Design for Duchess' festival garden revealed

The garden was at the festival from 2-7 July 2019

The RHS Back to Nature Garden, co-designed by HRH The Duchess of Cambridge and Landscape Architects Andree Davies and Adam White, was unveiled at the 2019 Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival. 

The garden encouraged families and communities to engage with nature and spend time in the great outdoors. 

The design was inspired by the original RHS Back to Nature Garden that featured at the 2019 Chelsea Flower Show, with many of the key features such as the waterfall, dens and hollow log returning, alongside new elements including a wildflower meadow, rolling hill and summer planting. 

Other new elements included a pond, a hidden burrow, as well as the bee-friendly meadow that covered the hill.
 
As with the original RHS Back to Nature Garden, this garden aimed to support The Duchess of Cambridge’s work to highlight how time spent in natural environments can help in building the foundations for positive physical and mental wellbeing that last through childhood and over a lifetime.  
 
These environments enable children to develop skills for life through free play, building confidence, strength, creativity and resilience. 
 
Through its community campaigns and wider work, the RHS brings gardening and the natural world into the lives of hundreds and thousands of families, individuals, school children, parents and grandparents across the UK and believes passionately in the difference growing plants, access to nature and gardening can have for health and wellbeing and the environment.

Sue Biggs, RHS Director General, said: “It’s wonderful this collaboration with HRH The Duchess of Cambridge continues and carries on inspiring families to get together and enjoy the great outdoors and get back to nature!
 
“The impact of the RHS Back to Nature Garden at Chelsea resulted in a record month for RHS Membership, with over 12,000 people joining us in May to support our charitable work and get outside gardening. This is incredibly positive and shows how powerful this collaboration is, really motivating people to garden, grow and access outside space and nature, which is good for their health and also for the environment and for wildlife."
 
The contractor that built the RHS Back to Nature Garden was The Landscaping Consultant, a specialist in bespoke garden & landscape construction.
 
After RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival, many of the plants, some of the trees, the hollow log, the dens and other key elements from the RHS Back to Nature Garden have gone to their final destination, to be part of a new children’s garden, at RHS Garden Wisley, in Surrey. 

The garden at RHS Garden Wisley will also have a treehouse and many natural play elements and will become a permanent, much-loved feature in one of the world’s most famous gardens, for children and families to play in and enjoy.