Chelsea Flower Show 2019 timetable: What gardens are on show?
THE RHS CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW and excitement has swept across the nation after news broke that Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge will be co-designing the RHS Back to Nature garden. But what gardens are on show this year?
Nicki Chapman discusses water features at Chelsea Flower Show
The biggest gardening week of the year will commence on Tuesday, May 21 and run until Saturday, May 25. The world renowned event will be held in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London and attracts more than 150,000 visitors a year, including many royals such as Queen Elizabeth II. Flora at the event covers garden and floral exhibits, hogg is for exhibits of trees, knightian celebrates vegetables and herbs, lindley is for exhibits of special educational or scientific interest and grenfell awards pictures, photographs, floral arrangements and floristry. But what gardens will actually be on show?
This year there will be 50 new plants on show, many of which have been entered into the RHS Chelsea Plant of the Year award.
The Chelsea Flower Show 2019 will showcase artisan gardens, feature gardens and show gardens as well as space to grow.
There are a massive 28 gardens on display and you can find a list of them all below:
1. Facebook beyond the screen
This garden was designed by Joe Perkins and Facebook, built by The Outdoor Room and sponsored by Facebook.
It is designed to celebrate the positive impacts of spending meaningful time on social media and how it can enrich people’s real world lives.
2. The Harmonious Garden of Life
The Harmonious Garden of Life was designed by Laurélie de la Salle, built by Bespoke Outdoor Spaces and sponsored by Mr Robert and Mrs Sue Cawthorn, Margheriti Piante, Italy.
The garden aims to encourage positive interactions between the four kingdoms: minerals, vegetables, animals and humans and the four elements: air, water, earth and fire, to create a joint synergy for the environment.
3. The CAMFED Garden: Giving Girls In Africa a Space to Grow
This garden was designed by Jilayne Rickards, built by Cormac Conway and sponsored by The Campaign for Female Education, thanks to the support of a private donor.
It is a garden designed to capture the spirit of Africa with its vibrant colours and exotic flavours.
4. The Silent Pool Gin Garden
The garden has been designed by David Neale, built by Neale Richards Garden Design and sponsored by Silent Pool Gin.
This space takes inspiration from plant technologies and the greening of inner city spaces, combined with a passion to create a space that aims to absorb people’s woes through the senses of scent and sound.
5. The Manchester Garden
This space to grow was designed by Exterior Architecture.
It aims to create a new perspective on post-industrial cities, championing green spaces and honouring sustainability through using plants and space to show the resilience and adaptability characteristics of nature as well as suitability for the Manchester climate now and potentially in the future.
6. The Montessori Centenary Children’s Garden
This garden is another space to grow and was designed by Jody Lidgard, built by Bespoke Outdoor Spaces and sponsored by Montessori Centre International and City Asset Management.
The space is aimed to help train those interested in applying Montessori principles to early years’ education and is child-led yet future-driven, offering an engaging space to nurture children, teaching them about the natural world set alongside technology: the future of horticulture.
7. Viking Cruises: The Art of Viking Garden
This space to grow garden concept was designed by Paul Hervey-Brookes, built by Big Fish Landscapes and sponsored by Viking.
It will be a multi-layered wetland habitat with the designer Mr Hervey-Brookes having taken inspiration for the design, textures, plants and colour palette of the art onboard Viking’s newest ocean ship, Viking Orion, including a painting by Norwegian impressionist Jakob Weidemann, ‘Impressions on Nature’, and ceramic plates by Anette Krogstad.
8. Kampo no Niwa
This garden concept was designed by Kazuto Kashiwakura and Miki Sato, built by Tatsuya Shirai Studio, Otis Landscape Associates, Harrison Landscapes and Hiroshi Fukawa, and sponsored by Kampo no Niwa and 300 sponsors.
It is designed for a practitioner of Kampo, a system of Japanese herbal medicine, and celebrates the route to health and happiness through plants.
Each plant has been carefully selected for its health-giving, beneficial qualities, many of which are easily recognisable as common garden plants.
There are plants here to help cure a fever, relieve aches and keep the body warm.
9. The Roots in Finland Kyrö Garden
This space to grow garden was designed by Taina Suonio, built by Conquest Creative Spaces and sponsored by Kyrö Distillery Company Ltd.
The garden is an urban space which explores Finish countryside, in particular the nation’s 188,000 lakes.
It will use traditional stonemasonry, reclaimed wood and a cascading water feature to show Finland’s cultural relationship with water.
The country’s national flower will also feature alongside others including red birch and juniper.
10. Family Monsters Garden
The Family Monsters Garden is an artisan garden designed by Alistair Bayford, built by idverde and sponsored by idverde and Family Action.
The pace celebrates 150 years of the charity Family Action’s supporting of families across the country and idverde’s 100 years of creating and maintaining landscapes for the benefit of local communities.
