Walking through the Bull Ring Gate to Chelsea last Friday, I was concerned whether the main gardens and themes of the show would be “Woke and Weeds”, as was coined by many after last year’s exhibits. Seven of the eight large show gardens are sponsored by Project Giving Back, the generous but anonymous donor which has ploughed many millions into these high-cost (often in excess of £300,000) show gardens. The gardens are designed for charities, so they are highlighting the needs of their cause.
Unsurprisingly, the garden design element does not always strike a chord with visitors looking to see some stunning, glamorous gardens with ideas they can take home. Project Giving Back is slowly pulling out, with 2026 being its final year of sponsorship.
With so few potential sponsors being willing and able to put up the funds, the show gardens could look worryingly underwhelming in 2027. For many they are undoubtedly the big draw of Chelsea, and it would be sad to see their demise.
That said, with the sun shining on them when I visited, I was greeted with some great gardens sporting fabulous planting and inspirational design.
The RHS No Adults Allowed Garden (sponsored by the RHS), designed to get children outside, was my first stop on the Main Avenue. My first ever Chelsea garden, based on The Wind in the Willows, was called A Garden for Children, and both my own children were pretty much brought up in the garden and cooking in the kitchen. I was impressed that Sulivan Primary School in Fulham has outdoor learning once a week; I think this should be on every school’s curriculum, and not just primary schools. The school’s pupils were involved with sowing and growing many of the plants for the garden, and the design, apparently, was done by them too. Its features include a slide to a subterranean den which has views into the lower depths of the “natural pool”. There is an impressive specimen of Chionanthus retusus, a deciduous hardy tree that can produce so many white flowers as to obscure the foliage.
The planting smacked of RHS flower show planting, though, and in no way could you believe any child had had a hand in the design of it. Plus, if children were given free run of the garden, the planting would be silage in seconds.
The Forest Bathing Garden (for Muscular Dystrophy UK) was designed by Ula Maria. The benefits of forest bathing have been well researched, and in addition to the concept there are lots of things to admire in this garden, including the water bowl. This was made by Torc Pots in a pale green colour, with a lip for the water to spill peacefully into a rill.
The Bungaroosh Wall – a wall built using a composite building material implemented almost exclusively around Brighton in the 18th and 19th centuries, its name derived from the concept of “bunging” something up – looked far from “bunged” but beautifully arranged. Maria had contained it within a Corten-steel frame; the beautiful clay paviors are reclaimed and 120 years old, and are mixed with large irregular slabs of new York stone (which is surprisingly affordable compared to old York stone).
It was good to see a Chelsea veteran among the designers, and you would be pushed to miss Robert Myers’s 30ft-high counselling cabin for his Imagine the World to be Different Garden for St James’s Piccadilly. It also features perimeter brick walls at around 20ft high. These looked beautifully aged – the set designer from Downton Abbey was responsible, using a stain from paint brand Mylands in a charcoal colour, well diluted.
The result was a brick wall that looked like it had been built 100 years ago. Perfect. There is much charred wood this year, resulting in blackish benches; Oli Carter made the one featured here. A lovely large urn borrowed from St James’s forms an arresting central feature, but the most eye-catching part is the cabin, which will eventually go to St James’s and will be used for counselling (anyone can pitch up to the church and get free counselling for half an hour from trainee counsellors). Possibly the most popular part of the garden will be the tiny scale model of St James’s tucked away at the back, which is a bird house.
The National Autistic Society has a garden designed by architect Dido Milne and garden designer Sophie Parmenter. Milne is known for having designed the first cork house – and solid cork, from blocks 20in wide, is the main material for the three garden structures. Cork is an amazingly breathable, hygroscopic and hydrophobic material with excellent insulation and long-lasting properties. To ensure that the wastage of materials was minimal, the amount of detail in this design was extraordinarily high, with the furniture made (and beautifully designed) from decking offcuts. The huge stones were reclaimed from Phoenix House near Windsor, which was blown up by the son of the owner 100 years ago.
The designers scanned the stones’ shapes and sizes to make a “digital quarry” to enable them to design and reuse the stone, and the perimeter fence is made from reclaimed scaffold board. An innovative and clever garden undoubtably, but for me it scored low on the charm scale.
Conversely, the Stroke Association’s Garden for Recovery, designed by Miria Harris, felt a warm, welcoming and tranquil garden; easy on the eye, and with some clever touches. Harris suffered a stroke five years ago, and designing and bringing this space to Chelsea is all part of her recovery, each day breaking new ground. As Harris put it, “There is that [feeling of] vulnerability that you won’t be able to deliver.” Well, she certainly has delivered here.
The restful pool and rill are lined with puddled clay, which she built onsite, puddling the 6in-thick lining of clay by hand. I have always been cautious about using puddling clay to line water features, because if the water table drops below the clay liner, it dries and you get cracks in the liner, so they generally need to be at a low level relative to the water table.
