The National Trust and Blue Diamond Garden Centres were delighted to be working with multi-award-winning garden design practice Ann-Marie Powell Gardens to create a prestigious Show Garden for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024. They celebrated pioneering social reformer Octavia Hill (1838-1912), a founder of the National Trust, who believed that ‘the healthy gift of air and the joy of plants and flowers’ were vital in everyone’s life.

Octavia worked tirelessly to improve urban housing and protect green space, yet today, one in three people in Britain still doesn’t have access to nearby nature-rich spaces. While celebrating Octavia’s legacy, the garden also aims to inspire people to create innovative gardens that connect people with the beauty and complexity of the natural world. Her belief in the importance of access to nature for human well-being and the need to stop the destruction of the natural landscape is even more relevant today.

The National Trust, Blue Diamond and Ann-Marie Powell Gardens share the belief that gardens can and should be for all and that they have the power to transform lives. This is reflected in the garden’s design as an urban community wildlife garden set on a brownfield site. The beautiful, plant-filled garden has been created with wellbeing, biodiversity, sustainability and accessibility firmly in mind.

The garden has a relaxed feel and natural planting style. It is laid out as a series of ‘outdoor sitting rooms’ – a core idea from Octavia Hill – where each individual garden compartment has its own atmosphere. Visitors are invited to feel they are part of nature, a fundamental need as important today as in Octavia Hill’s lifetime.

The garden features some 3,600 native and non-native plants working together for biodiversity and beauty. Bold, pollinator-attracting planting throughout the garden is set to appeal to wildlife and visitors alike. For example, Celtis sinensis, a climate-resilient tree very tolerant of air pollution, provides nectar for pollinators, butterflies and bees through its green flowers, while its orange autumn berries are a food source for birds and mammals. Clematis vitalba brings attractive creamy flowers to the garden, while also providing food and even nesting material for a range of pollinators and small mammals.

Importantly, this beautiful garden shows what can be achieved when working to the highest environmental standards. Reclaimed brick, timber, stone and thatch, sourced from National Trust places, have been used wherever possible to give old materials new purpose, and low-carbon or carbon-locking build techniques are used throughout. All plants are peat-free and are climate-change resilient including the trees.

After the show, the garden will be rebuilt at Blue Diamond-owned Bridgemere Show Gardens (an RHS Partner Garden) near Nantwich in Cheshire, where it can be visited year-round.