It will showcase the struggles faced by every family and the journey families take to face these challenges, from financial problems to health and wellbeing issues, lack of time together to problems with communication and resolving disputes.
It culminates in this garden which enables families to come together to reflect, reduce their pressures and gather strength to face them together.
11. The High Maintenance Garden for Motor Neurone Disease Association
This garden was designed by Sue Hayward and built by Soar Valley Services Ltd.
The space, created over many years, features an iconic British sports car being gradually reclaimed by nature.
The untended garden reflects the limitations of a person with motor neurone disease to maintain it: the mind and senses are still active but the body is in physical decline.
The owner can still enjoy the garden’s sensory elements, its relaxed beauty and atmosphere while, unchecked, it becomes a haven for wildlife.
12. The Donkey Sanctuary: Donkeys Matter
This space was designed by Christina Williams and Annie Prebensen, built by Frogheath Landscapes and How Green Nursery and sponsored by The Donkey Sanctuary.
It is located in an arid location, a shelter provides a spot of shade near a well, above which hangs a bucket.
A path through the garden represents the vital journeys that donkeys carry out on behalf of some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable communities where no ‘white van’ or family car can travel.
Donkeys – the ultimate in sustainable transport – provide access to clean, fresh water, transport food and medicine and enable children to receive an education.
The international animal welfare charity, The Donkey Sanctuary celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2019 and the garden provides a showcase for the charity’s international work.
13. Green Switch
Green Switch is an artisan garden designed by Kazuyuki Ishihara, built by Ishihara Kazuyuki Design Laboratory and sponsored by G-Lion.
The ‘green switch’ represents the space we inhabit when we ‘switch off’ from the stresses of contemporary urban life and seek the things we like to do, such as spending time in nature.
The intended atmosphere of the garden is one of openness and features a tea room with glass walls, a parking space and a glass shower room.
Two waterfalls and a pond create differing reverberations and the ripples in the pool provide fluctuations of reflected flowers.
14. Walker’s Forgotten Quarry Garden
The garden was designed by Graham Bodle and built and sponsored by Walker’s Nurseries.
It is located in a section of a disused quarry and showcases redundant industrial elements that are being reclaimed by nature.
The garden captures the industrial atmosphere of the site.
15. Miles Stone: The Kingston Maurward Garden
It was designed by Michelle Brown, sponsored by Miles Stone, Kingston Maurward College, Goulds Garden Centre, Greg & Will Wilks Landscaping, Holme for Gardens and The Green Gardener.
This space is aimed at embodying the philosophy of the college.
It fuses contemporary and traditional approaches and artisanal craft techniques which are apparent in the blacksmith-created bespoke cupola, sawn stone paving and dry stone walling.
16. The Greenfingers Charity Garden
This garden was designed by Kate Gould, built by Kate Gould Gardens and sponsored by Greenfingers Charity with thanks to a private donor.
The green garden is aimed at providing a peaceful, interactive and uplifting area for life-limited children with complex needs, where they and their families, friends and carers can come together for play, relaxation or peaceful reflection.
It has been planned sensitive to accommodate the users and is aimed at highlighting and promoting the therapeutic benefits of the 56 outside spaces created over the past 20 years by Greenfingers Charity.
17. Warner’s Distillery Garden
This garden was designed by Helen Elks-Smith, built by Bowles and Wyer and sponsored by Warner’s Distillery.
It is a sheltered garden aimed at providing a relaxed space for socialising and engaging with family and friends.
Central to the design is a sheltered courtyard referencing the pastoral setting of Falls Farm, the heart of Warner’s Gin Distillery in rural Northamptonshire.
With a nod to architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece Fallingwater and an emphasis on the horizontal plane, this enclosure is designed for relaxed entertaining with views to the wider landscape beyond and underpinned by subtle, textural planting.
18. The Dubai Majlis Garden
This artisan garden was designed by Thomas Hoblyn, built by Landform Consultants Ltd and sponsored by Dubai.
It was inspired by the sculptural beauty found in arid landscapes, from wind-blown sand dunes and fluvially eroded rock to the manmade hillside terraces and the goat-browsed topiary-esque plants that colonise them.
The garden uses materials to evoke a Middle Eastern feel such as white limestone and contrasting burnt Sienna gravel that mimics eroded rock and ferruginous soils often seen in arid locations.
19. The Welcome to Yorkshire Garden
The Welcome to Yorkshire Garden was inspired by the Yorkshire country and its pride in its industry, manufacturing and environment.
It was designed by Mark Gregory, built by Landform Consultants Ltd and sponsored by Welcome to Yorkshire.
The atmospheric garden strikes a balance between the industrial and the beautiful to show that a working lock can be both a place of tranquillity and charm.
