RHS Chelsea Flower Show
Back

10 star plants of RHS Chelsea 2025

Meet some of the floral stars of the show and discover inspiring plant ideas to take home from this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show

The plants at a glance:
  1. Rosa ‘Sally Holmes’ – ‘Sally Holmes’ rose
  2. Allium siculum (formerly Nectaroscordum) – Sicilian honey garlic
  3. Ginkgo biloba ‘Globosa’ – dwarf ginkgo
  4. Chionanthus retusus – Chinese fringe tree
  5. Lysimachia atropurpurea ‘Beaujolais’ – purple loosestrife ‘Beaujolais’
  6. Poppies of all shapes and sizes
  7. Irises for dry and damp
  8. Rosa ‘Wild Rover’ – ‘Wild Rover’ rose
  9. Hydrangea Groundbreaker® BlushTM
  10. Zostera marina – seagrass


1. Rosa ‘Sally Holmes’

A wall-trained rose with enormous single white flowers has been capturing everyone’s attention in the Hospice UK Garden of Compassion, designed by renowned plantsman Tom Hoblyn.

“This is a ‘Sally Holmes’ rose,” says Tom. “It’s a cross between ‘Ballerina’ and ‘Ivory Fashion’. It was bred in 1976 and used to be incredibly popular, but for some reason has fallen out of favour in recent years.

“The reason I chose it is because when you go to Tuscany, you see it everywhere. I’m not sure why it’s so popular there when it’s an English rose, but it is. It’s not actually a climber – it’s a shrub rose but I trained it to sit against the wall. The beauty of this rose is that it is a repeat flowerer, so it flowers all summer.”
 
  • Position: full sun or partial shade
  • Soil: well-drained or moist but well-drained
  • Flowering period: May to July
  • Hardiness: fully hardy

Find out more
 

2. Allium siculum (formerly Nectaroscordum)

This quirky bulb has popped up in several of the Show Gardens this year, drawing in bumblebees to feast on its pendulous bell-shaped flowers, which are held in loosely spherical clusters on tall, straight stems. In contrast to the more widespread purple globe alliums, the flowers of this Mediterranean native are an understated blend of dusty pink, green and creamy yellow.

Designer Manoj Malde explains why he chose it for his Tackle HIV Challenging Stigma Garden: “I wanted something that was quite elegant, but will also attract bees and provide that level of biodiversity in the garden, so this was perfect for that. They’ve attracted so many bees.”
 
  • Position: full sun or partial shade
  • Soil: well-drained or moist but well-drained
  • Flowering period: May to July
  • Hardiness: fully hardy

Find out more
Buy this plant
 

3. Ginkgo biloba ‘Globosa’

Ginkgoes are more often seen as towering trees, but the Boodles Raindance Garden showcases this prehistoric tree grown in a totally different way. Two cloud-shaped evergreen hummocks sit offset either side of the path as it winds into the garden. These are Ginkgo biloba ‘Globosa’, a naturally compact cultivar that has formed these cloud-shaped low domes with no pruning, making it a wonderfully unusual choice for evergreen structure in a garden of any size.

“This is my favourite Chelsea plant this year,” says Rob Brett, Curator at RHS Wisley. “Everyone knows ginkgo as a tree, but you can get lots of different versions, including low-growing forms. This one is like natural topiary. We’re always looking for different hedging plants and ginkgo has been with us since the Jurassic, so if any plant can adapt to climate change, this is it.” 

Ginkgoes are usually huge trees, but this one is great for small gardens

- Tim Upson, RHS Director of Gardens and Horticulture

 
  • Position: full sun
  • Soil: well-drained
  • Flowering period: non-flowering
  • Hardiness: fully hardy
 

4. Chionanthus retusus

Prominent at the front of the Alitex Glasshouses exhibit outside the east side of the Pavilion, this elegant, multi-stemmed small tree is this year’s Chelsea top pick from Paul Cook, Curator of RHS Harlow Carr.

“It has wonderful delicate flowers that are quite long-lasting. It’s very easy to grow, but hardly anyone does. It’s hugely resilient – it’ll survive in the North of the UK as well as the South and is easy to look after as a shrub or a tree, with wonderful bark.”

