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RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2022: best show garden revealed – plus all the medal winners

chelsea flower show winners 2022 who won best show garden awards - Heathcliff O'Malley
chelsea flower show winners 2022 who won best show garden awards - Heathcliff O'Malley

After a few years of pandemic disruption, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show has finally returned to its roots in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea in late May. This year there are 25 different Show and Sanctuary gardens vying for attention, along with a further 18 smaller gardens, each offering the trademark invention and intrigue which regular visitors have come to associate with the show.

As the first proper Chelsea that's back in business after lockdown, the pandemic’s fingerprints are all over the gardens. Designers have used their horticultural craft to explore all sorts of societal issues, including mental health, connection to each other and the natural world, and climate change, as well as more escapist themes like travel and imagining what the future might look like.

Chelsea planting has also been affected by events. Long-time visitors to Chelsea might well note how muted and informal the planting is this year - a few purples, plums and crimsons light up the predominantly green background of native trees and shrubs such as hawthorn, sorbus and beech. The lack of floral fireworks reflects a real shortage of material - the impact of the pandemic on commercial suppliers and the effect of Brexit on plant imports from Europe.

Still, there’s no denying that this year's Chelsea Flower Show is a treat to behold and such a welcome return for garden-lovers. The question now is: which of the most prestigious show gardens have won a coveted RHS Gold medal and the highest accolade of all: Best in Show?

Each of the exhibits is judged by a pool of gardening experts from across the horticultural industry. The gardens are assessed on plants (nomenclature, health, quality and vigour, absence of pest and disease, range of plant material and relevance), overall impression (impact, creativity, balance and scale) and endeavour (the difficulty of growing the plants and level of difficulty in staging the display, and originality).

Without further ado, here are all the medal winners of the Chelsea Flower Show 2022.


Chelsea Flower Show Best In Show 2022

A Rewilding Britain Landscape

RHS Chelsea flower show 2022 winners - Heathcliff O'Malley
RHS Chelsea flower show 2022 winners - Heathcliff O'Malley

It was a left-field choice for best in show this year, with many Chelsea watchers predicting a win for Sarah Eberle's Building the Future garden (more on that below) on the corner of Main Avenue. Instead we got A Rewilding Britain Landscape, a slice of natural beaver habitat with a babbling brook, an authentically unruly wilderness of wildflowers, and the sound of honking beavers in the background.

Designers Lulu Urquhart and Adam Hunt have given Chelsea visitors a glimpse into what rewilding really means with this beautiful evocation of a natural landscape in South West England. The highlight is a brook dammed by beavers, a mammal now being reintroduced to Britain through rewilding projects to help with restoring flood plains.

Chelsea Flower Show Best In Show - Heathcliff O'Malley
Chelsea Flower Show Best In Show - Heathcliff O'Malley

All the materials and plants in this garden are found around the River Otter in Devon where beavers were successfully reintroduced in 2020. Look out for tooth marks in the logs - chewed by real beavers!

Chelsea Flower Show winner 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley
Chelsea Flower Show winner 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley

The shed at the back of the garden doubles as a hide from which to spot beavers. Unfortunately, none made it to Chelsea with the garden, but their environment is so stunningly rendered, you’d be forgiven for imagining you’ve spotted one.

Best in show Chelsea Flower Show 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley
Best in show Chelsea Flower Show 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley

Sponsor: Project Giving Back


The medal winners

Gold

The Mind Garden

RHS Chelsea winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley
RHS Chelsea winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley

Mental health and connection have been major trends at Chelsea Flower Show this year but Andy Sturgeon’s garden with Crocus puts it front and centre with a design based around conversation. In the centre is a raised circular seating area and offering the chance to sit side-by-side and talk, with meadow planting and birch trees. Following the path from this area, the garden opens out before you, reflecting the feeling of release when you share your experiences.

Sponsor: Project Giving Back

Morris & Co.

chelsea flower show winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley
chelsea flower show winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley

Designer Ruth Willmott has reimagined two of the most iconic designs of the master of Victorian Arts & Crafts, William Morris. Familiar from wallpapers and fabrics, his famous Trellis has been turned into criss-crossing paths which form the garden’s layout, while Willow Boughs is reflected in the pavilion and water channels. Willmott has also used favourite plants from Morris’s designs including willow and hawthorn to bring colour into the garden as well as providing food and habitats for birds.

Sponsor: Morris & Co.