Also, getting hold of high-quality puddling clay is quite a process. But I loved the look of this organic liner. The huge mountain pines (Pinus mugo) are from Deepdale, my go-to nursery for specimen trees. They are showstoppers. Mark Godden from Deepdale told me he recovered them from a neglected nursery and that they had been planted about 30 years ago. They were growing in a massive block, so when he dug them up and transplanted them they had eccentric-shaped canopies, which gives them their particularly intriguing form – pertinent, perhaps, to stroke sufferers. A boundary yew hedge, cut on a strong slant, is different and effective, and the paving (at prototype stage) and walls (hempcrete) are made from flax, so are a low-environmental-impact alternative to concrete.
The planting is the icing on the cake, with different areas using different colour palettes. I loved the orange Cytisus ‘Lena’ together with the Erysimum ‘Apricot Twist’ and Geum ‘Totally Tangerine’.
The WaterAid Garden, designed by Tom Massey and Je Ahn, stood out. It has a huge central structure with a Moorish feel. This massive “harvesting pavilion”(for rainwater) is punctured by a large alder tree. Look out for the clever dry planting on the roof. Swales (planted channels that can fill with water or dry out) show how we can deal with downpours and droughts, and they snake through the garden. Steel and timber walkways allow people (above) and water (below) to travel through the garden. The boundary walls are made of rammed earth. It is an enlightened and uplifting garden.
The Octavia Hill Garden, sponsored by Blue Diamond and the National Trust, was designed by Ann-Marie Powell and is her first large garden at Chelsea. Kate Hanrahan, an historic wood carver, who has worked on restoring many of Grinling Gibbons’s carvings on various Trust properties, carved the huge curved retaining logs, which required 30 tons of wood initially, ending at around 9 tons after carving. The garden is designed as a series of outdoor sitting rooms: Octavia Hill championed making outdoor spaces accessible.
Tom Stuart-Smith’s garden for the National Garden Scheme is the typical Stuart-Smith layout, with wide, informal planting dissected by paths made predominantly of small unit paving, in this case reclaimed York stone cut into small units. The massive multi-stem hazel works beautifully and punctuates the planted floor that is a heady mix of many different plants, with exotics used predominantly. White dominates the palette. Highly fragrant white rhododendrons (Rhododendron ‘Daveisii’) are a successful afterthought. His son, Ben, an architect, designed the timber building; it is for volunteers and fitted out internally accordingly. This garden reminded me of a Chelsea garden many years ago – a recreation of the famous Nuttery at Sissinghurst, which also evoked strong praise. All the plants in pots came from Stuart-Smith’s own garden.
Of the other gardens, I found rich pickings in the balcony exhibits. The Ecotherapy Garden designed by Tom Bannister, which is a bit like a watery amphitheatre, had a fabulous cold bath made from his amazing concrete, which includes coconut fibre (so light and more eco-friendly). It’s just large enough to immerse yourself in, and the concrete finish is excellent. Bannister lined the bath with Sikalastic rubber cement; I have one on order.
A Roman Garden (by The Newt) on Main Avenue was a treat: a garden featuring plants of the time, 78 AD, such as larkspur, Iris pallida and more. It’s fascinating, and definitely worth spending time exploring.
Of the Sanctuary Gardens, the World Child Cancer Nurturing Garden designed by Giulio Giorgi scored well. It has intriguing terracotta raised beds, designed with a 3D printer. The Lego-style interlocking terracotta blocks were put together to create raised beds of various heights. The overall effect of the terracotta hues plus soft silvers and pales was impressive.
The earthy but not catchily named Bowel Research UK Microbiome Garden was interesting. This featured a meadow studded with plants that are great for the microbiome. Apparently Camassia quamash bulbs are brilliant roasted, as good as Jerusalem artichokes in terms of a biome boost; the “beans” from lupins (lupinus luteus) are likewise – and tasty. The vast majority of the meadow is edible, but it looks delicious too – and don’t miss the bowel sculpture on the back wall. It’s a clever and informative piece from Chris Hull and Sid Hill.
The Panathlon Joy Garden designed by Penelope Walker includes some star performers. Her plane trees, Platanus x hispanica ‘Malburg’, are trained so that their trunks curve in to shelter the space. They are 15 years old and come from Van den Berk Nurseries. The planting under them is uplifting, in violets, blues and pinks designed to raise the spirits. It’s a simple but striking garden.
Finally, in the Glasshouse Studio area, an exhibit created by The Glasshouse, caught my eye. This highly impressive social enterprise is geared to encourage women offenders from East Sutton Park Prison on day release to start working in horticulture, caring, growing and propagating temperate house plants for offices. I had not realised that women offenders are more likely to reoffend than men, but with prisoners involved in this programme, the reoffending rate is down to zero.
Katie Whittingham from The Glasshouse told me that the inmates and alumni have done all the marketing material, the artwork, the design and the website; grown the plants; and built and planted the garden. It’s highly impressive work.
Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
