Our favourite Chelsea Flower Show trends to try in your garden

The Exceptional team was there, too, picking out our favourite Chelsea Flower Show trends for you to enjoy. How many will you try to incorporate into your garden this summer?

If dahlias were the big flower trend of 2022, first indications from Chelsea are that irises are going to be hot in 2023. They were everywhere, in pleasing variety, from big and blowsy bearded irises (including the ‘Nora Eileen’ above) to delicate water irises such as Iris pseudacorus ‘Yellow Flag’.

It’s why irises were included in our roundup of the best Chelsea Flower Show flowers we think you should plant at home.

You could say all gardens speak to us in some way, but at this year’s Chelsea, several gardens were very deliberately thought-provoking, using planting and landscaping to take us on an emotional journey through the space.

The Centrepoint Garden, raising awareness of youth homelessness, served as a metaphor for the challenges faced by young people when they are uprooted from their family homes, but also as a symbol of their personal growth as they are supported and nurtured.

A large silver birch lays uprooted at the centre of the garden, while nearby a fireplace serves as the only recognisable part remaining of the original home. Rubble piles of bricks form part of the broken home, but also provide a positive message as a habitat for small mammals and insects. All around, wildflowers (referred to as ‘weeds’) sprout up defiantly, as nature takes over and heals any scars.

Another example of a garden journey included the Samaritans Garden, where spiny plants, a cracked pathway and dark structures open out into a welcoming sanctuary, with a pool and a bench protected by the canopy of an elm tree (Ulmus minor ‘Jacqueline Hillier’), where two people can sit and talk.

And at the Flora & Fauna Garden (shown), the sound of a waterfall drew you up away from an African tourist kiosk, through a medicinal garden and up to a bamboo forest, showcasing different elements of an African landscape.

Bug hotels aren’t new, of course, but we spotted them being integrated into garden designs, rather than being added as a separate accessory.

The Royal Entomological Garden had a fully functioning outdoor laboratory with a roof designed on the structure of a compound insect eye – complete with hexagonal glazing. But bugs weren’t just inspiring this architecture, they were invited to live in it too.

Its panelled walls were inset with drilled wood full of holes for insects to burrow into and call home. A dead wood sculpture nearby had been created from a cut up bough of a fallen tree, suspended to provide another habitat.

If you looked closely at the glasshouses from Alitex, you could see specially designed bricks with readymade bug holes of different sizes a cosy series of tiny apartments welcoming new residents. A wooden bench top was also placed on top of two large wire cages, sturdily filled with more cut and drilled wood. Plenty of opportunities for passing insects to explore.

If you’re a fan of smart, polished gardens and squirm at the sight of a messy border, look away now. Naturalistic planting was everywhere, with many weeds taking their rightful place among their ornamental peers.

And it was so convincing that many gardens appeared to have been in their Chelsea setting for months or years, rather than days or weeks. Weeds, or ‘hero plants’, as the RHS would rather we refer to them, have an important part to play in any sustainable garden. In the Centrepoint Garden, we spotted dandelions, forget-me-nots and daisies left to flourish and feed pollinators.

There was a distinctly industrial feel to many of the gardens at Chelsea this year. Pergolas were constructed from rust-red girders; corrugated metal sculptures rose from the ground, splattered with paint, and giant metal troughs designed to collect water created calming and reflective water features.

The key materials in the Samaritans’ Listening Garden were concrete and steel, in a space “designed to promote environmental responsibility and sustainability through demolition materials and materials salvaged from reclamation yards,” say the Samaritans.

The Saatchi Gallery garden showcased the work of British sculptor Catriona Robertson. Here giant worm-like sculptures – ‘Gigantic Pile’ – were created from recycled newspaper and reclaimed metal scraps collected from across London, with resilient wildflowers growing all around. It “explores the relationship between nature, man-made materials and the resilience of the wilderness”.

It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that nearly every single garden this year was based around a purple planting scheme. Purple is regal by nature but purple and blue also happen to be the flower colours of choice for King Charles III.

Whether by accident or design, Chelsea was awash with tributes to our new king in the form of his favourite floral hues. This was more evident than ever in the Royal Garden of Reflection & Celebration, designed by Dave Green. It featured a selection of the Mountbatten-Windsors’ favourite plants – roses, foxgloves and camissias.

Some of the purple plants we spotted time and again in other garden displays included agapanthus, lupins (one of the best plants for a raised bed), foxgloves, borage, cornflowers, alliums, salvia and – of course – irises.