In the rarefied world of elite British gardening, the Chelsea Flower Show is the Super Bowl.
Judges spend days assessing hundreds of thousands of plants against nine carefully-defined criteria, as visitors in blazers and fascinator hats — among them royals, retired soccer players and British TV stars — sip on champagne and Pimm’s, a favorite English summertime cocktail.
But the genteel attendees at the century-old show, now underway in London’s Chelsea neighborhood, may find themselves spitting out their drinks.
This year, organizers have permitted an entire garden dedicated to sexual desire.
The new section, named “Aphrodite’s Hothouse” for the Greek goddess of love, explores carnal themes through the medium of houseplants, sponsored by the adult toy brand Lovehoney. And on Tuesday, the judges awarded it a gold medal in the category of houseplant studios.
“In Britain, we can be quite tongue-in-cheek about sex, especially the crowd at a show like this,” said James Whiting, the designer behind the display. This garden, he said, was his attempt to break some of that taboo.
From the outside, there are warnings that this red-hot greenhouse contains something other than your typical petunias. A steaming fountain and neon “GODS ONLY” sign invite visitors toward an entrance flanked by curling palms, intended by Mr. Whiting to evoke Aphrodite’s mythical garden.
(Shrinking violets, avert your eyes now.)
For the inside, he planted trumpet-shaped calla lilies for their evocative form, caladiums for their resemblance to painted hearts, and carnivorous nepenthes for their bulbous pitchers. A small tree is suspended horizontally from two plush swings, cutting a suggestive figure.
“I can’t imagine any of my garden looking like that. It felt quite sensuous,” said Juliet Rumbelow, an amateur gardener with a countryside patch of her own. “Good for Chelsea,” she added.
One passerby compared the result to a Georgia O’Keeffe painting. Others were struck by the glow of neon.
“Your classic Cotswolds cottage garden it is not,” remarked Nick Hobbs, another visitor who said he was a fan of Mr. Whiting’s “whimsy” design after stumbling across it.
The show drew consternation even before it opened. One Christian group condemned it as “soft porn” that was unsuitable for “such a prestigious staple of British culture.”
Mr. Whiting said he was trying to push the world of elite landscaping to consider with a more open mind the links between the natural world and sexual reproduction.
“Plants grow and evolve in the way that they have so they can reproduce,” he pointed out, whether that be by seed or pollination. Simply put: “Gardening is all about sex.”
The response to Mr. Whiting’s creation was positively curious. But there was also the occasional tut.
“It’s a bit contrived and not very garden-like,” commented Peter Foster, who was visiting from near Oxford and disparaged the ornaments on display inside as “tacky.”
“The whole style is just not very ‘Chelsea’,” he said.
Another visitor, Joey McMahon, disagreed, noting the long line to get in. “It’s not offensive. In fact, I think it’s sort of tasteful,” she said.
Her friend, Rosie Findlay, suggested that many flowers can feel erotic anyway. Both said they hoped the display would encourage younger gardeners to participate at Chelsea.
Mr. Whiting’s greenhouse is one of 30 gardens at this year’s competition, with others exploring more traditional themes such as the wildflower meadows of rural England and the aesthetics of the Japanese courtyard garden.
In total, organizers expect around 145,000 visitors over the five-day show, which concludes Saturday. Each garden category is assessed by a panel of eight judges for criteria such as flair, visual composition, attention to detail and theater.
And Aphrodite’s Hothouse wasn’t the only installation to break with tradition. Organizers have temporarily lifted a longtime ban on garish displays of gnomes. A few hundred yards away at a trade stand, Matt Keightley, a landscape designer and entrepreneur, displayed three small gardens designed, he said, using artificial intelligence.
To generate the designs, Mr. Keightley said he used a smartphone app he developed that can generate plant lists and plans for garden spaces.
He argued that using A.I. could “democratize garden design, by giving good quality information to people who might not previously have approached a garden design studio.”
The response from the industry has not been effusive. Andrew Duff, who chairs the Society of Garden and Landscape Designers, a trade body, argued that A.I. could never replicate the artistry of a human-designed landscape.
“The human touch is vital for the world in which we are working, one with living things that are ever changing,” he said. “Only a human hand can do that.”
In a statement, the Royal Horticultural Society defended the use of A.I. as “a useful tool to support gardeners,” though not one that can replace them. Part of the society’s mission, it said, is to support the careers of horticulturalists into the future.
Mr. Whiting, the creator of the Aphrodite exhibit, said that he too wanted to promote landscape design to a new generation of gardeners. That’s part of why he gravitates toward houseplants, he said, an underdog category at Chelsea that is associated with a younger crowd of apartment dwellers.
“It’s about ensuring the longevity of gardening,” he said.
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