RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2018 – Best in Show

Morgan Stanley returns for their fourth year with Chris Beardshaw to create ‘The Morgan Stanley Garden for the NSPCC’. Gold medal winning veteran, Chris Beardshaw’s Morgan Stanley Garden is intended to act as a metaphor for the emotional transformation that takes place in a child as they experience the positive impact of the NSPCC’s work.

The path appears unclear and confused on entry as it moves through the richly planted woodland. Eventually the path leads to a cedar wood pavilion, enclosed at the rear by a calm and reflective pool. Looking out from the perspective of the pavilion the garden provides a safe and secure environment that is also richly stimulating.

Planting includes large specimen trees, woodland and acid loving woodland specimens with subtle foliage textures, greens and splashes of velvety blues, pinks and purples.

This highly evocative and picturesque garden designed by Mark Gregory celebrates Yorkshire’s natural materials, traditional crafts and artisan food production. Set on the edge of a woodland with a mixture of dense and varied planting; a fast flowing tumbling beck (brook) runs through the woodland, into the soft grass and buttercup meadowland, past a stone bothy and cultivated cottage garden. Dry limestone walls divide the pastures and separate the garden bothy and it’s cottage garden from the natural landscape.

The stone used in the garden is selected and picked from the Bolton Estate, who are in the middle of a restoration project. Dismantled and fallen walls have been used and will be returned and re-built at the estate.

Sarah Price was back at Chelsea after a five-year absence with her romanticised Mediterranean garden for sponsor M&G Investments. Demonstrating how simple, sustainable materials can be incorporated into garden design, Sarah was among 13 women designers announced across 26 gardens in all at Chelsea – the highest proportion of female show garden designers in recent years.

At the heart of this charming garden is the simple, timeless idea that three core elements – a wall, trees and seating – can create an intimate, sheltered and beautiful oasis of calm.

Using Mediterranean flora and found materials including clay, aggregate and pigment, the garden celebrates the expressive and sensual language of contrasts: colour and texture, light and shadow.

The use of colour is subtle, but it is also unexpected and dazzling in places, with semi-opaque glazes on tile picking out the silvery tones of sub-shrubs, while a clashing cacophony of scarlet, pink, lilac and yellow flowers are balanced with calming grassy swathes.

Informal gravel pathways are interspersed with scree planting, while trees are used to create intimate, beautiful spaces of relaxation that can be applied to any garden. Drought-tolerant plants aim to highlight concerns around climate change and the need for water conservation.

Designer Tom Massey made his debut at Chelsea with a garden inspired by the resiliency and determination of people in situations of forced migration and displacement, and their dedication to creating beautiful gardens in the harshest of living conditions. In particular his design has built on his observations of garden making in the desperate and inhospitable conditions of the Domiz refugee camp in northern Iraq.

Their ability to make the most of harsh living conditions and landscapes, and their dedication to create gardens and beautify their limited personal space is profoundly inspirational.

An ‘innovation wall’ is filled with everyday objects, like tin cans and plastic bottles, re-purposed to grow plants. These ideas were sourced directly from refugee gardens in the Domiz camp of northern Iraq but would be equally relevant for gardeners with small plots or limited space in the UK.

Cooling and calming water flows throughout the space, collected in channels and pools, recycled and pumped back through the brimming central Islamic inspired fountain, representing the importance of grey water reuse in the camps and simulating those that many refugees have built in their own spaces in the Domiz camp.

The planting includes edibles and herbs used in Middle Eastern cooking, some of which will be unfamiliar to a western audience. The gravel garden planting is also drought tolerant and designed to survive the harsh environment of the region. With climate change and increasing droughts in the UK, resilient and drought tolerant planting is increasingly relevant to UK gardeners.

Designed by Janine Crimmins, this particularly beautiful garden is a celebration of craftsmanship and tradition with inspiration drawn from the Arts and Crafts Movement. There are no themes nor messages here – just a garden is designed to stand the test of time both physically and aesthetically, and to simply be beautiful.

The stunning focal point is a dry stone, half-domed niche, displaying the skill of the craftsman, offering a sheltered view of the sumptuous, jewel-toned planting. All of the stonework is constructed by Janine’s husband Master Craftsman Andrew Loudon, who is recognised as one of the leaders in his field of dry stone walling. Andrew actively promotes the craft of dry stone walling through his involvement with The Dry Stone Walling Association.

Gold Medal-winning designer Kazuyuki Ishihara created a traditional garden inspired by omotenashi, a Japanese concept of sincere hospitality, and the wish to invoke this feeling in guests to the garden. The planting is based on Ikenobo, a type of Japanese flower arranging dating from the 15th century, with the placement of rocks, plants and distribution of colour carefully considered in relation to the space.

At the heart of the garden is an octagonal Azumaya, or garden house, with its copper roof. There’s also a central pond surrounded by Japanese maples. The natural sound of water falling onto rock encourages the forgetting of time and the feeling of eternity.