The LG Eco-City Garden.
7 Design Ideas for Your Garden From Chelsea Flower Show
I meet a lot of home gardeners, who love to visit flower shows and botanical gardens, but often struggle to apply inspiration from these gardens to their home gardens. They say that flower show gardens and botanical gardens are often ‘so big and so grand’ that they can’t imagine how anything from these gardens could be transferred to their small home gardens.
While the large-scale of many of these gardens may be intimidating, you’re missing a lot of great design ideas if you don’t take the time to think about how certain design elements could be used in your own garden. Think about the design concept at play and then scale it to your garden size and budget.
To help home gardeners, I’ve compiled a list of seven design ideas from the 2018 Chelsea Flower Show, but believe me there are many more which you can discover!
Go Green!
The woodland plants of the Morgan Stanley Garden for the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) remind us of the peaceful, calming, and cooling effects of a plant palette consisting mainly of the colour green. Because this garden uses a variety of shades of green, as well as shapes and textures of foliage, it’s anything but boring.
The Morgan Stanley Garden for the NSPCC.
Plants used in the Morgan Stanley Garden, which won the Best Show Garden at Chelsea, include Styrax japonica (Japanese snowbell); Euphorbia amygdaloides ‘Purpurea’ (Wood spurge); Hosta ‘Krossa Regal’; Kirengeshoma palmata (Yellow waxbells); and a variety of ferns. And while there are bursts of (non-green) colour (e.g., Dodecatheon meadia), there’s no denying the preponderance of green.
The VTB Capital Garden – Spirit of Cornwall (Silver-Gilt Show Garden award winner) is another example of a Chelsea garden that uses green foliage to its advantage. Here we see Dicksonia antarctica (Australian tree fern); Fatsia japonica (Paperplant); Gunnera manicata (Giant rhubarb); Gunnera magellanica (Baby gunnera or Devil’s strawberry); and Cordyline australis (Cabbage palm).
Green tropical palette of the VTB Capital Garden – Spirit of Cornwall.
Hostas are an excellent choice of green perennial foliage plants for light to medium shade. There is a huge variety of hostas available in all imaginable shapes, colours, and sizes. What’s more, they’re easy to grow and easily divided so your collection will continue to grow.
A variety of Hostas from an exhibitor at the 2018 Chelsea Flower Show.
Mono-chromatic colour schemes like these “green” gardens are particularly well suited to smaller home gardens. As a design professor once explained, small gardens with too many bright colours are often disquieting and look like a mess of “fruit salad”. So leave the fruit salad for the dining table and go green!
Offset Stepping Stones
Why opt for an ordinary path of symmetrically placed stepping-stones when offset-placed steps like those in the LG Eco-City Garden are so much more interesting? This Silver-Gilt award-winning Show Garden is full of unique design ideas and proves that even small details like the garden path can have a big impact on your garden’s appeal.
The LG Eco-City Garden.
Don’t Forget Trees and Shrubs
I’m often guilty of focussing too much on perennial flowers. That’s not to say perennials aren’t a critical part of a garden. Their variety of colour, form, fragrance, and bloom times add a tremendous amount to a garden.
Trees and shrubs, however, are equally important and can also make a huge impact in your garden design. Like flowering plants, trees and shrubs offer tremendous variety in terms of sizes, shapes, forms, seasonal colours and yes, even flowers. The O-mo-te-na-shi no NIWA – The Hospitality Garden, which won the Best Artisan Garden award, exquisitely demonstrates this principle.
The O-mo-te-na-shi no NIWA – The Hospitality Garden.
Acer (maple tree) feature prominently in this Japanese-inspired garden. Among the Acers featured in the garden are Acer japonica ‘Vitifolium’ (Vine-leaved Japanese maple); Acer palmatum ‘Sango-kaku’ (Coral bark maple); Acer palmatum ‘Shishi-gashira’ (Lion’s mane maple); and Acer reticulatum. These beautiful small deciduous trees and shrubs really shine in their autumnal shades.
Among the other plants with unique foliage in the “Hospitality Garden’ are Cornus controversa ‘Variegata’ (Wedding cake tree); Enkianthus campanulatus (red vein enkianthus); and Pinus thunbergii (black pine).
