Chelsea garden will celebrate and protect the UK's remaining rainforests

Mosses and cow parsley will feature in a Chelsea flower show garden that celebrates endangered British rainforests.

- Helena Horton

Vast expanses of the UK were once temperate rainforest. But these moss-covered ancient trees and their lichen have become a rare sight because of deforestation and overgrazing. Dartmoor, once covered with trees, now contains just a few fragments of temperate rainforest.

The Chelsea garden, which will be on display in May, is being designed by Zoe Claymore, who won a gold medal last year for her "renter's retreat," showing how a small, shady courtyard can be turned into a wildlife haven.

Her next garden will showcase the rare rainforest habitat and be set on Britain's west coast, one of the few places with the right humidity, rainfall and mild temperatures to create perfect rainforest conditions.