Less is More: Chelsea Experts' Tips on Gardening in Small Spaces

The perfectly hewn rocks, babbling brooks and exquisite drifts of flawless flowers of the Chelsea Flower Show are an out-of-reach dream for anyone without a big budget sponsor.

- Lisa O'Carroll

But this year, tucked away on a short, shaded stretch away from the elite show gardens, were 10 Chelsea newcomers demonstrating what can be achieved in even the smallest of spaces on balconies and containers.

Silver medal winner Hamzah-Adam Desai doesn't even have a garden himself but in his own time works his green-fingered magic in a communal square by his home in east London. His "peace of mind" garden at Chelsea impressed the judges with its restful, pared back "restorative" greens to one side through to the purples and pops of yellow and red on the other, in what he describes as a 3D colour wheel.

He retrained as a gardener 16 years ago after a bout of seasonal affective disorder, but says the real education is just doing it.

"It's really a constant kind of experimentation," he says, urging amateurs to just continue to learn from their mistakes, just as the professionals do.

His tip for balconies is "avoid bedding plants". These are less sustainable, only last a year and can be a garden passion killer.

Go for "more shrubby, coastal plants" including heuchera, which "can have very interesting colours" and grasses that "are brilliant for movement" such as Stipa tenuissima or "wind whispers" with spikes of soft plumes that dance in the gentlest of breezes.

"Some balconies have glass so when the sun shines the poor plants are being roasted. It is a microclimate, get to know it and what plants work in that environment."