This year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show sees four gardens within the All About Plants category, which has a particular focus on unusual and specialist plants. All the plants in this category are supported by Project Giving Back and several champion the landscapes of the British Isles and the rush to restore them.
Previously, the All About Plants gardens were in the Great Pavilion, but this year they will move outside, with the gardens split across the Rock Bank and the corner of Main Avenue. This, it is generally felt, will be a good thing, levelling up the four first-time designers of these gardens alongside the other show garden categories and giving their displays the light, air and attention they deserve.
Discover more about this year's All About Plants Gardens at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2025 below.
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Full list of All About Plants gardens at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2025
The Seawilding Garden, designed by Ryan McMahon
Showcasing rare native plants and the work to restore them
Designer Ryan McMahon
Sponsor Project Giving Back for Seawilding
Contractor Frogheath Landscapes
Plants Kelways Plants, Moss Clerks, New Wood Trees
Relocating to A community garden at Ardfern, on the west coast of Scotland
“I wanted to bring [rare] plants into the garden and tell the story of how we can help restore them,” says designer Ryan McMahon of his garden, which highlights the work by charity Seawilding to restore seagrass to the oceans. This is the first time seagrass (Zostera marina), the UK’s only ocean-flowering plant, has been featured in a Chelsea garden. It will be planted in an underwater meadow in a salt water tank, which is not without its risks: “If fresh water leaks at Chelsea, that’s ok. But salt water is another matter,” says Ryan. The design is inspired by the rocky coastal landscape at Loch Craignish on the west coast of Scotland. Using successional planting, it evokes a transition from the shoreline to woodland, with the tank at the front. A large seagrass sculpture made from recycled metal sits at the opening of the woodland, offering a visual connection between the underwater meadow and the rest of the garden. Ryan is working with the Ocean Conservation Trust on growing and caring for the seagrass and Rare British Plants for loans, including of alpine rock cress (Arabis alpina).
Head to our Chelsea Flower Show page for all our coverage
The Songbird Survival Garden, designed by Nicola Oakey
A garden highlighting simple ways to help songbirds
Designers Nicola Oakey
Sponsor Project Giving Back for SongBird Survival
Contractor Crowton Rowarth
Plants Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants
Relocating to The Neighbourhood Network, Hull
Having become fascinated with the birds in her garden during lockdown, designer Nicola Oakey was shocked to discover that their numbers in the UK have halved in just two generations. Her first Chelsea garden aims to inspire gardeners to make small changes to introduce the three elements – shelter, food and water – that birds need. Key to her design will be two multi-stem Crataegus persimilis ‘Prunifolia’, which offer multiple seasons of interest, with a middle canopy of shrubby plants such as Viburnum opulus, and a naturalistic understorey that includes the thistle-like Centaurea montana ‘Purple Heart’, on which goldfinches love to feast. Blocks of yew hedging add height and show that a designed space can still be bird friendly. At its centre is a human-sized Birdhouse Den created from reclaimed materials, which is decorated with hand-crafted metalwork designs plasma-cut from repurposed oil drums by artist Jeni Cairns, depicting six songbirds – skylarks, starlings, house martins, yellowhammers, greenfinches and willow tits – that have all seen population decline.
The ADHD Foundation Garden, designed by Kate Terry
A garden to challenge preconceptions about neurodiversity
Designer Katy Terry
Sponsor Project Giving Back for The ADHD Foundation
Contractor PC Landscapes
Plants Form Plants, Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants
Relocating to The University of Liverpool
“Thinking differently about thinking differently was what I always had in mind when I designed the garden,” says Chelsea first-timer Katy Terry, who hopes her garden will encourage visitors to rethink their preconceptions of neurodiversity. Central to her design is a striking ‘swing’ tree (Carpinus betulus), with a gravity-defying curved stem, from which are suspended five steel-mesh umbrella sculptures by David Begbie. A symbol of neurodiverse inclusion (and emblem of The ADHD Foundation), the umbrella shape is echoed in the many umbellifers, including Anthriscus sylvestris ‘Ravenswing’, that number among the soft planting designed to help calm the ADHD mind. Made up of a diverse range of plants, mirroring human diversity, the planting engulfs a circular space where a bench overlooks a reflection pool, designed in collaboration with Torc Pots. At the rear of the garden, four Hydrangea petiolaris climb a willow fence created by weaver Mollie McMillen, while a fifth stands unsupported to represent the one in five with a neurodiverse condition.
The Wildlife Trusts British Rainforest Garden, designed by Zoe Claymore
An evocation within a garden setting of the temperate rainforests that once covered one-fifth of the British Isles
Designer Zoe Claymore
Sponsor Project Giving Back supported by Aviva for Wildlife Trusts
Contractor Frogheath
Plants Highland Moss, How Green Nursery, Kevock Garden Plants, Lincolnshire Pond Plants, New Wood Trees, Rymer Trees and Hedging, Stone Lane Gardens
Relocating to An undisclosed location in the West Country.
“Somebody standing in the garden will feel moisture in the air, they will hear water and smell moss,” says designer Zoe Claymore of her British Rainforest Garden, with its backdrop of a large fern wall and waterfall that has been inspired by the Dart Valley in Devon. A gently ramped boardwalk leads up to a seating area in the form of a big stone boulder, which is surrounded by planting largely made up of shades of green, including several easy-to-source mosses and ferns, with colour coming from the likes of Hyacinthoides non-scripta, Caltha palustris and Digitalis purpurea. Soft grasses also feature alongside lichen-covered trees such as hazel and a leaning silver birch, under which visitors need to duck. Julian Reed, holder of the National Collection of polypodies, has loaned a few intriguing ferns, and Zoe’s great uncle, the National Collection holder of birch and alder, has loaned some saplings from his garden, Stone Lane Gardens on Dartmoor.
