Outdoor heaters banned at Chelsea Flower Show

Patio heaters have been banned from this year's Chelsea Flower Show because of the damage they do to the environment.

None of the shops on the show site will be allowed to sell the portable gas heaters and none of the gardens will feature them.

Organisers say the ban will help make this year's show the most environmentally friendly yet. Other green measures include:

Official shops and many exhibitors will use biodegradable corn starch bags instead of plastic ones.

Many of the demonstration gardens will feature solar panels, wormeries and recycled rainwater.

Several gardens will have living "green walls", a popular new trend where the planting area goes up the sides to maximise small urban spaces, encourage wildlife and dampen road noise.

Designer Robert Myers has used green walls in the courtyard garden he has created for The Cadogan Estate, which will be a show highlight. He said: "The garden is set in a Chelsea of the future and assumes a somewhat hotter and sometimes wetter London, so incorporates lush planting and cooling water canals under dappled shade."

The Lloyd's TSB garden is also set in the future - in a pond dried out by global warming. It has a wind turbine, olive and banana trees and palms.

The Summer Solstice garden by Daylesford Organic features an outdoor kitchen and dining room to cook and eat the organic vegetables and wheat grown in it. There is also a pavilion with a planted roof and solar panels, a wormery and water butt.

All exhibitors had to fill in a green questionnaire. Almost 95 per cent propagated their own plants but only 23 per cent did not use peat compost.

All timber must be sustainable and the official caterer is buying most of its food from the UK.

The waste from every stand will be photographed to create a baseline for measuring the environmental impact of future shows.

Chelsea Flower Show, Royal Hospital, Chelsea, May 20-24.