Gardening for Health is a blog by Dr Dinah Parums.
drdinahparums
Dr Dinah Parums
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The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Chelsea Flower Show is held in May each year. I have attended most years since 1968.

Dr Dinah Parums at the petunia wall. Chelsea Flower Show The show was originally called the Royal Horticultural Society’s Great Spring Show, and was first held in 1862, at the RHS garden in Kensington. But in 1888 this venue closed and the Show moved to Temple Gardens near the Embankment; it was held under canvas at this venue until 1911.
In 1912, the Temple Show made way for the Royal International Horticultural Exhibition. The nurseryman, Sir Harry Veitch secured the grounds of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea and the Great Spring Show was moved there in 1913, where it has taken place almost every year since.
The Show was cancelled during the 2nd WW, because the War Office needed the land for an anti-aircraft site. It returned in 1947.
In 1926 the organizers decided to postpone the show due to the General Strike. It was held a week later. In 1928, a storm devastated the site the night before the grand opening. Until 2000, they site housed a giant marquee which featured in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest tent. The old tent was transformed into 7,000 bags, aprons and jackets.
The ‘Show Gardens’ are been built from scratch in just 19 days and are dismantled in only five days.
Until 2013, gnomes were banned from the RHS Chelsea Flower.
Hillier Nurseries holds the record for the greatest number of Chelsea Golds: 66 as of 2014.
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Dr Dinah Parums

Dr Dinah Parums Dr. Dinah Parums is retired. She was previously a freelance medical and science editor, writer, and journalist, since becoming physically disabled.
Between September 2018-June 2024, Dinah was Director of DVP Editorial Limited.
Dinah has several patents, >120 peer-reviewed publications, >6,900 citations (>125 = highly influential), an H-index of 37, and Google Scholar i10-index of 71.
She has >20 years of postgraduate medical teaching experience and has supervised 5 PhD students. Dinah has written and edited a postgraduate medical textbook, Essential Clinical Pathology (Blackwell Science Ltd. Oxford. ISBN 0-632-03088-7). Dinah has worked as a Clinical Editor for the British Medical Journal (BMJ), and is currently a peer reviewer for several biomedical journals.
Dinah has undergraduate medical degrees from the University of Cambridge (B.A., M.A) and clinical medical degrees from Oxford University Medical School (B.M., B.Ch.). Her Ph.D. in experimental pathology is from the University of Cambridge. Dinah was awarded research fellowships from the British Heart Foundation, Wolfson College, Oxford, and Darwin College, Cambridge. She has also held visiting fellowships in the USA at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Stanford University Medical School.
Dinah did her postgraduate specialist training in the Nuffield Department of Pathology, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, as Clinical Lecturer and postgraduate Clinical Tutor in Pathology. She was awarded Membership of the Royal College of Pathologists (MRCPath) in 1991 and the Fellowship (FRCPath) in 1999, and was also awarded the Fellowship of the American College of Chest Physicians (FCCP) in 1999. She held senior clinical and academic positions at the University of Cambridge, and the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Imperial College, University of London.
Between 1994 and 2002, Dinah was an External Examiner for the Royal College of Pathologists (MRCPath) and a member of the US/Canadian Academy of Pathologists (US/CAP).
Dinah has >10 years of experience working as a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry and as a Principal Pharmaceutical Physician.
In support of her role in publications, Dinah continues to be a member of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), AMWA, EMWA, and ISMPP. She is familiar with current guidelines from the ICMJE, COPE, the AMA Manual of Style, and GPP3/4.
Dinah is a 1441 Foundation Member and Henry VI Circle Legacy Group Member of King’s College, Cambridge University.