EVEN as parts of Britain lie under heavy snow, the Royal Horticultural Society has brought a touch of summer by announcing plans for this year’s Chelsea Flower Show.
It will be recalled that in May 2023, Eastern Eye made its debut with an especially colourful garden at Chelsea, where the designer Manoj Malde got married, and King Charles and Queen Camilla made a special effort to visit the exhibit.
This year’s Chelsea Flower Show – from May 20-24 for which tickets have already gone on sale – will celebrate British Isles landscapes and champion their restoration.
Helena Pettit, director of shows, commercial and innovation, said: “RHS Chelsea Flower Show is always an exciting opportunity for designers to offer a different perspective on garden design, and it’s lovely to see designers bring these British Isle landscapes to life across the garden categories. These designs are a wonderful example of how gardeners from all walks of life can look closer to home for beautiful and sustainable gardening inspiration.”
From the wild woodlands of a British rainforest to a loch landscape and a songbird’s safe haven, Chelsea 2025 “is celebrating the beautiful natural landscapes of the British Isles in this year’s All About Plants category lineup, supported by Project Giving Back”. Three gardens were picked out for special mention.
The RHS said: “Seawilding by Ryan McMahon will capture the spirit of Scotland’s west coast landscape, with a saltwater pool planted with seagrass, the UK’s only native ocean plant. This will be the first RHS Chelsea garden to be partially relocated to the ocean floor. The garden exclusively features plants native to the west coast of Scotland, such as globeflower, a wildflower of the Scottish wet meadows, and string sedge.
Seawilding by Ryan McMahon
“Amid the ongoing climate crisis, the Wildlife Trusts’ British Rainforest Garden by Zoe Claymore will evoke the verdant wilderness of the rainforests that once swathed the British west coast. Reflecting a trend towards naturalistic planting and regenerative gardening, the planting utilises native shade-loving plants to boost local wildlife. Lichened silver birch trees, dense ferns, and foxgloves will feature throughout, while a striking twometre moss wall will provide a lush backdrop for a tumbling waterfall.
“A soft, countryside-inspired palette of plants features in the SongBird Survival Garden by Nicola Oakey which highlights how gardeners can support the UK’s declining songbird population. Bird-friendly planting such as arctic bramble, grasses and yew hedges provide food, nesting material and shelter for songbirds whose population has declined by 50 per cent in just two generations.”
The RHS added: “The Hospitalfield Arts Garden, a new addition to the show garden category, joins the homage to British landscapes with a dramatic dune topography and coastal planting inspired by the east coast of Scotland. Designed by Nigel Dunnett, who returns to RHS Chelsea for the first time since 2017, the garden features planting established in sand to demonstrate how mineral materials can be used as a growing medium to encourage more diverse plants.
The Wildlife Trusts’ British Rainforest Garden by Zoe Claymore
“From biodiversity to neurodiversity, the ADHD Foundation Garden designed by Kate Terry wraps up the All About Plants line up and is set to celebrate the uniqueness of people. A layered sensory space, the garden will feature uncommon plant varieties as well as popular plants fashioned in an unusual way to reflect the beauty of diversity.
“The gardens in the All About Plants category have a particular focus on unusual and specialist plants. The gardens in this category and The Hospitalfield Arts Garden are supported by Project Giving Back, a grant-giving charity that supports gardens for good causes at RHS Chelsea Flower Show.”
In the past three years, the British Asian presence at Chelsea, once seen as almost the exclusive preserve of the likes of the haughty Lady Bracknell (from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest), has significantly risen
Bob Blackman MP speaks during the event