20. The Morgan Stanley Garden
The garden was designed by Chris Beardshaw, built by Chris Beardshaw Ltd and sponsored by Morgan Stanley.
It was inspired by the UK’s love of beautiful gardens and explores how to continue the tradition of creating herbaceous-rich spaces, while managing resources more sensitively.
From the original design concept, to the growing of the plants, through to the garden’s construction, designer Chris Beardshaw has considered how innovative techniques and materials can be applied to the creation of gardens to ensure waste is minimised and products kept in circulation as long as possible.
21. The Resilience Garden
This garden was designed by Sarah Eberle, built by Crocus and sponsored by Gravetye Manor Hotel and Restaurant, Kingscote Estate, Forestry Commission, Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Scottish Forestry, the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government.
It was commissioned to celebrate the Forestry Commission’s centenary and looks ahead to the challenges facing forests of the future.
It explores how our woodlands can be made resilient to a changing climate and the increasing threats of pests and diseases.
The Forestry Commission wants to inspire a collective appreciation of forests.
The Resilience Garden will demonstrate why trees and woods are important, the pressures they face, and why innovation and boldness is needed to protect these landscapes for nature, and for future generations to enjoy.
22. The Savills and David Harber Garden
This garden was designed by Andrew Duff, built by Dan Flynn and sponsored by David Harber and Savills.
The Savills and David Harber Garden is a celebration of the environmental benefit and beauty of trees, plants and grass in urban spaces.
It illustrates a beautiful, sustainable woodland clearing in a city garden and showcases a host of sustainable features, including bio-diverse large trees, an air-purifying wetland area, a green wall and permeable surfaces.
A key feature of the garden is a central pool of water inspired by the surrounding woodland setting.
23. The M&G Garden
The M&G garden was designed by Andy Sturgeon built by Crocus and sponsored by M&G Investments.
It was Inspired by nature’s power to regenerate and intersperses woodland landscape with stone platforms and huge burnt timber sculptures representing natural rock formations.
The landscape has been colonised by trees and ferns and primordial Equisetum and Restios giving the garden an ancient quality and features water which pours from hand-crafted spouts into a series of pools and streams trickling down through the garden alongside a staircase of vast stone platforms before ending in a tranquil pool.
24. IKEA and Tom Dixon: Gardening Will Save The World
This garden inspired by imagining the future of urban farming was designed by Tom Dixon, built by Bespoke Outdoor Spaces and sponsored by Ikea of Sweden AB.
The space is divided into two levels: the garden explores the contrast of the supernatural and technological to explore the future of growing, while the base garden is a horticultural laboratory where hydroponic technology is implemented to grow hyper-natural edibles.
The IKEA and Tom Dixon garden showcases the potential for democratic and distributed urban farms and considers the future of the environment and the importance of growing food locally.
25. The Trailfinders ‘Undiscovered Latin America’ Garden
This garden was designed by Jonathan Snow, built by Stewart Landscape Construction and sponsored by Trailfinders.
It was inspired by the temperate rainforests of South America and features the garden which is built on a steep slope, covered in lush, temperate rainforest planting that enjoys high rainfall, cool temperatures, and wet conditions underfoot.
The temperate rainforests of South America are under threat from urbanisation, over-farming and logging.
The garden aims to raise awareness of these fragile ecosystems.
26. The Wedgwood Garden
This space was designed by Jo Thompson, built by Bespoke Outdoor Spaces and sponsored by Wedgwood.
The 260 year-old garden reflects the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit of the Wedgwood founder and combines classical motifs and designs in a contemporary form.
Water unifies the garden and moves throughout the space with purpose, connecting key elements and echoing the canals and watercourses of the past that were fundamental to the functionality of Wedgwood’s production and industry.
The visitor is guided through the garden with ever-changing framed views, offering different perspectives on the landscape that has been created.
27. RHS Garden Bridgewater
The RHS Garden Bridgewater was designed by Tom Stuart-Smith, built by Crocus and sponsored by the British Tourist Association.
It was designed as a collage of the proposed space around the new Welcome building at the RHS Garden in Bridgewater, which is due to open in 2020.
The space will be divided by paths, with the planting being made up of three distinct components, with clipped domes of beech beneath which is due to provide a sculptural counterpoint to the rest of the planting.
28. The RHS Back to Nature Garden
This garden was designed by Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge with Andree Davies and Adam White.
It was inspired by childhood memories and with families in mind.
The woodland garden is designed as a place to retreat from the world to play, learn and discover as well as create special family memories.
A tree house is the centrepiece of the garden and a swing seat also hangs from the branches of the same tree where the tree house sits.
The garden was made in partnership with NHS England in a bid to promote the physical and emotional well-being enabled by green spaces and gardening.
For more information on these gardens, visit the Chelsea Flower show website here.