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Top 6 Gardening Trends From The RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2022
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2022 made a welcome return to its spring slot after a two-year absence. As the start of ‘The Season’ much of the media attention was focused on the host of stars and VIPs attending the private viewing day – the highlight being a visit by H.M. the Queen in a six-seater buggy, smiling and enjoying the show gardens and displays.
However, for Ali Barwani there was little opportunity for socializing and champagne as he scoured the SW3 site finding ideas to inspire you!
If you didn’t make it to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show – or even if you did – here are our 6 favourite RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2022 horticultural trends to try out on the balcony or in your garden.
1) Retro Vibes.
Do you like colour? Then don’t be afraid of using it in the garden. The St Mungo’s ‘Putting Down Roots Garden’ designed by Cityscapes used recycled materials for its vibrant coloured planters and spectacular pavilion with a circular bench. Their bold use of pink and orange was softened by planting green textural foliage, with the occasional pop of colour from flowers. It secured them a Silver Medal.
To find out more about the ‘Putting Down Roots Garden’ and the important work of this homelessness charity:
Boldly coloured planters also featured in ‘The Cirrus Garden’ designed by Jason Williams. Plantings of Lupin ‘Towering Inferno’ in shades of red and orange flecked with yellow were enjoyed by visitors and bees alike. Jason’s garden was inspired by his experience living with an 18th floor balcony garden.
This Balcony Garden achieved a Silver Gilt Medal. Capital Gardens’ plant area assistant Mechelle was invited into the garden by the designer when she visited because her outfit perfectly matched the joyful vibe!
2) Sharing is Caring.
As we learned during Covid, having outside space is precious; it is not just valuable for ourselves but as way of building stronger local communities. When I cut my front hedge passers-by always stop to chat. It may take me a bit longer to trim the privet, but I always feel blessed to live in such a friendly road.
The ‘Putting Down Roots Garden’ was designed as an inclusive place, a pocket park with a seating area to bring people and plants together in an urban environment.
This show garden will be relocated to a permanent home in London Bridge, where it will provide social and environmental benefits to St Mungo’s staff, clients and the public for many years to come.
Designer Andy Smith-Williams, in his ‘Core Arts Front Garden’ imagined a sociable and environmentally friendly space. A garden where two neighbours create a larger space by removing their boundary fence. The planting was chosen to improve mental health, with bright coloured flowers, edibles and trees to attract birds, and mixed hedges and wildflowers. The garden was awarded a Gold Medal.
We might not go as far as demolishing our garden walls to join forces with the neighbours, but we can all join the revolution by making our front gardens, doorways, or street-facing windows enjoyable for all with the addition of colourful pots, planters and window-boxes.
3) Re-use, Recycle, Upcycle.
Caring for the environment was a big theme at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, with re-use and upcycling at the forefront. For example, the ‘Putting Down Roots’ garden used recycled materials in its hard landscaping.
‘Hands Off Mangrove’ by Grow2Know was a garden highlighting two important issues – global deforestation and social injustice. Designed by Tayshan Hayden-Smith and Danny Clarke, it was awarded a Silver-Gilt Medal.
The garden was inspired by the real-life story of community activists who became known as the Mangrove Nine, who were tried and acquitted of inciting a riot in 1970. To learn more about the story behind this garden:
This pollinator friendly garden mixed edibles with ornamental and architectural plants. The central path was upcycled, constructed from crushed concrete. Upcycled cooking pots were used as containers to grow tomatoes and chillies.
4) Symmetry And Formality.
‘The RNLI Garden’ designed by Chris Beardshaw, awarded a Gold Medal, played with formality, with its classically inspired green oak pavilion and arcade. The flowing planting of herbaceous perennials used repetition to create a pastel tapestry.
The calming effect of repetition was best seen in Richard Mier’s Silver Medal winning ‘The Perennial Garden ‘With Love’’. It was awarded the BBC’S People’s Choice Award for best Show Garden by the public.
Bisected by a central rill, leading to a half-moon pool, flanked by camomile lawns and four parallel beds – eight flat-topped hawthorn trees provided a sheltered canopy.
The lower planting palette of gentle greens with tones of plum and white provided calm and tranquillity.
Many of the elements of this garden can be incorporated into any garden, such as using colour in moderation so that it doesn’t overwhelm and introducing changes in level to make the garden multidimensional.
5) Think Big!
Many of the show gardens used super-scale sculptures, planters of pots to give impact. The ‘Putting Down Roots’ garden with it large hoops, the pergola and water wheel in the ‘Circle of Life’ garden and the large, metal sculpture in the ‘Hands Off Mangrove’ garden all used size to make an impact.
The larger-than-life statue of an RAF pilot scanning the skies for dogfights during the Battle of Britain in the Silver Medal winning ‘RAF Benevolent Garden’ designed by John Everiss will be remembered by all who saw it.
To learn more about this garden: https://www.chilstone.com/chilstone-news/chelsea-raf-benevolent-garden
A giant icy monolith dominated ‘The Plantman’s Ice Garden’ designed by John Warland. The frozen cube, built of ice blocks was a call to action to halt the climate perils facing our planet. The eerie blue ice blocks in this conceptual garden were sheltered under a canopy of birch woodland. The garden was awarded a Silver Gilt Medal.
6) Grasping the Nettle!
It was great to see wildlife and wildflowers made welcome in so many of the Show Gardens. The ultimate expression of this was the Gold Medal and Best in Show garden – ‘A Rewilding Britain Landscape’ designed by Urquhart & Hunt. This garden show-cased the importance of the beaver through its manipulation of the natural landscape. The take-home message was how the introduction of keystone species can produce a ripple of positive changes in an environment.
The garden proved controversial with both the TV presenters and the viewing public. Monty Don called it a “brilliant show garden” but still had to ask himself “is it a garden?”.
Many of the other RHS Chelsea Gardens were politically and socially engaged but they didn’t attract as much flak from Monty – but then neither did they win Best in Show!
I found it beautiful. The garden gave me a sense of peace in the noisy and packed show grounds. The richness, depth and skilfulness of the planting was impressive.
The garden gave us a vision of a landscape in south-west England after the reintroduction of a native keystone species. The attention to detail was phenomenal, and the naturalistic planting was exemplary. The planting included Southern marsh-orchids, Common spotted orchids, Tussock sedge, Royal ferns, Ajuga, Meadow buttercup, Greater spearwort, Ragged robin, Goat willow and water mint.
To learn more about the garden and rewilding:
https://rewildingbritain.org.uk/support-rewilding/rhs-chelsea-flower-show
Rewilding Britain has inspired me to share more of my garden with nature. For example, I am going to look at Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum) in a different light from now on.
In Conclusion:
I hope you found the 2022 RHS Chelsea Flower Show inspiring and stimulating. It was far more inclusive, with important ideas and messages at the core of many of the brilliant designs. Many of the gardens chose to address major issues such as social change, mental health and climate change, or supported and publicised the work of charities.
There was a show garden at Chelsea for all gardeners -ones to please the traditionalist and others for the avant-garde. With such diversity of design and planting there was something at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show for everyone.
