ON WITH THE SHOW

Trends, themes and what to expect at RHS Chelsea 2026 - Stephanie Mahon highlights what you need to know before the show

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Chelsea must be a hard drug to give up. Many designers have publicly retired from the show, proclaiming this will be their final show garden, their last go – no, really, honestly, done; let’s give the next generation a chance etc, etc – only to reappear within a few years with a new sponsor and renewed ambition to go out on top, preferably with a Gold medal and a nice Best Show Garden plaque with their name on it. This year sees the return of two goliaths of the form, Tom Stuart-Smith and Sarah Eberle, both giving us public gardens where people can connect with nature and each other in an urban setting. Sarah’s community-focused garden has a large form in the shape of a woman, made from a carved tree trunk, and many native plants as well as garden escapees all mingling together. Hers is one of the only main, large show gardens to really clearly reference a wilder aesthetic. The naturescape trend was widespread at the show a few years ago, but it seems now many designers have retreated back to a, if not formal, certainly more legible and structured look of gardens that are very obviously gardens, and not artistic evocations of landscapes.

The other outliers in this respect include Baz Grainger, with his Killik & Co garden inspired by the Norfolk broads, and James Basson, who returns to the show after a break of nine years. The last time he was here he rather controversially won Best in Show for a representation of a Maltese quarry, and this time his unjudged exhibit for Project Giving Back is an evocation of the ochre mines of Roussillon in Provence, with pine trees and towers of red sandstone. How will the crowd react to his work this time, inured by a decade of landscape-led gardens?