From 29 April to 8 May, Floraliën Ghent 2022, a ten-day flower and plant festival held once every five years, will take place in Ghent, Belgium. The previous edition ended in financial disaster for the organisation that has been organising the festival since 1873. This year, the event will take a more modest approach. Organiser Pieter Toebaert explains that expectations are high: “There is a green wave rolling through society, and we want to ride it.”
The organisation, which has existed since 1808 and has organised the Ghent Floraliën since 1873, carries a Royal Warrant: it is known as the Royal Society for Agriculture and Botany (Koninklijke Maatschappij voor Landbouw en Plantkunde – KMLP). There is a Dutch flavour to this Warrant: it was awarded by the Dutch King Willem I at a time when Belgium did not yet exist as a nation and Flanders was part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Director Pieter Toebaert has headed the organisation since 2017. The day before the official opening of Belgium's largest flower and plant show, he is busy shaking hands. No fewer than 38 journalists have turned up for the press event, including a Japanese journalist, an American, a Frenchman and a handful of Dutch journalists.