The RNLI Garden

RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2022 winners - Heathcliff O'Malley
RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2022 winners - Heathcliff O'Malley

Those expecting a flowery lifeboat might be surprised by this garden, designed by Chris Beardshaw, which avoids the literal and instead takes cues from the RNLI’s Georgian origins including an oak pavilion façade and arcade. Mature trees, including elms and pine, have been chosen for their link to traditional boat building. There’s also a dramatic rockscape mirroring the seas lifeboats must navigate every day.

Sponsor: Project Giving Back

MEDITE SMARTPLY Building the Future

Chelsea Flower Show Winners - Heathcliff O'Malley
Chelsea Flower Show Winners - Heathcliff O'Malley

The standout feature of this garden, which is designed around the theme of landscapes and buildings for the future, is the 6m high cascading waterfall and central structure made from a new sustainable material, Medite Smartply. Designer Sarah Eberle evokes a forest’s edge, blending ancient and rare plants with modern materials to look at the idea of taking what we know now into the future. This garden also won Best Construction in the Show Garden category.

Sponsor: MEDITE SMARTPLY

The Meta Garden: Growing the Future

RHS Chelsea winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley
RHS Chelsea winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley

You know Meta for its creation of Facebook, the social networking phenomenon, but this garden is all about mycelial networking inspired by the complex network of fungi which allows woodland ecosystems to ‘talk’ to each other. The main feature of designer Joe Perkins’ fungal-inspired garden is an enormous pavilion, sunken into a meadow of almost 3,000 plants native to the UK, inspired by the interaction between the mycorrhizal network and tree roots.

Sponsor: Meta

Silver Gilt

The New Blue Peter Garden – Discover Soil

chelsea flower show 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley
chelsea flower show 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley

The Blue Peter Garden has been a mainstay of British childhood over the decades and this new one continues with its bright and educational elements. Designer Juliet Sargeant has taken the colour palette, bright blue and orange, from the Blue Peter branding, while a subterranean Rhizotron Chamber will be a hub for younger visitors to learn more about soil. Art projects from the children and people of Salford are on display and visitors can listen to the sound of a compost heap.

Sponsor: Project Giving Back

Alder Hey Urban Foraging Station

Chelsea Flower Show 2022 winners - Heathcliff O'Malley
Chelsea Flower Show 2022 winners - Heathcliff O'Malley

Designed by Howard and Hugh Miller as a stylised memory of orchards, meadows and blossoming hedgerows explored in childhood, with a colour scheme of whites, creams and blush pinks inspired by apple blossom. The central feature of this garden is the “picnic blanket” made of precast concrete with edible herbs growing through, which give off fragrance as people sit on it or move about. After the show the garden is being relocated to the Alder Hey Hospital near the new Children’s Mental Health Unit.

Sponsor: Project Giving Back

Hands Off Mangrove by Grow2Know

Chelsea Flower Show 2022 winners - Heathcliff O'Malley
Chelsea Flower Show 2022 winners - Heathcliff O'Malley

Tayshan Hayden-Smith and Danny Clark have designed a garden around the symbol of the mangrove tree, which they see as a symbol of coexistence, diversity, and resilience. The 4m tall mangrove sculpture at the garden’s centre has nine roots to honour each member of the ‘Mangrove Nine’, black activists who fought racial discrimination in Notting Hill. Crushed concrete paths are meant to represent the harsh challenges of racism, while the mangrove sculpture forms a canopy for communities to gather beneath.

Sponsor: Project Giving Back

Silver

The St Mungo's Putting Down Roots Garden by Cityscapes

Chelsea Flower Show winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley
Chelsea Flower Show winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley

A pocket garden designed by Darryl Moore and Adolfo Harrison of Cityscapes; a company whose work is about bringing greenery into urban spaces. The garden revolves around the idea of bringing people and plants together. Large planters full of textural foliage and floral accents create a sense of tranquillity, while a pavilion with a bench made from large hoops provides a place to relax and escape the stresses of city living.

Sponsor: Project Giving Back 

Brewin Dolphin Garden

Chelsea Flower Show winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley
Chelsea Flower Show winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley

This garden evokes the redevelopment of an inner city brownfield site, repurposed into contemporary housing, thus all the plants have been chosen to be hardy and able to deal with heavily ironised soil as well as coping with climate change. Trees in the garden were chosen for their ability to at absorb air pollution. Designer Paul Hervey-Brookes has ensured all materials, from aggregates to bricks, are recycled or reclaimed. There’s even space for a kitchen garden and a pool to collect excess rainfall.

