Our favourite gardens at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2025
Our top picks from this year's Chelsea Flower Show, and some serious inspo for our own gardens
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show returned last week, and with it a world of inspiration for our own outdoor spaces.
From compact balconies and container gardens to incredible indoor jungles, there is something for everyone to admire.
But which of this year’s Chelsea Flower Show gardens had the biggest impact on us, and why?
Here we’re sharing some of our favourites, alongside the winners, along with what informed their designs and how you can replicate the ideas in your own outdoor space.
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Our favourite gardens from the Chelsea Flower Show 2025
These are the stand-out gardens for us this year, but it was so hard narrowing it down as they are all absolutely beautiful.
1. Cha No Niwa – Japanese Tea Garden
Designed by Kazuyuki Ishihara
Commended as the RHS Chelsea Garden of the Year, this stunning garden was designed by Kazuyuki Ishihara.
The theme is communication and harmony, with a gorgeous use of stones and the shape and arrangement of these interacting with the plant life.
The Japanese inspired garden is a huge gardening trend for 2025, and you can see the use of Acer palmatum trees and Enkianthus perculatus trees which are typically seen in the landscapes of the Japanese countryside.
The garden incorporates varying elevations which create a sense of depth, and it is influenced by the traditional flower arranging art of ikebana – which means making flowers alive.
Photo: RHS Chelsea Flower Show
2. Babylon Beats
Designed by James Whiting of Plants By There and The Little Botanical
This colourful, 1980s inspired garden immediately catches your eye. It reimagines the Hanging Gardens of Babylon through a 1980s lens.
The studio flat space explores multi-dimensional planting with houseplants on every level. It uses light, sound, scent and texture to create an immersive experience for anyone exploring.
It’s almost like being transported away, with a large open-sided deck featuring a vibrant table lavished with ornamentals, and even a water feature to further cement that dedication to the elements.
It’s no surprise that Babylon Beats has been awarded Best Houseplant Studio at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2025.
Photo: RHS Chelsea Flower Show
3.Making Life Better with Bees
Designed by Humble-Bee Gardeners
This African inspired garden explores the links between bees, people and biodiversity.
It’s this urban retreat transforms a small space into a pollinator haven.
Some of our favourite features include a hexagonal bench for privacy, a feature wall for vertical planting and solitary bee habitats and planters repurposed from beehives and honey barrels.
Pollinator-friendly plants such as Agapanthus, Kniphofia and Gleditsia ‘Rubylace’ provide colour, pollen and nectar through the seasons.
This corner balcony garden shows that even the smallest of garden spaces can help to support bees and biodiversity.
Photo: RHS Chelsea Flower Show
4. The Avanade Intelligent Garden
Designed by Tom Massey and Je Ahn
This year’s winner of Best Construction of a Show garden, this is something extra special.
It’s an urban forest designed to support urban trees, which help to filter air pollution, cool the air, support wildlife and boost community wellbeing.
However, they face huge challenges, from climate stress to lack of value, with reports suggesting that 50% don’t survive beyond 10 years and up to 30% of urban trees actually die in their first year.
Most trees reach their ecological peak at 50 years old, but a study found it can take up to 16 years for a newly planted urban tree to become carbon neutral.
The garden has sensors which track tree health, monitoring growth, sap flow, soil conditions, air quality and weather patterns.
AI will then analyse this data – finding trends and making it possible to predict future conditions.
At the Chelsea Flower Show 2025, show visitors can have actual conversations with the trees through a web based app, learning the care they need and how they are faring.
Trees will also be able to let their caretakers know if they have been over or under watered.
It’s a total gardening innovation and something that we will likely see only grow year on year at this event.
Photo: RHS Chelsea Flower Show
5. Seawilding
Designed by Ryan McMahon
Inspired by the landscape found at Loch Craignish on the west coast of Scotland, home to Seawilding, this has a real coastal vibe.
