Highlights from the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2023
We share highlights from the 2023 RHS Chelsea Flower Show, featuring inspirational garden designs and planting combinations.
Memoria & GreenAcres Transcendence Garden
Designed by Gavin McWilliam and Andrew Wilson
This garden tackles the tricky subject of death and grief. A tastefully subdued planting palette surrounds a central path, reflecting the commonality of birth and death for us all.
Horatio’s Garden
Designed by Charlotte Harris and Hugo Bugg of Harris Bugg Studio
This garden aims to be the antithesis of the clinical, hospital environments that those with spinal injuries are so used to. The birch and acer trees, underplanted with pretty flowers, at wheelchair height, create a cocooning effect.
The Nurture Landscapes Garden
Designed by Sarah Price
The beautiful bearded irises and pots of succulents set the palette for this elegant garden. The peachy tones of the walls and ground covering combined with exquisite planting to make this a favourite with photographers in the early-morning light.
Myeloma UK – A Life Worth Living Garden
Designed by Chris Beardshaw
Those with shady gardens should head to this show garden, where Chris Beardshaw’s recognisable planting style showcases shade-lovers, including Zantedeschia, candelabra primulas and irises.
Centre for Mental Health’s The Balance Garden
Designed by Jon Davies and Steve Williams of Wild City Studio
Is it a weed or a wildflower? This garden highlights the important role weeds play, especially in urban eco-systems. The garden is also designed to be climate change resilient.
House Plant Studios
The House Plants Studios are back again, and these little huts are TARDIS-like in the amount of botanical ingenuity and fun they pack into such a small space.
Floral Design
This year sees the return of the RHS Chelsea Florist of the Year competition, showcasing the finest in floral art, and this year’s exhibits all have to be created without the use of floral foam.
David Austin Roses
It wouldn’t be Chelsea without an archway festooned in roses on the David Austin Roses exhibit in the Great Pavillion.
The Hampden Stargardt Garden
Designed by Joanne Edmonds & Camilla Windsor-Clive
This sensory garden packs scented plants, beautiful blooms, the sound of running water and tactile yew seating into a tiny space, showcasing what can be achieved in a small space where everything has to be grown in containers.
Feels Like Home
Designed by Rosemary Coldstream
Want to give your garden a faraway feel? This garden captures the feel of the designer’s childhood in New Zealand, in a collection of contemporary containers. The planting includes familiar favourites, such a tree ferns, and some less well-known plants, such as the New Zealand Christmas tree.
The Boodles British Craft Garden
Designed by Thomas Hoblyn
Sumptuous moisture-loving plants surround a black pool that cleverly recreates the effect of raindrops dancing on the surface of the water.
The Biophilic Garden Otsu – Hanare
Designed by Kazuyuki Ishihara
In the busy, hustle and bustle of the show, this garden is a little capsule of calm. Ishihara’s designs are always exquisitely immaculate, and this year’s garden is no exception.
Hamptons Mediterranean Garden
Designed by Filippo Dester
Drought-tolerant, Mediterranean-style shrubs and perennials surround stylish seating areas and an outdoor kitchen to create the perfect garden for entertaining friends and family.
The RSPCA Garden
Designed by Martyn Wilson
The vibrant blue water rill is made from recycled plastic, to highlight the danger waste plastic poses for animals.
The Talitha Arts Garden
Designed by Laura and Joe Carey
The couple were shortlisted in the BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Gardens of the Year Competition, before becoming professional garden designers, and this year created their first-ever show garden. Congratulations, Laura and Joe!