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Intelligence, Innovation and Joy - the Garden Highlights of RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2025

The world famous RHS Chelsea Flower Show, sponsored by The Newt in Somerset, returns on 20-24 May 2025 with a host of the UK’s top garden designers and debut designers set to impress on its Main Avenue.
 

This year many gardens include a focus on the future, tackling climate challenges through intelligence and innovation and embracing the wellbeing benefits of gardening through designing with fun and joy in mind. The 14 show gardens announced today by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) highlight a rich variety of garden purposes, including: gardens for respite; relaxation; connecting with friends; for children; communities and wildlife.  
 
For the first time RHS Chelsea Flower Show will feature a garden that harnesses the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The Avanade ‘Intelligent’ Garden, designed by RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024 gold medal winning design team of Tom Massey and Je Ahn, includes a curated selection of climate-resilient plants and trees, which will be monitored by AI.
 
Practical garden elements of seating, water features and paving have been given a unique twist through the use of unusual materials, approaches and an abundance of traditional craftsmanship, including mycelium walls, semi-transparent enclosures, specialist tile makers and stone inscribing. The Glasshouse Garden, designed by Jo Thompson celebrates the transformative effect of second chances through horticulture. Inspired by the work of The Glasshouse programme in providing a sense of purpose to women as they approach the end of their prison sentences, the garden is centred around a translucent elliptical pavilion emerging from rich foliage.
 
The Cha no Niwa – Japanese Tea Garden, by multi RHS Chelsea medal winner Kazuyuki Ishihara, will include a traditional Japanese tea house complete with thatched roof and set amongst a wide variety of Japanese maples. The Down’s Syndrome Scotland Garden, by Duncan Hall and Nick Burton (first time designers at RHS Chelsea), will include decorative tiles by contemporary artist and tile maker Francis Priest that surround a playful feature building. To highlight the misconceptions that people with Down’s Syndrome face this semi-wooded garden combines fun and mischievous features with both bold colourful planting and calming green colours to represent empathy and affection.
 
Helena Pettit, RHS Director of Shows and Gardens, said: “Our gardens, like people and plants have their own personalities. This year there is a huge diversity of inspiration and creativity reflecting the very different ways we want to use our gardens. Gardens to heal and restore, places to connect with others and entertain and gardens to play and have fun. So whether you’re creating a place for relaxation, a haven for wildlife or simply want to revel in the joy of gardening, the 2025 RHS Chelsea Flower Show will be teeming with inspiration to help you bring more plants into your home.”
 
Creating a garden where children can be carefree, happy, refreshed and grounded by the natural world, first time RHS Chelsea designer Ros Coutts-Harwood will be joined by Tom Clarke to create the Children with Cancer UK ‘A Place To Be…’ garden. This garden includes a fun monorail, pool and a meandering path to a clear and reflective refuge representing a nest.  
 
The London Square Chelsea Pensioners Garden, designed by Dave Green, is a place for the Chelsea Pensioners to share time with friends or family or to enjoy quiet reflection. The woodland space, filled with striking trees and a sheltered, central seating area will include vibrant planting to the garden boundaries to reflect the ceremonial life and stories of the Pensioners.
 
Many of the gardens have been inspired by natural landscapes and wild plant communities. Whether it is the coast of northeast Scotland, the self-seeding plant communities around volcanoes or the growing environment in Mallorca. The Hospice UK: Garden of Compassion by Tom Hoblyn draws climate and planting parallels between County Durham and mountainous areas of the Mediterranean and The Garden of the Future, by debut RHS Chelsea designers Mattthew Butler and Josh Parker, feature climate-resilient ornamentals, crops and edible plants to demonstrate how to harness innovation and lessons learnt globally to grow in a more sustainable and climate-resilient way.
 
Other garden highlights include The King’s Trust Garden: Seeding Success by Joe Perkins, set in a volcanic environment, highlighting how seeds represent the potential for life, growth and optimism for the future, drawing parallels with the potential for young people.  The Tackle HIV Challenging Stigma Garden, by Manoj Malde, is a visual representation of the advances in science and the power of the HIV community to tackle stigma, whilst the Addleshaw Goddard: Freedom to Flourish Garden by Joe & Laura Carey, embraces nature’s call for an unhurried pace of life. The Killik & Co Save For a Rainy Day Garden, by Baz Grainger, offers a glimpse of gardens 25 years in the future and has been designed to withstand unpredictable weather patterns and the Boodles Raindance Garden, designed by Catherine MacDonald, provides a space for families to relax and contemplate life backed by the sight and sound of water. The Pathway Garden by Robert Beaudin and Allon Hoskin is inspired by the Pathway charity supporting homelessness, it features open design with sheltered woodland and a stylised contemporary space.
 
For a full list of the gardens announced today visit: https://www.rhs.org.uk/press/shows/chelsea
 
Several of the Show gardens are being supported by grant-giving charity, Project Giving Back, the unique grant-giving charity that supports gardens for good causes at the Show.
 
