Chelsea 2024: A guide to the National Garden Scheme Garden

The garden celebrates the near 100 years of the National Garden Scheme (NGS) and its fund-raising, open-garden activities. For multi-award winning designer Tom Stuart-Smith, there’s a particular resonance here, having opened his own garden, Serge Hill, for the NGS for 30 years. “We love opening the garden,” says Tom. “It’s a great moment when all the neighbours come together and help, and we all love sharing the garden with visitors.”

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Tom’s Chelsea garden, his first on Main Avenue for ten years, shares a similar generosity of spirit, drawing together contributions from artisans and growers to bring to life this edge-of-woodland space. “We shared a draft of the initial plant list with the NGS’s county organisers, who contacted garden owners. We were keen to collect plants from a variety of gardens across the country,” explains Tom.

Twelve gardens have grown contributions, including rarities such as Convallaria majalis ‘Hardwick Hall’ and Blechnum penna-marina (Falkland Island form). Entering the garden, a path of dry-laid stone setts weaves through open hazel coppice underplanted with woodland species selected to cope with uncertain climatic conditions.

Other gardens at Chelsea

• The Octavia Hill Garden
• The Bridge to 2030 Garden
• Imagine the World to be Different Garden
• The National Autistic Society Garden
• Muscular Dystrophy Garden
• The WaterAid Garden

At the back you reach a terrace and garden shed, the ideal spot for a slice of NGS Open Garden cake (flourless chocolate cake is a Serge Hill favourite). When the garden is relocated to the planned Maggie’s Centre at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, this winding path through planting will allow patients to leave the hospital behind them before accessing the support and expertise offered by the cancer-care charity Maggie’s – itself supported by NGS donations.

5 key elements

1. The gardeners’ shed at the back of the garden. Designed by Tom’s architect son Ben Stuart-Smith (okrastudio.com) and built by craftsman Fenton Fielder (@redleif_design), it uses traditional techniques and materials such as cleft oak cladding and oak shingles.
2. Garden boundaries made of hawthorn, hornbeam, dogwood and Cornelian cherries offer forage and habitat for wildlife. The front of the garden will be edged with chestnut posts and hazel rods.
3. The shed guttering, made by potter Robert Silver is based on the traditional terracotta gutters seen in Sicily, but creating pieces more resistant to temperatures in the UK.
4. Rare garden plants, including Begonia palmata, Disporopsis aspersa and yellow-flowered Saruma henryi, many of which will be sold for the NGS after the show.
5. Garden tools inside the shed have been rescued and restored by horticultural therapy charity Sunnyside Rural Trust, as part of its tool-repair workshop for young people and adults with learning disabilities.

Designer Tom Stuart-Smith. Sponsor Project Giving Back for the National Garden Scheme. Theme A calming woodland glade that embodies the sharing ethos of the National Garden Scheme. Contractor Crocus. Plants Crocus with contributions from 12 NGS gardens. After the show Maggie’s Centre, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge. Crocus and the NGS will host a plant sale of a wide selection of the show garden’s perennials at Chilworth Manor, Surrey, on 1 June to raise further funds for the NGS. Contact tomstuartsmith.co.uk

Discover all the Show Gardens at Chelsea