Sponsor: Brewin Dolphin

The Perennial Garden ‘With Love’

chelsea flower show winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley
chelsea flower show winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley

Every horticulturalist loves their garden, and this year Perennial’s designer Richard Miers is celebrating that love with a garden designed purely for the pleasure of gardeners, with a calming rill, comfortable seats, magnificent sculptures, and a soft canopy of trees to envelope and calm visitors with a sense of security and comfort.

Sponsor: Perennial

The RAF Benevolent Fund Garden

chelsea winners 2022 flowers - Heathcliff O'Malley
chelsea winners 2022 flowers - Heathcliff O'Malley

The standout element of designer John Everiss’ garden for the RAF Benevolent Fund is the huge statue of a young pilot looking up at the sky. Visitors are invited to imagine the aerial dogfight he’s witnessing as they wander around the stone spiral wall protecting the sculpture, just as blast walls would have done in the past. Steel panels emerge from under the rubble over which plants are now growing.

Sponsor: Project Giving Back


Winner of the best Sanctuary garden award

Out Of The Shadows

Chelsea Flower Show winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley
Chelsea Flower Show winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley

Visitors to Kate Gould’s garden will feel as though they’ve stepped into a spa as they find themselves surrounded by climbing bars, a meditation space, and even a swim spa – all enclosed with tropical plants to help you feel as though you’re on a luxury holiday abroad and finally able to relax.                                

Gold

The Place2Be Securing Tomorrow Garden

chelsea flower show winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley
chelsea flower show winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley

This sanctuary is aimed at children and will end up at Viking Primary school in West London after the show, with the aim of providing a space for young ones to open up and discuss their mental health. Designer Jamie Butterworth, whose mother is a teacher and father is a mental health nurse, worked with children and teachers from the school to design the garden. Trees and stone intermingle to provide spaces for children to sit and talk while planting in blue, yellow, and burgundy provides a colourful splash of cheer.

Sponsor: Sarasin & Partners, Place2Be

A Garden Sanctuary by Hamptons

RHS Chelsea winners - Heathcliff O'Malley
RHS Chelsea winners - Heathcliff O'Malley

As we all worked from home over recent years, many began to see their garden as a place for work and leisure as well as a beautiful environment. In this garden, designer Tony Wood has created a canopy of pine and birch trees to immerse visitors in nature with a carbon neutral shed in the centre which is sure to put most visitors’ shoffices at home to shame.

Sponsor: Hamptons

The Boodles Travel Garden

Chelsea Flower Show Sanctuary gardens winners - Heathcliff O'Malley
Chelsea Flower Show Sanctuary gardens winners - Heathcliff O'Malley

Phileas Fogg has nothing on Anthony Wainwright, the grandfather of Boodles’ current chairman who, in 1962, travelled right around the world in 16 days. Designer Thomas Hoblin has created a symbolic version of that journey in this garden with plants from right around the world and a winding water feature flowing through the middle to symbolise the journey.

Sponsor: Boodles

Silver Gilt

The Body Shop Regeneration Garden

Chelsea flower show winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley
Chelsea flower show winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley

A conceptual garden by Jennifer Hirsch which aims to tell the story of environmental regeneration after a fire, a metaphor for the journey from burnout to wellbeing in human life. A series of steel arches, charred to various degrees, divides three segments of planting from a diminished forest floor to a lively explosion of plant life.

Sponsor: The Body Shop

The Plantman’s Ice Garden

chelsea flower show 2022 winners - Heathcliff O'Malley
chelsea flower show 2022 winners - Heathcliff O'Malley

Most gardeners would argue that a frosty chill doesn’t bode well for plants but designer John Warland has brought it into the centre of his garden, cladding plants with a thick 15-tonne ice cube which will slowly melt. The conceptual garden is designed as a chilling reminder of the melting ice caps in the Arctic which threaten to spell doom for the environment. As the ice melts, it will allow the trees in the middle to droop and form a slowly opening botanic scene, symbolising the potential lost bank of seeds buried beneath the permafrost.