RHS Chelsea Flower Show runs from 20 to 24 May 2025 at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, more information and tickets available from: https://www.rhs.org.uk/shows-events/rhs-chelsea-flower-show

Notes to editors

Show garden exhibitor lists are available on the RHS Media Centre here: https://www.rhs.org.uk/press/shows
 
Show garden images can be downloaded from this link: RHS/Iris

Show Gardens 2025
 
The Avanade ‘Intelligent’ Garden designed by Tom Massey & Je Ahn
Sponsor: Avanade
Contractor: Landscape Associates
 
Hospice UK: Garden of Compassion by Tom Hoblyn
Sponsor: Project Giving Back
Contractor: Mark Whyman Landscapes
 
The King’s Trust Garden: Seeding Success by Joe Perkins
Sponsor: Project Giving Back
Contractor: The Landscaping Consultants
 
The Glasshouse Garden by Jo Thompson
Sponsor: Project Giving Back
Contractor: Ryan Alexander Associates
 
Addleshaw Goddard: Freedom to Flourish Garden by Joe & Laura Carey
Sponsor: Addleshaw Goddard
Contractor: Water Artisans
 
The Boodles Raindance Garden designed by Catherine MacDonald
Sponsor: Boodles
Contractor: Gadd Brothers Trees & Landscapes
 
Cha no Niwa – Japanese Tea Garden by Kazuyuki Ishihara
Sponsor: Calmic Japan
Contractor: Ishihara Kazuyuki Design Laboratory
 
Children with Cancer UK “A Place to Be…” by Ros Coutts-Harwood
Sponsor: Children with Cancer UK
Contractor: Big Fish Landscapes
 
Garden of the Future by Matthew Butler and Joshua Parker
Sponsor: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations
Contractor: Acacia Gardens
 
Killik & Co Futureproof Garden by Baz Grainger
Sponsor: Killik & Co
Contractor: Landform Consultants
 
The London Square Chelsea Pensioners Garden by Dave Green
Sponsor: London Square Developments Ltd
Contractor: PC Landscapes
 
Tackle HIV Challenging Stigma Garden by Manoj Malde
Sponsor: ViiV Healthcare 
Contractor: GK Wilson Landscaping and JJH Landscapes
 
Down’s Syndrome Scotland Garden by Nick Burton & Duncan Hall
Sponsor: Project Giving Back
Contractor: Kate Gould Gardens
 
The Pathway Garden by Robert Beaudin & Allon Hoskin
Sponsor: Project Giving Back
Contractor: Allon Hoskin
 
RHS Chelsea Flower Show: 20 – 24 May 2025
19 May: Press Preview (accreditation opens from January 2025)
8am-8pm, 20 – 21 May: RHS members only
8am – 8pm, 22 – 24 May: RHS members and public
5.30pm – 10pm, 23 May: RHS members and public
8am – 5.30pm, 24 May: RHS members and public
 
Venue: Royal Hospital Chelsea, Royal Hospital Road, London SW3 4SR
 
Ticket prices vary and RHS members receive discount prices. Book here: rhs.org.uk/chelsea
 
About the RHS

Since our formation in 1804, the RHS has grown into the UK’s leading gardening charity, touching the lives of millions of people. Perhaps the secret to our longevity is that we’ve never stood still. In the last decade alone we’ve taken on the largest hands-on project the RHS has ever tackled by opening the new RHS Garden Bridgewater in Salford, Greater Manchester, and invested in the science that underpins all our work by building RHS Hilltop – The Home of Gardening Science.
 
We have committed to being net positive for nature and people by 2030. We are also committed to being truly inclusive and to reflect all the communities of the UK. 
 
Across our five RHS gardens we welcome more than three million visitors each year to enjoy over 34,000 different cultivated plants. Events such as the world famous RHS Chelsea Flower Show, other national shows, our schools and community work, and partnerships such as Britain in Bloom, all spread the shared joy of gardening to wide-reaching audiences. 
 
Throughout it all we’ve held true to our charitable core – to encourage and improve the science, art, and practice of horticulture – to share the love of gardening and the positive benefits it brings. 
 
For more information visit www.rhs.org.uk
 
RHS Registered Charity No. 222879/SC038262
 
About The Newt in Somerset  
 
The Newt in Somerset is proud to return as headline sponsor of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show for 2025
 
The Newt in Somerset is a working country estate in Somerset, between the towns of Bruton and Castle Cary. The original Georgian manor house and farm buildings sit amidst farmland, woodland, orchards and acres of gardens - shaped over centuries by successive enthusiasts, including renowned garden designer and writer Penelope Hobhouse, who first opened them to the public in the mid-1980s. The gardens’ latest incarnation was designed by landscape artist Patrice Taravella. Influenced by thousands of years of horticultural history, mixing ornamental and productive elements, they are a feast for the eyes and the stomach.
 
With a focus on Somerset heritage, sustainable agriculture and artisan production, the estate encompasses a luxury hotel and spa within Hadspen House and the Farmyard, designed by Karen Roos, in addition to restaurants, farm shops, immersive garden attractions and a Cyder Press & Cellar.
 
For more information visit: https://shop.thenewtinsomerset.com/uk

Get involved

The Royal Horticultural Society is the UK’s leading gardening charity. We aim to enrich everyone’s life through plants, and make the UK a greener and more beautiful place.