This year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show is greener than ever. From flood-resistant landscaping to rain-harvesting, waste reduction to carbon neutral design and reused and recycled pieces, the environment is front and centre in show gardens small and large.
Here's how to channel Chelsea in your own garden with pieces from Holloways Garden Antiques, taking inspiration from the antique and contemporary features found at the centre of some of this year's best RHS medal-winning gardens.
Image credit: The RHS
The National Garden Scheme Garden (Gold)
With an 'edge of woodland' theme laid out through an open hazel coppice, flanked by drought-tolerant woodland plants and enclosed by a native hedge, the National Garden Scheme Garden celebrates 100 years of opening private gardens to the public through the NGS scheme. The garden centres on a carbon sink timber hut, where visitors can gather for tea and cake – a staple of NGS open days – while in front of it sits a beautiful old stone farm trough filled with water. Vintage terracotta tomato and flower pots are grouped on the staging outside the hut. Designed by Tom Stuart-Smith as a therapeutic garden for hospital patients, it will be the garden of a new Maggie's Centre at Addenbroke's Hospital in Cambridge.
Image credit: The RHS
Get the look with Holloways Garden Antiques:
Clockwise from top left: antique rectangular sandstone trough (3342); moss-covered antique rectangular stone trough (3340); vintage terracotta pots – there is an ever-changing selection in the courtyards; antique large stone trough (3439)
Shop stone troughs
Image credit: The RHS
Flood Re: The Flood Resilient Garden (Silver)
Flood Re: The Flood Resilient Garden is designed to be a beautiful, relatable space which helps to reduce flood risk and recovers quickly from a deluge. Dense planting slows the flow of floodwater, which is captured and stored for later use. Large tanks double as ornamental ponds, storing water which can be released in times of drought. In one corner, on a raised area designed to keep the occupants dry, is an ornate cast aluminium bench flanked by galvanised planters.
Image credit: The RHS
Get the look with Holloways Garden Antiques:
Clockwise from top left: vintage wrought iron bench(3438); rectangular vintage galvanised planter with studded seams (3311); vintage galvanised iron planter with handles (3361); vintage galvanised iron planter (2908)
show me galvanised planters
Image credit: The RHS
The Bridgerton Garden (Silver)
At the centre of Netflix's Bridgerton Garden sits an ornate triple-layered water fountain. This statement piece draws the eye through the romantic, wisteria-covered Moorgate to the sunken garden beyond. Secretive and secluded, the space is based on Penelope Featherington's 'wallflower' character from the series. It's designed to be one part of a much larger garden with interwoven ferns, hosts and ivy symbolising a network of secrets, and shaded areas alluding to mystery, turmoil and defiance. A sundial on a carved stone plinth is flanked by bright, colourful planting including flag iris, roses, lupins and foxgloves.
Image credit: The RHS
Get the look with Holloways Garden Antiques:
Grand double-layer water fountain with a carved lion base, pineapple finial and circular pool surround in the courtyard with Armillary garden sundial (3452), inset.
Take me to antique urns
La Mia Venezia (Silver)
RHS silver medal-winning Balcony Garden La Mia Venezia is a nostalgic homage to the balconies of Venice. An intimate, joyful outdoor room, lush planting is designed to enhance one's surroundings from within, while decorating towns and cities for all to enjoy. Underneath a pergola, large terracotta pots are filled with resilient plants, which need the balcony microclimate to thrive, while an ornate bistro set is painted in the same faded terracotta as the stucco plaster, bringing the whole scheme together.
Image credit: The RHS
Get the look:
Italian terracotta pots, from £79 and Boscombe outdoor dining furniture. The collection ranges from pretty bistro sets to six-seater marble-topped dining tables.
Read the story of our terracotta pots here, hand-thrown by craftsmen in Tuscany from the local Galestro clay. They're fired at extremely high temperatures to withstand the worst of the British weather.
Show me terracotta pots
Image credit: The RHS
St James' Picadilly: Imagine the World to be Different (Gold)
The show garden pays homage to the restorative influence of green spaces in urban areas, symbolising a message of recovery and hope while encouraging future generations to hope for a different world. An archway reminiscent of the proposed gateways leading to St James' Church in Picadilly leads garden-lovers into a world of lush, biodiverse, wildlife-friendly planting – resurrected from the ashes of wartime bombing. At its centre, in dappled shade, a water feature takes centre stage, topped by an antique urn, while a carved bench and spire of a wooden counselling hut encourage mood-boosting conversation.
Image credit: The RHS
Get the look with Holloways Garden Antiques:
From left: large antique garden urn (2953); antique finial urn on plinth (3335); antique Ketton stone urn (3219)
SHOW ME centrepiece URNS
Lutyens garden bench, left, and modernist garden bench (3440)
show me antique benches
The antiques courtyards surrounding Holloways are full of an ever-changing collection of water features and bird baths. Some original, some remodelled, all are unique and a soothing addition to gardens large and small.
take me to water features
Sue Ryder Grief Kind Garden (Gold)
The Sue Ryder Grief Kind Garden is a safe and peaceful sanctuary to sit amongst the beauty of nature. The curved lines of the teak bench symbolise the journey of those who grieve, and allows them to sit quietly and share their experience with others. Plants chosen for their sensory properties are carefully layered to connect people with the space, the planting plan taking inspiration from the design of the famous Midlands bud lace.
Image credit: The RHS
Get the look at Holloways:
From left, Poppy lazy armchair and Worcester teak bench with curved back, available in two and three-seater sizes.
show me antique benches
Image credit: The RHS
Killick & Co: 'Money Doesn't Grow on Trees' Garden (Silver Gilt)
Baz Grainger's Silver Gilt medal-winning garden is a scented, immersive haven is designed to create a sociable, immersive space for families to unwind and spend time together for a lifetime. A path of limestone and oak pavers winds through the garden, wide enough for two to walk side-by-side, leading to a pergola-covered communal dining area, perfect for family gatherings. It is filled by a generous teak dining table with contemporary. rope-backed dining chairs. And an aqueduct runs along the top of the pergola, lending movement and sound.
Image credit: The RHS
Get the look at Holloways:
Bel Air teak dining table and Sempre dining chairs. A matching Sempre garden sofa, armchairs and footstool is also available in the collection, pictured below, along with a teak Zucca coffee table.
take me to garden furniture
