Chelsea Flower Show 2023

Excited to join the Ruth Willmott Associates team at this year’s 2023 Chelsea Flower Show.

All the gardens were stunning, as usual, but if I had to pick our top three, here they are.

1. A Letter from a Million Years' Past – a beautiful and amazing engineering success – moving really large boulders onto the site and mesmerizingly transporting the visitor to South Korea's Jiri Mountains.

2. Equally amazing was The Centrepoint Garden, showcasing the charity's work in supporting young people facing homelessness – this garden reminded the visitor of the fragility of both humans and nature. It was moving and beautiful at the same time.

And 3. (probably a favourite), was the amazing work of the Royal Entomological Society. Their garden displayed a variety of micro-landscapes, from hoggin pathways and a dead tree ‘sculpture’, to piles of rubble and gabion walls, providing a multitude of habitats for insects. This display was fun and educational and got extra points as the garden stressed that it would continue beyond Chelsea to a site on Queen Elizabeth Park (Olympic Park, London).

We were fortunate to spend some time with the lovely Tom Massey who designed the garden.  

Tom shared his expertise on biodiversity enhancing planting schemes designed for pollinators and a wide range of other insects, with a changing climate in mind. And he was very excited that the garden had a life beyond Chelsea, just like our Morris garden last year which was transported to a local community near the Sixty7.green office in Islington!