Diarmuid Gavin backs fellow designer's claims that Chelsea Flower Show is too white and middle-class

Irish designer Diarmuid Gavin has backed a black Chelsea Flower Show designer who complained that gardening is filled with “double-barrelled” people.

Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) vice president Alan Titchmarsh hit back at Juliet Sargeant, the first black show garden designer in Chelsea’s 103-year-history, branding her claim that horticulture is too white and middle-class “not true”.

But now Gavin has waded into the debate, siding with Sargeant, who called on the RHS to do more to promote diversity within gardening.