Meet the Young Designers showcasing their skills at RHS Wentworth Woodhouse
Three young designers make their shows debut at RHS Wentworth Woodhouse this year with their innovative and exciting gardens
RHS Flower Show Wentworth Woodhouse offers young designers and contractors aged 30 and below, a wonderful opportunity to kick-start their careers in the exciting and rewarding horticultural and design industry. Their gardens include a Scottish idyll, a windswept dune and a smattering of Wentworth Woodhouse history.
Drakkars Drift designed by Luke Coleman
Drakkars Drift recreates a resilient Scottish space to be mindful in
The garden itself celebrates Scotland’s historic ties with Scandinavia by blending Nordic wellness traditions and Highland elements: a floating wooden boardwalk leads to a bespoke heartwood sauna and plunge pool, while a rocky cascade, stream and scattered boulders evoke dramatic Scottish landscapes.
A fire pit pays homage to a more primal way of life, fostering a sense of community and belonging. The result is a tranquil yet culturally rich retreat that unites heritage, design, and the healing power of nature.
Meet the Designer – Luke Coleman
We’re being more creative with materials, repurposing things rather than bringing everything in new then throwing it away afterwards.
It was a little bit accidental. When I left college, a lot of careers felt claustrophobic – all those hours spent cooped up indoors – and I wasn’t sure what to do. Then I went to help a friend of my mum’s who was a garden designer, and I immediately felt connected to soil, plants and the land. It brought me this instant sense of freedom.
What made you enter the competition?
As soon as I decided I wanted to do design, I became interested in Show Gardens. I want to use my garden here at RHS Wentworth Woodhouse to show young people that horticulture is a creative and relevant career, because we're massively underrepresented in the industry, and I was fortunate to fall into it when I did.
Which garden designers inspire you?
The work of John Little, who has become a very influential voice in creating brownfield landscapes for wildlife and people, has made a big impression on me. He creates green roofs and talks about how we should design wildlife habitats into our gardens and landscapes. In a world with climate change, flooding and
What are young designers doing differently?
We’re being more creative with materials, repurposing things rather than bringing everything in new then throwing it away afterwards. I also think we’re finding beauty in decay and framing it in ways that are aesthetically pleasing – for example leaving rotting log piles, or dead flowers over winter to provide seed heads for birds.
The Dune Garden designed Jacopo Ducato Ruggeri
The Dune Garden is for the wind-tossed, the sun-kissed and the barefoot pirates, who treasure the dune as their garden
The garden is an act of consideration, of the dune, by presence and return, in our ritual of freedom under the sun. A bench, a shower, water gathers, orchids appear and creeping willow follows. What begins as utility becomes habitat. Burnet rose colonises the slope behind the bench, held by a dune stabilisation fence.
Meet the Designer – Jacopo Ducato Ruggeri
There’s something special about everyone experiencing Show Gardens together: it’s like being at a concert rather than listening to music on your own.
I’ve always been very geeky about plants. Before I could walk, I was helping my grandmother plant bulbs. Then at the age of 12 I started collecting orchids – I’m from Sardinia, Italy, where there’s a lot of biodiversity. As I grew up, I saw the potential of garden design as a form of expression for all the things I wanted to say.
What made you want to enter the RHS Young Designer competition?
In 2023, I went to the Chelsea Flower Show, and Cleve West’s The Centrepoint Garden literally sent chills down my spine. There’s something special about everyone experiencing Show Gardens together: it’s like being at a concert rather than listening to music on your own. I came home that day and started working on a design of my own.
Which gardens or designers inspire you?
The gardens at Rousham in Oxfordshire have been a place of enduring inspiration for me. I love their design because it’s simple but also very psychological: it’s weird feeling the emotional effects. And because I’ve been brought up with the classics, there are a lot of elements that hail from Greek myths or European folklore that I can really relate to.
A Potted History: Echoes of Rockingham designed by Sam Dryell
A Potted History: Echoes of Rockingham is a living gallery, where the delicate brushstrokes of history unfurl through petals, stone, and porcelain.
Soft Crataegus blooms, woven textures of herbaceous colour, and the gentle sweep of Yorkshire hedgerows paint a picture, celebrating this cherished artistry. Amidst the planting, towering ceramic sculptures rise like echoes of the great Waterloo Kiln, their curved forms a testament to Yorkshire’s spirit of invention and design. At the heart of the garden, a secluded seating space looks toward an ornate water feature, a contemporary reimagining of the grand doorway to the Camellia House at Wentworth Woodhouse, where Lady Rockingham once gathered guests to share tea, conversation, and the finest Rockingham Pottery.
Rooted in a personal fascination with craftsmanship, storytelling, and heritage, this garden invites you to experience history not as something distant, but as something that still breathes and blooms beneath open skies.
Meet the Designer – Sam Dryell
Being young, you don’t really worry about what the public are going to think, so you can just run with what inspires you.
I studied architecture at Sheffield University. They have a big landscape school there, which was my introduction. Then, I started volunteering at Sussex Prairies, a rewilding project. I love how naturalistic it is: plants aren’t confined to a design, everything goes where it wants to go. I want to create a similar feel in my own work.
What made you enter the competition?
I want to get my name out there, test myself, have fun and work with lots of different people. Most of all, I want to have a project that was designed by me, run by me, led by me. The Young Designers category feels like it will allow me to introduce myself as a garden designer.
Which garden designers inspire you?
I’d have to say Professor James Hitchmough, who I was fortunate to be taught by at Sheffield Uni. He’s such a pioneer in ecology and naturalistic planting. Also Tom Stuart-Smith and Marcus Barnett – these sort of designers, known for their modern, naturalistic planting, are the ones who inspire me the most in terms of their style of gardening and design.
What are young gardeners doing differently?
We’re unafraid to be different, whether that’s raising awareness of important issues or bringing in new ideas that people might not associate with horticulture. Being young, you don't really worry about what the public are going to think, so you can just run with what inspires you.
