As the world’s most illustrious flower show begins, designers are once again pulling out all the stops to create garden masterpieces and display plants which visitors want to mimic in their own green spaces.
Climate-resilient designs and biodiversity are key elements of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show – and have been for some time – but there are many trends which gardeners may take away with them.
Japanese-inspired design
Gardeners who lean towards mindfulness, simplicity and a better connection with nature should be inspired by the big presence of Japanese design, with four of the nine large show gardens at this year’s show drawing directly from Japanese design traditions.
Award-winning garden designer Kazuyuki Ishihara’s Tokonoma Garden – Samumaya no Niwa, aims at contemplation and the appreciation of beauty.
“One of the things coming through this year, particularly in small spaces where you want something neat and full of interest and which gives you Zen feelings of wellbeing, is delicate textures of things like Japanese maples and other graceful plants,” says RHS chief horticulturist Guy Barter.
The beauty of empty space is another modern twist, with designer Angus Thompson’s Asthma and Lung UK Breathing Space Garden featuring a balance of classic Japanese planting and empty space.
“The quiet, uncluttered style acts as the perfect antidote to a hectic, digital modern life,” he explains.
Wildlife gardening
In 2026, wildlife gardening is a prerequisite of the big show gardens, being sensitively wrapped into the design, even where it’s not the primary narrative, says Helen Bostock, RHS senior wildlife specialist. Plants are specifically chosen in support of certain animals and insects.
“This mimics what gardeners are doing in their own spaces with more than half (52%) saying they’ve changed the way they garden to support wildlife.
“Whether it’s the Boodles Garden, brimming with ornate insect houses and bird boxes, or the Parkinson’s UK garden with late-flowering plants for night-time pollinators, there’s inspiration in bucket loads,” she says.
RHS ambassador Jamie Butterworth, co-designer of Monty Don’s dog garden in 2025, who has supplied plants to many of the gardens at this year’s show from his nursery, Form Plants, adds: “If you go back a decade, every plant, tree or hedge going to Chelsea would have to be beautifully manicured, with not even a hint of a bite out of a leaf, which meant everybody was growing them in pristine conditions.
“But now a lot of gardens are celebrating wildlife. Even on Main Avenue you see gardens where maybe there will be a hedge with a bit of caterpillar damage. Now, we’re embracing wildlife and working with it. The more insects you have, the more birds you will have, the more bats you will have, the more biodiverse our gardens will be.”
Roses
There’s obviously a big buzz around the Sir David Beckham rose, featuring luminous white flowers which are soft pink in bud, launched by David Austin Roses at Chelsea, and featured in The RHS and The King’s Foundation Curious Garden along with roses named after the King and Alan Titchmarsh.
More colour
“There seems to be more colour than in previous years,” says Butterworth, due to the warm spring which means a lot of the plants are in flower at Chelsea.
“Think lupins, delphiniums, geums, bright bulb colours, Iris germanicas are very popular this year – the reds and the oranges – along with nepetas and salvias galore.”
“There is more colour,” agrees multi-award-winning designer Sarah Eberle. “Maybe people feel we all need cheering up.”
Ornamental grasses are also much in evidence at the show and are catching on with amateur gardeners, used as a foil to hold border planting together and providing movement and texture, he says.
“Miscanthus, calamagrostis and sesleria have been incredibly popular this year and, although they don’t like having their roots that wet, they can tolerate the winter that we’ve just had, but in a hot summer, they just adore it.”
Naturalistic layouts
From multi-award-winning designer Eberle’s use of native plants and naturalistic planting in The Campaign to Protect Rural England Garden ‘On The Edge’, to eminent designer Tom Stuart-Smith’s Tate Britain Garden, visitors may be thinking about how they could create a rural landscape even if they live in an urban area.
“We are seeing this beautiful naturalistic planting returning to Chelsea,” says Andrew Duff, chairman of the Society of Garden and Landscape Designers and director of the Inchbald School of Garden Design.
“This is particularly strong in Tom Stuart-Smith’s Tate Britain Garden and that informal use of gravel or Hoggin, and in the way there’s no defined edged to the plants and a much more natural approach to positioning the plants this year.”
Rewilding has gone, as natural planting has a much more domestic, residential feel, he says.
“Rewilding has created a challenge for most smaller gardens, but this year we’re being shown that we can have a more relaxed, natural feeling but still have a functional space.”
“A lot of the designers have been quite brave with how loose they’ve gone with the planting,” agrees award-winning garden designer Matt Keightley.
“It’s brave to loosen it up, whether it’s gravel or soil you are seeing, immediately those spaces feel more relaxed and accessible in as much as you can picture those combinations at home.”
British native plants including hazel, hornbeam and hawthorn will continue to form the backbone of many gardens because they adapt so well to climate change, says Duff.
Sustainable hard landscaping
“There’s a strong trend towards sustainable landscaping materials such as cement-free walls and low-carbon cement made from seashells,” Barter observes.
Delphiniums
They are the King’s favourite plant, so there are plenty of them in The RHS and The King’s Foundation Curious Garden and gardeners may well be following suit in the coming months.
AI possibilities
Last year, visitors saw Tom Massey and Je Ahn create the Avanade ‘Intelligent’ Garden, featuring sensors in the soil which look at the pH, moisture and nutrient levels, giving insights on how to address any problems, as well as air-quality and weather forecast monitors.
This year, Spacelift, an AI-powered garden design platform created with landscape designer and double silver-gilt medallist Keightley, primarily for do-it-yourself designers, has made its debut, with a variety of design styles enabling people to ‘shop the look’ and see realistic AI visions of how their new garden will look. It will even position furniture, help with the types of plants needed and the layering they require.
Gnomes?
The RHS may have called off its ban on gnomes at Chelsea for the time being, thanks to The RHS and The King’s Foundation Curious Garden wanting to include them with the help of a few celebrities, but Barter is doubtful they will catch on.
“They’re a bit kitsch, but they have a loyal following and people can express themselves through gnomes. People who fancy gnomes can feel enabled, because if others poking in their garden say, ‘That’s a bit naff’, they can respond, ‘Well, they’re at Chelsea’.”