Show gardens: M&G Garden

The garden is imagined as a peaceful oasis, pocket park-like in its design - a public space for people and wildlife to share and enjoy all the benefits of being in nature. Unusually for Chelsea, it is a shared public garden, imagined in an urban setting - challenging our usual notions of what a garden can be.

The space provides respite from a hectic, urban world, and brings new life and purpose to a long-neglected corner of a city. The aim is to inspire designers, developers and communities to see how even the most unlikely places can be transformed into welcoming and sustainable green spaces in towns and cities everywhere.

While the two designers have both won individual gold medals for Main Avenue gardens at Chelsea, this is their first Chelsea show garden together. Described as ‘pioneering design talents of their generation’ by the RHS, Charlotte and Hugo originally designed The M&G Garden prior to the coronavirus pandemic to explore how more shared gardens and green spaces could be injected into our growing towns and cities. Now, following the pandemic, the garden’s potential impact as vital lifeline is even more relevant, fulfilling a profound and innate need to connect with nature as well as providing the many climate, human and biodiversity benefits.

The M&G Garden features plants and trees chosen for their tolerance to urban climate extremes of wet winters and hot summers. These are interspersed with unusual and delicate planting to inject moments of ephemeral beauty. Structural planting includes the wild and naturalistic shapes and silvery leaves of Hippophae or sea buckthorn; bursts of colour from Nyssa sylvatica, or black gum tree; and the fragrant tubular flowers and red edible berries of Elaeagnus umbellata, or autumn olive. As well as reclaimed materials, tactile natural features provide added connection to the natural world. Water in the form of a naturalistic pool, surrounded by marginal planting, aids run-off and flood prevention and helps encourage and support wildlife.

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