This is definitely a tree for the future

- Paul Cook, Curator of RHS Harlow Carr

 
  • Position: full sun or partial shade
  • Soil: well-drained or moist but well-drained 
  • Flowering period: May to July
  • Hardiness: fully hardy


5. Lysimachia atropurpurea ‘Beaujolais’

This striking little perennial, with its stubby plum-coloured flower spikes set against slender greyish foliage, is the 2025 Chelsea favourite of Dan Masoliver, RHS Shows Guide Editor and author of The Earthworm. It appears in both the RHS and BBC Radio 2 Dog Garden and the Children With Cancer UK ‘A Place To Be’ Garden.

“I’m a sucker for moody, broody colours in the garden, and the unopened flower buds at the tips of ‘Beaujolais’ flower spikes are the deepest of deep purples, almost black,” says Dan. “Then the way those spikes don’t stand bolt upright but rather flop over – as if they’ve had one or two glasses of vino too many – I find so characterful. Easily for me the most fun and charming guest at this, or probably any, party.”

Alex Hankey, Garden Manager at RHS Garden Wisley, adds, “It’s got colour and form, the stamens are highlights, it’s lovely in bud, and has striking flower to foliage contrast. You have to try it – it’s great.”
 
  • Position: full sun or partial shade
  • Soil: moist garden soil, including poorly drained 
  • Flowering period: May to September
  • Hardiness: fully hardy
 

6. Poppies of all shapes and sizes

‘Pacino’ is an Icelandic poppy on the King’s Trust Garden: Seeding Success
Papaver ‘Mother of Pearl’ on Joe Perkins’ King’s Trust Garden: Seeding Success
Poppy ‘Lauren’s Grape’
Along with irises and foxgloves, poppies are popping up are all over the showground this year. The opulent plum-purple opium poppy, Papaver somniferum Lauren’s Grape, is a recurring theme in many of the gardens. In the RHS and BBC Radio 2 Dog Garden, Monty Don and Jamie Butterworth pair it with harmonising burgundy Baptisia and Cirsium, while in The Avanade Intelligent Garden, Tom Massey and Je Ahn contrast the dark petals with bright yellow Baptisia and Achillea. 

Beth’s poppy, Papaver dubium subsp. lecoqii ‘Albiflorum’, adds a dainty touch to Nicola Oakey’s The SongBird Survival Garden and Jo Thompson’s The Glasshouse Garden. This diminuitive poppy produces a haze of four-petalled pale pink blooms, each of which only lasts for a day, but which are produced in such abundance that the effect is of continual colour among a cloud of decorative seedpods.

Beth’s poppy, which is alleged to have originated spontaneously in Beth Chatto’s garden, on the SongBird Survival Garden
Papaver carmeli, a Mediterranean wild poppy, on Tom Hoblyn’s Hospice UK: Garden of Compassion
In his King’s Trust Garden: Seeding Success, Joe Perkins achieves a beautiful naturalistic look with the Icelandic poppy ‘Pacino’, with its divine lemon yellow blooms and cushions of greyish foliage dotted between stones, giving the appearance of self-seeding and mimicking the natural habitat of these exquisite alpine poppies.

Cultivated varieties of our native field poppy also appear on several of the gardens, including the white ‘Mother of Pearl’ in the King’s Trust Garden and the almost dazzlingly bright red Papaver carmeli, a wild poppy from the Middle East, in Tom Hoblyn’s Hospice UK: Garden of Compassion.
 
  • Position: full sun
  • Soil: well-drained
  • Flowering period: May to August
  • Hardiness: fully hardy


7. Irises for dry and damp

Bearded irises for dry conditions
Iris ‘Storrington’ paired with harmonising Baptisia and Allium in the Children With Cancer UK ‘A Place to Be’
Iris pallida in the Garden of the Future
Iris ‘Pink Charm’ in the Garden of the Future
Irises are another recurring theme across the show gardens this year. Sunny spots are dotted with sumptuous bearded irises such as the pale lilac-blue Iris pallida, the opulent and velvety Iris ‘Storrington’ and the peachy-pastel Iris ‘Pink Charm’, which all thrive in a reasonably dry location where their tubers can bake in the sun.