Sculpture and Other Garden Art
Garden art comes in all different shapes, sizes, and price tags. Grand sculpture, like the one pictured below in the David Harber and Saville Garden (Bronze Show Garden award winner), is not unusual at the Chelsea Flower Show. I particularly like how the copper / rust colored swirls draw the eye to the focal point of the blue “eye”. This type of sculpture would overwhelm the average suburban garden and homeowner’s budget.
The David Harber and Saville Garden.
Fear not, garden art does not have to be that grand. The copper ‘citrus peel’ sculpture of the Silent Pool Gin Garden (Silver-Gilt Space-to-Grow Garden award winner) is a much more home garden friendly scale that adds loads of interest without dominating the garden.
The copper ‘citrus peel’ sculpture of the Silent Pool Gin Garden.
Garden suppliers are plentiful at Chelsea and with a host of artful ideas for your garden. This reclaimed slate water feature from Tristan Cockerill adds an interesting shape and texture, and offers that lovely calming sound of trickling water. More importantly, it’s much easier to install and maintain than a stream or pond.
Water fountain from Tristan Cockerill.
Sculptural Trees
If you don’t have enough room in your garden for a sculpture, why not consider using a sculptural tree instead? Sculptural trees like Lagerstroemia indica (Crape myrtle) from the M&G Garden (Gold Show Garden award winner) make a beautiful focal point. The intricate branching pattern and smooth bark of the Crepe myrtle make a striking addition to a garden. Add some low-voltage uplighting at its base and you’ve got a masterpiece for your garden.
Lagerstroemia indica (Crape myrtle) sculptural tree in the M&G Garden.
Another sculptural tree with loads of interest is the Punica granatum (Pomegranate tree). The tree was featured in the Lemon Tree Trust Garden, winner of the Silver-Gilt Show Garden award. Its gnarly bark and twisting branching pattern adds texture and interest to a drought tolerant garden. The delicious red pomegranate fruit is the crowning touch to this beautiful tree.
Punica granatum (Pomegranate) from the Lemon Tree Trust Garden.
Sunken Seating Areas
While creating an outdoor room in your garden is not a new idea, two gardens in the 2018 Chelsea Flower Show took the idea to a new level: sunken seating areas. As a ’50-something’ man, they reminded me of shag-carpeted ‘conversation pits’ of the 1970’s. One look and I was hooked!
The first example of the sunken seating area is the New West End Garden, winner of a Gold Space-to-Grow Garden award. This garden traded the shag carpeting for black and white tiles. The light coloured walls and stone contrast nicely with the green foliage and add to the cool, relaxing feeling in this garden.
The New West End Garden.
The LG Eco-City Garden also featured a sunken seating area. The neutral tones of this über comfy conversation pit is splashed with brightly coloured throw pillows that mimic the colours in the surrounding flower beds. These included Lupinus ‘Desert Sun’ (Lupine ‘Desert Sun’), Lupinus ‘Gallery White’ (Lupine ‘Gallery White’), and Papaver rupifragrum ‘Orange Feather’ (Spanish poppy).
The LG Eco-City Garden.
Plant Walls
Plant walls have been all the rage recently. I really liked the plant walls featured in the Lemon Tree Trust Garden. I found their simple design to be more accessible to the average home owner than the commercially available plant walls.
Ready made concrete block is really an ingenuous material for a DIY plant wall. Their geometric shape makes them easily adaptable to a variety of layouts and patterns, and they’re very durable. Make a batch or two of cement, grab a trowel, add a little creativity, and Bob’s your uncle! Yes, they’re a little stark and “hard”, but as the plants mature and fill out they will soften the hard edges.
Lemon Tree Trust Garden.
The Lemon Tree Trust Garden also used rain gutters, wood shelving with recycled plastic bottles, and recycled paint tins to create a variety of plant walls. While this style may not be for every garden, I love the idea for a work / potting shed area of a garden. Certainly an ingenuous way to start your seedlings and cuttings.
Lemon Tree Trust Garden.
For more design inspiration why not check out Global Garden Lab’s related article on design ideas from the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show.
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