Chelsea Flower Show going ‘green’ to help fight climate change

Gardens that focus on combating climate change will take centre stage at next year’s Chelsea Flower Show, the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has said.

As it unveils the 2020 line-up for the world-famous show, the RHS said designers and growers were using the event as a platform to encourage a more environmentally sustainable future.

Award-winning design duo Hugo Bugg and Charlotte Harris have designed a communal residential garden for show sponsor M&G, with a focus on forging “vital green space” in places that need them most.

Ms Harris said while more people were living in cities, and those cities are getting hotter with climate change, there was a “primal need for green space on a physical level, mental level, environmental level”.

“The garden design has recycled and repurposed materials and sustainable elements such as permeable paving woven through it.

“The planting will be led by looking at resilient plants that are suitable for the climate challenges of urban spaces, mitigating the heat island effect, creating habitat, fixing nitrogen.”

She said the garden would look at how to create “moments of joy and respite”, adding “it will be a very beautiful but urban space”.

Guangzhou China: Guangzhou Garden by Peter Chmiel and Chinjung Chen of Grant Associates also looks at a sustainable future city garden, with a woodland dell to clean the air, a pool to clean water and bamboo structures which represent homes.

Rose Gore Browne, RHS Chelsea show manager said: “As gardens and horticulture are key to helping combat climate change, it is very encouraging to see a number of gardens addressing these issues.

“With Chelsea, it’s a huge industry gathering and then we also have 160,000 interested gardeners coming through the door.

“So it’s an unrivalled platform in horticulture to demonstrate to visitors how they can be gardening more sustainably, and there’s no better way to do that than a show garden.”