The one certainty at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show is an endless stream of covetable plants and clever ideas—this year there’s heaps of innovation as designers lead the way in rethinking materials, construction and how to create resilient, future-proof gardens. Here are a few of the ideas we took note of at the 2024 show.
Photography by Clare Coulson, except where noted.
One way to get people thinking, when it comes to the environment, is to offer beauty, and this is what Tom Massey and the architect Je Ahn have done on the Water Aid garden at the Chelsea Flower Show. Instead of a 3-dimensional check list reminding you how to be a good citizen, they have made a magical space that also happens to be fully functional on an environmental level. This is the best kind of garden design; it is subtle and inviting.
Rainwater is the theme, and it’s a good one, with many of us experiencing too much, too little or, increasingly, both in any given year. Let’s look at some of the garden’s ideas on rainwater as a resource, rather than just a by-product of weather:
Photography by Jim Powell for Gardenista, unless otherwise noted.
The Water Aid garden commands the biggest plot on the show ground, but it also grew considerably when Je Ahn’s water harvesting structure went up, creating an extra planting plane for Tom Massey’s rooftop garden. The structure is huge but graceful, irrigating the plants, filtering rainwater and using gravity to pull it down for storage underground. It also provides permanent shade.
Respecting the lay of the land, and exaggerating natural dips and contours by shaping them into swales, gives rainwater somewhere to go. A flattened garden, especially one that is bone dry, is just another hard plane that adds water run-off to all the rest. Run-off leads to overflowing sewage plants, and washes nutrients (and chemicals) off land, polluting rivers. On the other hand, variations in topography bring a variety of moisture levels, and a greater choice of plants.
Building ponds and improving streams is another way of embracing the fact of rainwater, rather than fretting about fluctuating swamp conditions. Elevate this, and yourself, with a simple means of getting across; via a boardwalk or bridge. Straight lines and right angles flatter wilder planting that loves the conditions.
Make sure your storage capacity isn’t full when rain is predicted; use overflow pipes and backup storage, or “leaky” water butts that slowly release water into the ground, since terrain that is not rock hard has better absorbing qualities.
This week, as the Chelsea Flower Show goes viral on every media outlet, we take a look at Tom Stuart-Smith, the comeback—after an absence of 14 years. A super-heavyweight of British garden design, Stuart-Smith’s show resumé describes his work as combining “naturalism with modernity, and built forms with romantic planting,” before reminding us that one of his clients was HM the Queen. And just to recap: He has now won nine gold medals at Chelsea, including three Best in Show. Stuart-Smith’s gardens caused such a stir in the 1990s that their legacy is still very much with us: water-filled tanks of Corten steel, peeling river birch, cloud pruning, and strongly disciplined color all come to mind.
Stuart-Smith has implied during his long absence that he didn’t have a compelling reason to do another garden on Main Avenue. He was lured by Project Giving Back, a private funding collective (who last year bagged the reluctant star Cleve West). One of PGB’s conditions for funding—that a show garden must be permanently re-sited afterwards in a place where it can do good—is also part of its attraction to garden designers. They make a garden for a charity of their choice, then Chelsea’s publicity machine puts it under a giant spotlight. Tom Stuart-Smith’s show garden for the National Garden Scheme is about the joy of garden visiting and garden making. It’s that simple.
Photography for Gardenista by Jim Powell.
The National Garden Scheme is a staple of summer for British gardeners, allowing them to look in other people’s backyards, while having a bit of tea and cake—all for a nominal fee. Since this is a transaction that takes places all over the British Isles, from spring until autumn, the NGS makes a lot of money, which is donated to nursing and health charities. It is also inherently “good for you” to be out in a garden, gazing at plants and listening to birds singing, so the benefits are exponential.
Stuart-Smith is a reliable purveyor of unusual plants in his gardens but also, the very, very familiar, which are the elements that will be reproduced all over the world: towering white foxgloves in a sea of cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris), almost shockingly “common” since it’s found on every wayside and, now that the Royal Parks allow unmowed areas, in every park.
Since we are talking about garden visiting, this is a good one to walk on, should you be so lucky; it is lightly shaded by three multi-stemmed hazels, which give an idea of coppicing, a practice which only real gardeners understand the value of, since hazel re-sprouts after cutting down almost to the ground, providing useful straight poles.
On describing his last woodland garden for Chelsea, Stuart-Smith said that he uses repeats of species, focusing on texture and form, over color. This still rings true, and in the 2024 garden he takes his restricted palette to the point of monochrome, and a slightly chilly, detached air. But if you look, and then look again, the garden reveals itself. The plant basics haven’t changed much either, with iris, umbellifers, astrantia and hardy geraniums also making a comeback.