Meanwhile, in shadier locations, beside ponds and alongside rills nestle a wonderful selection of cultivars of the Siberian iris. Iris sibirica ‘Pansy Purple’ is a deeper, more intense form of the purple wild form, while ‘Sparkling Rose’ moves into the warmer violet spectrum and the rarely seen but stunning ‘Paprikash’ swings right into rusty reds.

Siberian irises for damp conditions

Iris sibirica ‘Sparkling Rose’ blends with Geranium ‘Orion’ and Trollius × cultorum ‘Taleggio’ in the SongBird Survival Garden
Iris sibirica ‘Pansy Purple’ in The Pathway Garden
Iris sibirica ‘Paprikash’ in The Glasshouse Garden
8. Rosa ‘Wild Rover’

This velvety crimson rose starred in Jo Thompson’s palette of plum shades on The Glasshouse Garden, alongside Astrantia ‘Burgundy Manor’ and Baptisia ‘Burgundy Blast’ – another plant that recurs around the showground, including on the RHS and BBC Radio 2 Dog Garden and Children With Cancer UK ‘A Place to Be’.

Bright golden yellow stamens at the centre contrast with the rich claret petals in open flowers that are wonderfully accessible for bees. This bushy rose, laden with clusters of fragrant semi-double flowers, can be grown either as a shrub or a small climber, and flowers continuously throughout summer and autumn. 

This rose is great for pollinators because of the exposed stamens

- Tim Upson, RHS Director of Gardens and Horticulture

  • Position: full sun
  • Soil: well-drained or moist but well-drained
  • Flowering period: June to November
  • Hardiness: fully hardy


9. Hydrangea Groundbreaker® BlushTM

Brand new at RHS Chelsea in 2025 is the world’s first groundcover hydrangea, exhibited by Blue Diamond Garden Centres in the Great Pavilion. Having scooped a prestigious Gold award at its first reveal at a leading European trade show in 2024, this pioneering low-growing and low-maintenance hydrangea is available to UK gardeners for the first time in 2025.

Hardy to –30C, this compact hydrangea will grow to a height of 30cm and spread of 60cm, making it perfect for every space, from a window box to large-scale landscaping. Conical clusters of four-petalled blooms, which start off white before warming to a rosy pink through the season, smother the neat mound of small, delicate leaves for 100 days throughout summer and into autumn. Unlike many hydrangeas, it will thrive best in a sunny spot.
 
  • Position: full sun or part shade, best with 6-8 hours of sun per day
  • Soil: moist but well-drained
  • Flowering period: July to November
  • Hardiness: fully hardy
 

10. Zostera marina – seagrass!

Marine plants have made their Chelsea debut this year, with seagrass featuring in a saltwater tank on the Seawilding garden. 

“We want to highlight the importance of this plant, which we’re restoring in Loch Craigish, Scotland,” says Will Goudy of Seawilding. “It’s such a good habitat for so many creatures – it supports 68% of the biodiversity in Loch Craigish. Seagrass beds are fantastic for sequestering carbon, and they also provide coastal protection from their fronds dissipating energy from the waves.”

Resplendent in a garden made entirely from plants native to the west coast of Scotland, this Chelsea first is a must-see.

This is probably the most important plant at Chelsea in terms of environmental threat

- Tim Upson, RHS Director of Gardens and Horticulture
Ready to Chelsify your garden? For more inspiration, check out our take-home garden design ideas from this year’s Show.
About the author – Olivia Drake

With a background in biology, Olivia is passionate about sustainable horticulture and the environmental and conservational benefits gardening can bring. She is trained as a botanical horticulturist and previously worked in public gardens around the UK and overseas.

Save to My scrapbook

You might also like

Design ideas to inspire from RHS Chelsea 2025

Design ideas to inspire from RHS Chelsea 2025

See all the show gardens at RHS Chelsea 2025

See all the show gardens at RHS Chelsea 2025

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.