Getting back to nature was a dominant theme at this year's Chelsea Flower Show, with wild, naturalistic gardens packed with native plants, many of which we often treat as weeds. Find out how to recreate elements of the stunning show gardens at home and what to plant to get the same vibe in your garden.
The designer gardens at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show may feel a world away from the small patch of ground you call home. While gigantic concrete frames and chainsaw wood sculptures may be out of your budget, you can take plenty of inspiration from the planting schemes and layout of the show gardens and other displays.
From blooming balconies to fabulous floral gardens, here are some of the key trends I noticed at this year's Chelsea Flower Show that you can apply to your own garden. We've also put together a collection of plants inspired by RHS Chelsea 2026 to help you find the plants stars of the show.
Naturalistic planting with native species
Wild gardens featuring naturalistic planting schemes swept the board at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show Awards. The winning show garden, The Campaign to Protect Rural England Garden: 'On the Edge', was a perfect example of this, with a design inspired by the blurred boundary between towns and countryside, featuring native plants sourced from fly tipped areas.
The drama in this garden came largely from the impressive sculpture of Gaia, carved out of a mature sequoia tree. The planting was less showy than other gardens but featured many species the average gardener or nature lover would recognise, such as buttercups, hawthorn and cow parsley. Combined with native trees like hawthorn, silver birch and field maple (Acer campestre), the garden has a comforting sense of familiarity.
Other gardens that embraced a naturalistic look and native species included the Killock & Co A Seed in Time Garden, The Eden Project: Bring me Sunshine Garden and The Bat Conservation Trust’s Nocturnal Garden, a beautiful small space featuring native species designed to attract the insects bats feed on.
How to recreate the look in your garden
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Choose the right plants for your garden: Naturalist planting schemes are designed to be largely self-sufficient, so take into account your soil type and garden conditions when selecting plants.
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Embrace the weeds: Plants end up as weeds because they thrive in certain conditions and spread easily. Take a second look at the plants you're pulling out of your garden and consider if they may be better left in place or at least moved to a more preferable location. Alternatively, choose cultivars that have been bred from native species to be less invasive.
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Opt for a textural backdrop with pops of colour: Ferns and grasses, paired with taller native shrubs and trees, give a low-maintenance, year-round backdrop. Add bursts of colour with foxgloves, hardy geraniums and poppies.
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Use local and reclaimed landscaping materials: Keep an eye out for local stone, bricks and other landscaping materials on Facebook Marketplace. Reuse branches from tree prunings to create structures and supports for climbing plants.
Top plants for a native, naturalistic look
Create your own naturalistic garden with plants featured in the winning Chelsea Flower Show gardens:
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Viburnum opulus 'Roseum': With its large, white ball-shaped flowerheads, this native deciduous shrub is a real stunner at this time of year.
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Angelica archangelica: This architectural plant is commonly grown for its culinary properties, but its beautiful spherical flowerheads add structural interest in summer and through the winter months if you leave them on the plant.
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Dryopteris 'Cristata The King': An attractive, bushy fern that thrives in a range of conditions, but prefers shade. Combine with other native ferns, such as Athyrium filix-femina (lady fern) and Asplenium scolopendrium (hart's tongue fern) for a fuller display.
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Lychnis flos-cuculi (ragged robin): This pretty native wildflower blossoms in spring, producing clusters of small, pink star-shaped flowers.
Climate-resilient gardens
The Chelsea Flower Show has got a lot more sustainable over the years, with climate resilient planting being a strong theme. Many gardens focused on drought-tolerant plants that thrive in poor conditions, but the Killik & Co A Seed in Time garden offered a welcome alternative, with wetland plants, grasses and self-seeding plants set around a seating area and a large "flood zone" that doubled as a rainwater capture and recirculation system.
London gardeners can take inspiration from The Addleshaw Goddard: Flourish in the City garden, winner of the Small Garden of the Year Award. Inspired by London's oyster heritage, the garden featured tough plants that thrive in urban areas, such as achillea, Verbascum, Pinus mugo and 'London Pride' (Saxifraga × urbium).
Resilient plants were also heavily featured in three gardens focused on supporting young people: The Children's Society Garden, The Eden Project: Bring Me Sunshine Garden and the Young Minds Garden. Grasses and common ferns like hart's tongue (Asplenium scolopendrium) and maidenhair spleenwort (Asplenium trichomanes) provided a backdrop for colourful irises, red valerian, poppies, foxgloves and achillea.