Sponsor: The Plantman & Co

Connected, by EXANTE

winners chelsea flower show - Heathcliff O'Malley
winners chelsea flower show - Heathcliff O'Malley

Designer Taina Suonio has created a centrepiece for this woodland sanctuary that looks like a scene out of a fairytale: a giant oak tree stump which you can sit inside. It’s surrounded with layered European woodland to calm you and invite exploration. There’s even a water feature inside the tree stump for added relaxation.

Sponsor: EXANTE

Kingston Maurward The Space Within Garden

chelsea flower show winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley
chelsea flower show winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley

Described as ‘where the French Riviera meets the Jurassic Coast’, designer Michelle Brown’s beautiful garden is a dream holiday in one spot. Look for glades to settle down in this tranquil garden and a secret jungle of foliage planting. An elevated pathway through the space gives visitors the feeling of being an explorer as they hunt for the social platform den and daybed to rest and relax.

Sponsor: Kingston Maurward College

Silver

The SSAFA Garden

Chelsea flower show winners - Heathcliff O'Malley
Chelsea flower show winners - Heathcliff O'Malley

Designed by Amanda Waring and Catfoot Garden Design, this garden was designed as a secluded area within a larger space at Norton House, accommodation for the families of service personnel being treated at the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre. There’s a infinity water feature and plants which sway in the breeze, all designed to create a relaxing atmosphere. Planting of dark blue with bronze foliage, light blue with grey foliage, greens, and whites represent the navy, air force, and army respectively.

Sponsor: CCLA

The Stitchers’ Garden

chelsea flower show winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley
chelsea flower show winners 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley

Freedom is the feeling which designer Frederic Whyte has chosen to evoke with his garden sponsored by a charity which teaches prisoners needlework to nurture their self-worth and encourage them to live crime-free lives upon release. A ‘cell’ allows a look into the garden, a steel structure clad in willow with the garden beyond evokes the feeling of being a prisoner yearning for freedom, while fountains symbolise bursts of creativity.

Sponsor: Fine Cell Work

Bronze

A Swiss Sanctuary

Chelsea Flower Show 2022 winners - Heathcliff O'Malley
Chelsea Flower Show 2022 winners - Heathcliff O'Malley

This imaginative design from Lilly Gomm travels to a personal sanctuary in Switzerland within an urban environment. Large stones evoke the jagged alpine peaks, a water feature reminds visitors of Swiss lakeshores, and an iron bench calls to mind the train tracks synonymous with sustainable travel within the country. A combination of alpine and Mediterranean plants are symbolic of Switzerland’s central position in Europe and apple trees sit alongside pines, much as they would in real Swiss forests.

Sponsor: Switzerland Tourism and participating partners


No medal awarded

Circle Of Life

Winners of the chelsea flower show 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley
Winners of the chelsea flower show 2022 - Heathcliff O'Malley

At the centre of Yoshihiro Tamura’s Japanese garden is a wooden water wheel to symbolise the circular nature of life. Mature trees provide shade for younger plants, with decaying branches reminding visitors that all things come to an end.

There’s even a telegraph pole as a reminder of the value of information to human life, while a fluffy sheepskin bench evokes clouds; the apex of the water cycle; and provides a space for quiet reflection. Visitors won’t see it from ground level, but from above, the paths and pergola walls represent zen understandings of the circle of life, human nature, and the mind.


Balcony and Container gardens

Gold

The Still Garden

Chelsea Flower Show Winners - Heathcliff O'Malley
Chelsea Flower Show Winners - Heathcliff O'Malley

Silver Gilt

Cloud Gardener UK: The Cirrus Garden

The Potting Balcony Garden

The Enchanted Rain Garden

Wild Kitchen Garden

Silver

The Blue Garden

A Mediterranean Reflection

Mandala, Meditation & Mindfulness Garden

Bronze

JAY DAY


All About Plants

Gold

The Wilderness Foundation UK Garden

chelsea flower show all about plants winner - Charlie Hawkes
chelsea flower show all about plants winner - Charlie Hawkes

The Core Arts Front Garden Revolution

Silver Gilt

A Textile Garden for Fashion Revolution

Silver

The Mothers for Mothers Garden: “This too shall pass”


Houseplant Studios

Gold

The Plant Clinic

Chelsea Flower Show Winners - Heathcliff O'Malley
Chelsea Flower Show Winners - Heathcliff O'Malley

Planet Studio

A Room To Dance

The Grass Is Greener Where You Water It

Silver Gilt

Social Media vs Reality

Botanical Rhapsody


What was your favourite garden at Chelsea Flower Show 2022? Let us know in the comments section