RHS Chelsea
Flower Show
Take a little piece of RHS Chelsea inspiration into your gardens, balconies and containers
At RHS Chelsea Flower Show, there are always plenty of ideas to inspire you, some old trends and some new. In 2024 they included a lot of water, an equal mix of shade versus sun-loving plants, a strong emphasis on climate resilient species, and the use of timber for both pavers and structures.
There was both joy and gentleness in the Show Gardens, a sense of peace and reflection, of retreating to a quiet space and just soaking it all in. There was also a chance to celebrate colour, and there were two sides to the palette – one calm green and white, with forest bathing and a multitude of birch trees, the other orange, which leapt from the borders in a sunny range of tones, from peach to full-on shouty, “hello, look at me,” tangerine.
In some gardens this was beefed up with even more colour, such as in The Octavia Hill Garden by Blue Diamond with The National Trust, designed by Ann-Marie Powell, where a rainbow of glorious technicolour could not fail to please. Others calmed things down by blending dusky purples through the oranges, giving a dreamy effect using opposing colours on the colour wheel, such in the Stroke Association’s Garden for Recovery by Miria Harris. Earthy tones were also seen in landscaping materials across the gardens, with shades of orange used in gravel, bricks and structures, as well in pavers and pots.
Hard landscaping can be one of the biggest expenses in a garden design, but there are ways and means of reducing the cost, and being more sustainable, while still achieving that designer look. On The Octavia Hill Garden, a beautiful blend of warm York pavers, vermillion clay setts and fine gravel in the same tone were used together, but in small doses. Even if you only have a few bricks or clay setts, you can create the main hardstanding with these and infill with the cheaper aggregate.
You can also use a mix of materials to fill gabions to create walls and seats, such as on The Pulp Friction Garden. designed by Will Dutch & Tin-Tin Azure-Marxen. The spaces in between make the ideal home for many different types of wildlife and you can include planting of herbs and alpines.
It’s time to celebrate mosses, which were seen across many RHS Shows this year. They have so many life-giving attributes, as well as being stunning and intricate plants. Even the mosses got the colour brief, with rusty orange and green mosses being used in many of the woodland-style gardens.
In the The National Autistic Society Garden, designed by Sophie Parmenter and Dido Milne, a shady dell at the rear of the garden was home to a range of mosses, clinging to stones, filling crevices and smoothing over sharp edges like a soft blanket. The smell was intense, drawing you in with that sumptuous earthy scent. It felt old, and that’s a good trick to use at home, giving new surfaces an aged patina by creating the right conditions for plants such as moss to grow – which generally means moist but well-drained, and they do love a slope.
In a vital push to create more sustainable gardens, there were so many different ways shown at RHS Chelsea for capturing and storing rainwater. Alien-like funnels in The WaterAid Garden, designed by Tom Massey and Je Ahn, drew water down to a swale and into ponds around the garden.
In the Flood Re: The Flood Resilient Garden, designed by Naomi Slade and Ed Barsley, galvanised water tanks, at different heights and in varying sizes, with spouts and falls, captured rainwater using rain chains, which could be very easy to recreate at home.
Details are key at RHS Chelsea, and central to the World Child Cancer Nurturing Garden, designed by Giulio Giorgi, was a simple seat top, made using thick rope laid in a swirling loop, which is both soft to sit on and durable.
Seating can be created using so many different materials, best chosen depending on how long you intend to sit. Often a perch can be an old tree stump, a block of timber or wooden planks cantilevered into planters. You can always soften these with cushions and blankets.
In the Burma Skincare Initiative Spirit of Partnership Garden, designed by Helen Olney, they maxed out on space by creating journeys using curves. Great sweeps of timber path make your journey take longer, rather than a short, straight path going from A to B. A winding path in this garden led you back to a floating pavilion, suspended over water, and a curvaceous, s-shaped stone bench, which would fit many bottoms. In small spaces you can use curving paths and borders to make the space feel larger – a trick of the eye and a distraction of the mind, which encourages you to wonder as you wander.
There was an inspiring display of walling at the Show, from stunning stonework, to smooth curves, and lots of these ideas can be replicated at home. Several of the gardens used walls in dusky yellow tones, which gave a soft background for the planting. Stacking stones on edge is an easy way to create a wall top, or even a rockery and these have the perfect drainage needed for alpine and drought-tolerant plants.
One of the finishing touches in a garden is lighting, and there is a sensitivity in how best to use lighting in an outdoor space, with wildlife needing careful consideration. General advice is not to light your garden, but in some cases, lighting is necessary for safety. Paths and steps can be dangerous in the dark, and there are brilliant new products available, which create low-level, soft and unobtrusive lighting.
In The Boodles National Gallery Garden, designed by Catherine MacDonald, colour-coordinated path lights were painted to match the planting scheme, something easy and fun to recreate at home.
If you have focal trees or art that you like to illuminate for effect, keep it soft, in warm tones, and just remember to turn the lights off at night to help wildlife.