How to recreate the look in your garden
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Consider how climate change will affect your garden: Show gardens often focus on drought-tolerant species, but many northern and westerly parts of the UK will experience increased rainfall in the future. Like the 'Bring me Sunshine' garden, choose plants that are adaptable to the weather conditions in your local area to ensure they thrive and don't drown in the first wet winter.
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Choose plants that can cope with wet and dry soils: Plants that thrive in both wet and dry conditions are few and far between, but they will become stalwarts of our gardens as we move to wetter winters and drier summers.
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Build eco-friendly, year-round shelters: The glass-roofed shelter in The Children's Society Garden gives an open view of the sky and protection from the elements. Train a deciduous climber up your shelter to give shade in summer, or incorporate solar panels to power a water feature or nighttime lighting.
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Build in rainwater capture systems: Whether you opt for a simple water butt or a more complex system, capturing rain to water your plants during dry spells will become increasingly important in the future.
Top plants for a resilient garden
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Verbascum 'Lavender Lass': An adaptable, drought-tolerant perennial with stunning purple-pink flowers in summer.
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Asplenium scolopendrium (hart's tongue fern): A native fern that thrives in damp woodland areas but can also handle dry shade.
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Briza media: A rugged grass that tolerates most conditions and requires little maintenance.
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Poppy 'Amazing Grey': Poppies thrive in dry conditions, and the smoky lilac-grey petals of this variety give the flower a wonderful ethereal look.
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Osmanthus x burkwoodii: An easy-to-care-for, evergreen shrub that produces clusters of scented white flowers in spring.
Japanese-inspired design
A Japanese Tea Garden scooped both the judges' and the people's choice awards in 2025, and designer Kazuyuki Ishihara returned this year with another traditional Japanese garden. The Tokonoma Garden, which featured colourful acers and irises against a soothing backdrop of moss, gravel and water, won a silver gilt medal this year.
Another garden that drew on Japanese design principles to create a tranquil woodland retreat was the Asthma + Lung UK Breathing Space garden. This minimalist garden had an open feel with arching Scots pine trees underplanted with low grasses and perennials, leading to more voluminous beds with a calming green and white colour palette.
The gold medal winning Tate Britain Garden also had an East Asian flavour, featuring a water rill inspired by the Japanese art of Kintsugi and drought-tolerant plants commonly found in East Asian woodlands.
How to recreate the look in your garden
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Layer acers for structure and colour: A mainstay of Japanese gardens, acers add dramatic colour from spring through to autumn, with many having beautiful sculptural forms or colourful bark that shines during the winter months.
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Create a sense of space: While Japanese-style gardens don't have to be strictly minimalist, even the smallest gardens use design tricks to feel open and spacious, while incorporating hidden elements that are only revealed as you walk through the garden.
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Incorporate water features: Water, whether flowing or still, is a core element of Japanese gardens, creating a tranquil atmosphere, as well as having a symbolic role in certain garden designs.
Read my Japanese Garden Design Ideas post for more tips on designing Japanese-style gardens, including Zen gardens, gravel gardens and tea gardens.
Top plants for a Japanese-style garden
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Acer palmatum 'Katsura': One of the best orange acers, the vibrant young leaves shone out in the Tokonoma Garden. The leaves mellow to green in summer before turning golden in the autumn.
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Acer palmatum 'Skeeter's Broom': Another acer featured in the Tokonoma garden, Acer 'Skeeter's Broom' has bright crimson leaves in spring that take on purple tones later in the year.
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Hakonechloa macra 'All Gold': Hackonechloa macra featured in several of this year's gardens. This cultivar brightens up woodland planting and offers a soft backdrop for other plants.
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Polystichum polyblepharum (Japanese lace fern): This pretty, low maintenance fern thrives when planted under trees and offers a marvellous textural contrast to hostas and other shade-loving plants.
Signature colour pairings: yellow/purple and apricot/blue
Many of the gardens that embraced bright colours at this year's Chelsea Flower Show leaned into complementary palettes of yellows, purples, oranges and blues. Nowhere was this more effective than in The Eden Project: Bring Me Sunshine Garden, where lots of visitors were asking about the vibrant combination of Anchusa azurea (Italian bugloss)and Baptisia 'Lemon Meringue'. Along with Achillea 'Moonshine' and Allium schoenoprasum (chives), it made for a sunny display on a grey day.
