The Chelsea Flower Show has been a talking point ever since it started in 1913 and has become one of the most famous gardening shows in the world. For the 1951 show, the organisers built a massive marquee to replace an array of smaller tents. It entered the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest tent and covered an area of three and a half acres. Today the show has a smaller tented area, known as the Plant Marquee, and a series of large and small show gardens to inspire the home gardener. People visit for inspiration, to be amazed, buy plants and also to critique. Should gnomes be banned? What did you think of the plasticine garden?
Here are five iconic gardens from the last 20 years. Do you remember them?
Five iconic gardens
600 days with Bradstone, 2007
Designer: Sarah Eberle
Sarah Eberle’s garden recreated the conditions you’d find on Mars, complete with scorched clay earth and a spring surrounded by mist. It became known as the Life on Mars garden. The aim was to create a garden where an astronaut could live and relax for 600 days in space. It took Sarah eight years to research and plan, including features like a wind turbine and drought tolerant edible and medicinal plants. No one is likely to forget this garden, which pushed the boundaries of what a Chelsea garden can be.
Unique feature: red stone sourced in Scotland to recreate the look of Mars rock
Future Nature Garden, 2009
Designer: Nigel Dunnett, Adrian Hallam and Chris Arrowsmith
This garden emphasised the importance of recycling water and adapting to climate change. It was Nigel Dunnett’s first Chelsea garden and one of the first to highlight sustainability. It featured steel drums for water harvesting, a green roof and planting for pollinators.
Unique feature: a four metre high wildlife tower with living walls and bug hotels
Laurent Perrier Garden, 2010
Designer: Tom Stuart-Smith
This elegant garden won a gold medal and was admired for its elegant planting and tranquil features. Around a long, rectangular pool there were birch trees, a cloud pruned box hedge and spring woodland planting. Tom Stuart-Smith created a calm effect with a green and white colour palette, using plants like Anthriscus sylvestris, euphorbias and Cenolopohium denutatum, Baltic parsley.
Unique feature: a bronze pavilion made from sheets of folded copper, designed by Jamie Fobert
The Westland Magical Garden, 2012
Designer: Diarmuid Gavin
Never one for a subtle design, Diarmuid Gavin created a 24m-high pyramid for the show in 2012. It had seven levels, each with a different type of garden. At the bottom he created a damp shade garden, on other levels there were seating areas, an allotment, even a working shower. Visitors could take a lift up the centre of the structure and come down a slide that wound around the outside of the pyramid from level five. With more than 5,000 plants and trees on various levels, the run up to the show involved a lot of watering for Diarmuid and his team.
Unique feature: a seven-storey pyramid built out of scaffolding
The M&G Garden, 2019
Designer: Andy Sturgeon
A garden that divides opinion is likely to be remembered. Andy Sturgeon’s garden won Best in Show but its critics weren’t keen on the predominantly green planting and lack of colourful flowers. Andy planted primitive plants like mosses and ferns that can thrive in difficult locations to show how adaptable plants are. Some of the plants had never been featured at Chelsea before, including the large-leaved Gunnera killipiana and Antartic beech, Nothofagus antartica.
Unique feature: black oak sculptures to represent volcanic rock
Looking ahead to Chelsea Flower Show 2026
There’ll be no shortage of iconic gardens this year either. Don’t miss The RHS and The King’s Foundation Curious Garden, designed by Frances Tophill in a collaboration with David Beckham and Alan Titchmarsh. This is a showcase garden, so it’s not judged, but will be full of ideas that people can try at home, however small their garden.
Here’s a few highlights to look out for among the Show Gardens:
This year Sarah Eberle returns from retirement with a garden for The Campaign to Protect Rural England called On the Edge. It will celebrate the joy people can find in the green spaces found on the edges of towns.
Arit Anderson is designing a garden for Parkinson’s UK, which includes a new rose that will be launched at Chelsea, a hand “rill” that is also a calming water feature and a colourful border that sweeps around a curving path.
Kazuyuki Ishihara is back following up his double win last year with The Tokonoma Garden – Samumaya no Niwa, which shows the view from a small tea room.
Get a taster of a new garden being created at Tate Britain, as Tom Stuart-Smith brings his latest design to Chelsea. The Tate Britain Garden will be moved after the show to become part of the new Clore Garden he’s creating at the Tate.
And don’t forget to explore the Balcony and Container Gardens and All about Plants Gardens, as they’re always full of inspiring planting ideas.
