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Design ideas to inspire from RHS Chelsea 2025

Steal stylish ideas from RHS Chelsea Flower Show to create your own show gardens at home, or maybe just a small slice...

At RHS Chelsea Flower Show, there are always plenty of ideas to inspire you, some old trends and some new. In 2025, amongst the statuesque trees, planting perfection and quirky features, there were colourful combos, fun ways to use water, landscaping to get kids engaged and stylish ways to look after the pollinators.

Colour calling

Colour themes always emerge at the show. Some of them jump out and grab you, while others ooze an atmosphere that draws you in. Choosing colour for your garden is highly personal, and the show is packed with ideas to get you thinking about what effect you might want to create – bright and cheerful versus calm and soothing, with everything in between.

Pretty shades of yellow Trollius harmonise with lilac geraniums beautifully on The Songbird Survival Garden
A sea of purple and yellow flows through many of the gardens, with irises, poppies and primulas bringing cheerful sparks against more moody tones. 

Contrasting colours in bright yellow and velvety purple washed across many gardens, including The Avanade Intelligent Garden
Roses in sumptuous plum colours make your mouth water on The Glasshouse Garden, billowing amongst the strong focal points provided by purple beech domes.

Rich plums and jewel reds make the perfect combination in The Glasshouse Garden
Two gardens practically sing a rainbow of colour with their planting. On the Tackle HIV Challenging Stigma Garden, joyous hues bring attention to important messages and a ribbon of red flowers flows through the planting featuring geums and salvias, a nod to the red ribbon associated with HIV awareness.

A ribbon of red salvias and geums runs through the planting of the Tackle HIV Challenging Stigma Garden
On the MS Amlin Peace of Mind Garden, the designer has planted a colour wheel, with some sections that contrast and others that harmonise – a really fun way to get children involved in truly seeing plants, as well as helping them understand emotions created when seeing different colours together. Depending on where you sit in the space, different colour combinations are seen – you could create a similar effect in your garden or using planters.

Change moods and emotions using colours in planting combinations similar to the MS Amlin Peace of Mind Garden
Fun ways with water

RHS Chelsea has seen some impressive and even fantastical water features in the past but this year there are several more gentle, and achievable, ideas.

On The Hospitalfield Arts Garden, water from the roof flows across carefully gradiated clay pavers to a dipping pool, creating interesting rivulets through the sand, which has been used as a

mulch to dress the coastal-themed planting beds. This would be a fun way of bringing water into a garden for toddlers, or dogs, to paddle in.

Using sand as a mulch can lead to interesting effects when water runs through it, seen here on The Hospitalfeld Arts Gardens
In The Addleshaw Goddard: Freedom to Flourish Garden, your journey takes you down steps through water, going across a grid to keep your feet dry, and then back up more stone steps, as part of the route around the garden. This could be a practical solution if you have areas of your garden that sometimes flood. Make sure the water has somewhere to flow out, and you could plant varieties that can cope with having wet feet but also being in drier soil at times.

Taking a journey through water can also be a practical solution for flooding, such as demonstrated on The Addleshaw Goddard: Freedom to Flourish Garden
Rain chains are fairly well known, but on The SongBird Survival Garden they’ve taken a twist, literally. These create a lovely, decorative effect as they spiral to the pool below. On the Boodles Raindance Garden a circular theme has been taken to the max, including the use of rain chains with a repeated disk motif to channel rainwater into a circular rill. You could create decorative rain chains using recycled materials and can buy fixings to attach rain chains to any gutter.

A rain chain with a twist gives an interesting quirk on The SongBird Survival Garden
Boodles Raindance Garden uses rain chains of circular disks falling into pools
Pushing boundaries

Each year, we see new ideas for building the backdrop to a show garden, representing the garden boundaries. This year, earth walls feature in several gardens, large and small, including on the Hospice UK: Garden of Compassion, Garden of the Future and the Killik & Co ‘Save for a Rainy Day Garden’, where the warmth of the terracotta tones are picked up in the peachy shades of the plants.

Warm terracotta walls make a striking backdrop to the Hospice UK: Garden of Compassion
Peachy tones of foxgloves stand pretty against the warm earth backdrop of the Killik & Co ‘Save for a Rainy Day Garden’
On The Pathway Garden, panels of horizontal willow allow wind and light to pass through, with pretty effects created by the changing light levels.

Gabion walls become an eye-catching feature by adding materials in waves
On The Addleshaw Goddard: Freedom to Flourish Garden, gabions have been turned into waves of reused materials including brick, stone and straw. The dusky yellow shades of materials have been echoed in the landscaping and in the planting, giving the whole garden a cohesive look.

Bring out the creativity in minds both young and old

As well as finding fun ways to bring water into the garden, there are lots of ideas to get those young minds whirring and creative juices flowing. In The London Square Chelsea Pensioners Garden, the forever-young pensioners have a game of Battleships set into the table. Table top games are a great way of bringing play into an outside environment. You could create your own noughts and crosses, or even a chess board.

Table top games are a great idea for encouraging the young and old out to play
Having a shelter outside is another way of encouraging all ages into a natural environment. Not only do you have to pass through an outside space to get to the shelter, once inside you get a different view of the garden, keeping your mind engaged and intrigued.

Take a journey through a garden to a quiet retreat
A fun place to come and play, while surrounded in nature
The Children With Cancer UK ‘A Place To Be...’ garden took fun to the max, including a ride on train and surprise water spouts!

Include elements of fun for all, maybe even a ride-on train, such as on The Children With Cancer UK ‘A Place To Be...’ garden!
Always popular with children, bug hotels have been upgraded for adults, with classy versions on MS Amlin Peace of Mind Garden that look like artwork. These could be made at home using boxes of a similar size positioned like canvases.

Bug hotels disguised as beautiful art work on MS Amlin Peace of Mind Garden

The benefits of structures in your garden | Take Home Chelsea

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