Not to be outdone, The Tate Britain Garden's pairing of zingy yellow Euphorbia with purple Thalictrum was perhaps the standout yellow/purple pairing of the show. The Parkinson's UK garden was one of the most colourful of the show gardens, its signature paeonies and roses interspersed with soft apricot foxgloves and blue nepeta.
In the Lady Garden Foundation ‘Silent No More’ Garden, golden irises contrasted with purple valerian, and The RHS and King's Foundation Curious Garden showcased various yellow and blue flowers, including the popular ball-shaped "Billy Buttons". The classic combination of geums, salvia and alliums was popular in the smaller balcony and container gardens, along with colour nasturtiums.
Top colourful plant combinations
The key to maximum contrast is to combine flowers with contrasting textures or shapes as well as complementary colours. Here are some of my favourite combinations, inspired by the Chelsea Flower Show 2026 gardens:
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Euphorbia amygdaloides var. Robbiae and Thalictrum 'Black Stockings': Combine neon Euphorbia with Thalictrum's feathery purple flowers to recreate The Tate Britain Garden planting at home.
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Geum 'Mai Tai' and Salvia nemerosa 'Caradonna': The soft apricot, ruffled petals and tall spikes of deep purple flowers form a classic pairing, featured in The Sightsavers Garden.
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Digitalis 'Dalmatian Peach' and Nepeta 'Six Hills Giant': Nepeta is one of the most popular plants at Chelsea and the tall blue spikes of this variety beautifully complement the peach tones of this popular foxglove.
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Achillea 'Sunny Seduction' and Allium schoenoprasum: Give your garden a dash of sunshine by pairing yellow yarrow with common chives, as showcased in the The Eden Project: Bring Me Sunshine Garden.
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Iris 'Snow Queen' and Aquilegia 'Blue Barlow': Aquilegias and irises both featured heavily at this year's Chelsea Flower Show, and this buttercup yellow and violet-blue combination picks up one of the most popular colour pairings.
Other Chelsea Flower Show 2026 Highlights
There was plenty to see beyond the main show gardens. The Houseplant Studios, Balcony Gardens and Container Gardens were a nice mix of inspiration and practical ideas to make the most of a small space. Although built on the ground, the balcony gardens did have to meet standard structural weight limits, which is something to consider before you decide to replicate the designs using heavy ceramic pots.
Some of my favourite parts of the 2026 Chelsea Flower Show included:
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The blending of edible ornamentals and flowers in The RHS and The King’s Foundation Curious Garden. Think kale and purple bok choy snuck in amongst bright flowers and feathery foliage.
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Gardens celebrating traditional uses of plants and the value of passing knowledge down from generation to generation. This was the focus of The RHS and The King’s Foundation Curious Garden, but also popped up in other places, such as A Little Garden of Shared Knowledge, a welcoming, sociable balcony garden.
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Houseplants swamping a secluded cabin in The Conservatory Houseplant Studio. This secluded retreat was the definition of garden room goals.
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The beautiful containers on display at The Whittard of Chelsea Garden, used for planting and water features. I definitely had pot envy.
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The Sightsavers Garden had a lovely selection of easy-to-grow plants, and the beds made from stacked bricks were a neat way of creating planting areas at different heights in a small space.
Important note!
Gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show are designed for a week in the spotlight. Some plants are forced to flower earlier than they would naturally, while others are held back to flower late. When choosing plant combinations, pair flowers with a short blooming window with plants that flower over a long period to ensure you can enjoy the pairing at its best. Bear in mind that plants will flower later if you live in cooler parts of the country, so what's in bloom at Chelsea in May may flower in your garden in June.
Recommended planting distances also go out the window when it comes to show gardens. Plants are crammed together to give a full, lush display. In reality, if you planted your garden in this way, some plants would out-compete others, and the weaker ones would struggle or die. Always check the recommended planting distances when adding new plants to your garden. Fast-growing annuals and bedding plants are a great way to fill gaps in beds while you're waiting for shrubs and perennials to establish.
Don't forget to browse our Chelsea Inspired 2026 collection to discover new plants for your garden.