The sandstone rock comes out of a saltwater pool and pebble beach, and this creates planting zones including a bog and elevated draining soils.
A stepping stone path leads to an informal rocky seating area within the garden, which is planted with seagrass.
A viewing window emerging from the outcrops at the front of the garden, gives us a gorgeous view of the underwater world at Loch Craignish.
Seagrass is featuring for the first time at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, highlight the importance of marine conservation.
This garden is also the winner of the All About Plants garden award, and it’s easy to see why with it’s commitment to showcasing this underwater plant life.
Photo: RHS Chelsea Flower Show
6. Garden of the Future
Designed by Matthew Butler and Josh Parker
Set in the near future, this garden showcases a situation where climate threats are increasing.
Many of the people affected by this rely on the land to grow food and crops.
The garden showcases how, through innovation, we can support the planet and adapt and thrive.
Planting spills over the roof of the rammed-earth building, surrounded by beds of crops that are climate-resilient in a pink, purple and white palette.
The plants used include Sorghum bicolor, Cajanus cajan, Ipomoea batatas, Cistus x purpureus and Cratagaegus monogyna.
A dip tank makes up part of a system of rainwater harvesting, and this is crucial to the design.
Photo: RHS Chelsea Flower Show
7. The Glasshouse Garden
Designed by Jo Thompson
The Glasshouse Garden celebrates the effect of second chances through horticulture.
It showcases a sense of purpose, belief in yourself, and hope that The Glasshouse programme offers to woman as they approach the end of a prison sentence.
It’s a programme of horticultural training, employment, and resettlement support.
It’s an immersive space that is full of sensory delights. Jewel colours, fragrant flowers and the sound of water trickling through a narrow rill, ending in a pool fill the air.
The plant life here is full of texture and includes river birch trees, ferns, grasses and roses, including one inspired by Emma Bridgewater.
Photo: RHS Chelsea Flower Show
8. The Pathway Garden
Designed by Allon Hoskin and Robert Beaudin
Winner of the RHS Environmental Innovation Award, the Pathway garden was inspired by the work the Pathway charity does to support people out of homelessness.
It has interconnecting spaces, yet feels open, with no dead ends.
Boulders are part of the first section, showing that the journey out of homelessness can feature obstacles along the way.
The bench and pergola are a resting place, with a water feature offering a moment of reflection.
The planting in this garden shows abandoned, or regenerating, moist garden.
It is designed to use only upcycled materials.
The bench is made from a large boule of a fallen tree, while the wall is made from recycled waste material from previous RHS shows.
Photo: RHS Chelsea Flower Show
Full list of winners at Chelsea Flower Show 2025
You’ve seen our favourites, but which of this years stunning gardens won the accolades this year?
People’s Choice Winners
- Best Show Garden – Cha No Niwa – Japanese Tea Garden
- Best Small Show Garden – Down’s Syndrome Scotland Garden
- Best Balcony/Container Garden – Making Life Better with Bees
- Best All About Plants Garden – The Wildlife Trusts’ British Rainforest Garden
Best in Show
- RHS Chelsea Garden of the Year – Cha No Niwa – Japanese Tea Garden
- RHS Chelsea Small Garden of the Year – The Addleshaw Goddard: Freedom to Flourish Garden
- Best Balcony and Container Garden – Navium Marine: Blue Mind Garden
- Best All About Plants Garden – Seawilding
- Best Construction (Show Garden) – The Avanade Intelligent Garden
- Best Construction (Small Show Garden) – The Addleshaw Goddard: Freedom to Flourish Garden
- RHS Chelsea Best Dog Garden – RHS and BBC Radio 2 Dog Garden
- RHS Environmental Innovation Award – The Pathway Garden
- Best Houseplant Studio – Babylon Beats
READ MORE:
- 5 things to know about living plant walls
- What are sustainable drainage systems (SuDS)?
- How to rewild your garden – ten easy ways to encourage nature
