sand. .Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.The auditorium doors will open for BNIC#2 on 10 September 2025 in Hermanus. For more information and tickets, click here..Watch here.Listen here.Edited transcript of the interview.Linda van Tilburg (00:02.043) South Africa’s flora took centre stage at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London, securing three prestigious awards with its largest-ever display, featuring 25,000 stems of cut flowers. Leading this botanical triumph is acclaimed botanist and landscape designer Leon Kluge, alongside his right-hand man, Tristan Woudberg, and a dedicated South African team. Joining us today is Leon. Leon, thank you so much for being with us on Linda van Tilburg.Leon Kluge (00:33.519)Thank you! It’s a pleasure to be here. I’m thrilled to be back in South Africa, though.Linda van Tilburg (00:38.029)Welcome back, and congratulations! You’ve truly done South Africa proud. You must be over the moon with the results.Leon (00:44.622)Thank you! As a team, we’re absolutely delighted. Our goal is always to win gold and achieving that again this year was an incredible feeling.Linda van Tilburg (00:59.165)The logistics must have been a massive challenge - keeping all those flowers fresh, harvesting them at the right time, and then transporting them to Chelsea for the display.Leon (01:09.826)Absolutely, that’s the toughest part. The flowers are the heart of the garden and getting them there is a logistical nightmare. We source flowers from about 30 different cut flower farms across South Africa, from KwaZulu-Natal to the Eastern Cape, Western Cape, and up to the Cederberg. Harvesting has to happen simultaneously across all these farms during the week I’m already in London, so it’s all coordinated by phone with fingers crossed. From Monday to Wednesday, we harvest the flowers, and they must arrive at Cape Town International Airport at the same time for Department of Agriculture checks. It’s a complex process. The flowers are cut and kept at four degrees Celsius from the farm until I open the boxes at the Chelsea Flower Show. With 25,000 stems - about 11 pallets and countless boxes - it’s a huge consignment. Rain during harvest week is our biggest fear. Wet flowers can turn black and marked by the time they reach London, costing us points and potentially the gold. Thankfully, this year, we had no rain that week.Linda van Tilburg (02:59.824)It’s incredible how all these flower growers come together to support you, especially since they could sell those flowers at high prices in Europe.Leon (03:10.176)Yes, it’s a delicate balance. We’re harvesting at the start of the flower season, even a bit early, as proteas typically bloom in June, and the show is in mid-May. We need buds that are just starting to open but still closed. Early-season flowers fetch a premium in Europe, which we can’t afford on our budget. So, we rely on goodwill - maybe a bottle of wine and a big smile! The flower farmers supported us amazingly this year with incredible, high-quality flowers. We couldn’t have asked for more.Linda van Tilburg (04:03.238)Can you describe what the display looked like?Leon (04:06.804)The garden’s concept celebrates South Africa’s Cape Flora, renowned globally as cut flowers that can last four weeks after being cut, including one week without water - something most flowers, like roses, can’t do. Proteas excel at this. In northern South Africa, like the Bushveld or Johannesburg, it’s winter, so there’s little in bloom except aloes, which we can’t export. So, we focus on proteas and fynbos, which are unique to South Africa. The garden has two sections, each with a beach: one representing the Indian Ocean, with warmer colours like reds, yellows, and oranges, inspired by the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal; the other representing the Atlantic Ocean, with cooler colours and plants from the West Coast. These two oceans, warm and cold, meet at a high mountain, creating microclimates that make South Africa’s flora so diverse, especially in the south. We’re known as the “flower basket of Africa,” and our garden featured a woven basket to symbolize this, highlighting African basketry as a famous craft. A canyon, inspired by the Storms River Mouth, cuts through a mountain of ferns, with dark amber water and cliffs showcasing plants like streptocarpus, sandersonias, ferns, and orchids - famous globally but rooted in Africa.Linda van Tilburg (07:00.688)I saw on your Instagram that foxes were drawn to the amber water you created using rooibos tea!Leon (07:11.106)The Cape’s streams and rivers have that iconic amber, whiskey-like colour from tannins in the fynbos, which is perfectly healthy and pleasant to taste. I wanted to recreate that in our water feature without chemicals, so we used hundreds of rooibos tea bags. It gave the water the exact colour and a subtle, beautiful scent. The foxes loved it! Almost every night during the build, they’d come to drink the “rooibos tea.” Some nights they were gentle, leaving just paw prints, but others were a bit of a party, leaving the beaches a mess!Linda van Tilburg (08:53.08)I’d love to hear about your background. I know you’re from the same area as my botanist family, the Braaks, in Nelspruit. Tell us about yourself and your passion for flowers.Leon (08:53.08)I’m from Nelspruit, and I know the Braaks family well! Visiting Elro Braak’s nursery, which supplied big chains like Pick n Pay, sparked my interest. He gave me my first African violets, and that’s where my plant collection began. My dad was the curator at the National Botanical Gardens in Nelspruit, my granddad at Betty’s Bay Botanical Gardens, and my mom ran a big fern nursery. Plants were everywhere in my life, so green fingers came naturally. From a young age, I knew I’d work with plants, whether growing or, as it turned out, “painting” with them through design. I started with small shows in Johannesburg, funding them myself, and gradually got noticed by bigger shows and magazines. It took years, but now I do international shows like Singapore, Japan, China, Luxembourg, and soon Oman.Linda van Tilburg (10:34.51)Coming from Nelspruit’s Bushveld climate near Kruger National Park, you’ve shifted your focus to the Cape. Do you still cherish your Lowveld roots?Leon (10:47.734)Absolutely! I’m flying back to the Bushveld tomorrow to breathe that air. My family’s still there, and once you’re born in the Bushveld, nothing else feels quite like home. It has a unique, relaxing quality. But I also love the Cape’s fynbos and cooler weather. South Africa’s diversity, from roadside flora to mountain hikes, never ceases to amaze me. The Lowveld can get a bit too warm!Linda van Tilburg (11:44.675)Has sponsorship become easier? I know there were years when securing sponsors was a struggle.Leon (11:54.318)I used to do the Chelsea Flower Show for Kirstenbosch and the government, but after COVID, Kirstenbosch stepped back for reasons I didn’t explore. I felt it was vital for South Africa to stay on the world’s biggest horticultural stage, so we started raising funds. It took four years to gather enough for our first post-COVID show last year, and even then, we were short but went anyway. It was a success, and this year has been a bit easier with partners like Grootbos, a safari reserve focused on flowers, biodiversity, and tourism. They align with our vision of preserving and promoting South Africa’s flora and wild spaces, which are increasingly precious. We’ll need new partners for next year, so anyone interested, please reach out!Linda van Tilburg (13:56.203)One final question: what’s next for Leon Kluge?Leon (14:01.806)We’re working on exciting projects, both local and international. We’re developing the first private botanical gardens in Cape Town, which will take a few years but is thrilling. We’re also doing big farm projects in the Mediterranean and more shows. Next, we’re bringing the winning Chelsea design back to South Africa, to Stanford, the heart of the fynbos cut flower industry. Not everyone can travel to London, so we want farmers, workers, and logistics teams to see what South African flora achieved on the world stage.Linda van Tilburg (15:17.0)Leon Kluge, what you’ve accomplished is incredible. Thank you so much, and I’ll keep following your amazing posts on Instagram.Leon (15:43.586)Thank you! I’m so grateful for the support from South Africans, especially those who travelled to London to see the show and everyone sending messages of pride and encouragement. That’s what it’s all about.

Leon Kluge’s fynbos triumph at Chelsea - with foxes sipping rooibos

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