Tips and trends from RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2025 – of course, most gardeners don’t care about trends, but we do like new ideas or new ways with old ideas, so let me know which one is your favourite in the comments!
00:00 Welcome
00:14 Trees were the stars of the show
00:33 Sienna Hostas – garlic spray recipe on website https://www.siennahosta.co.uk/pages/garlic-wash-recipe
01:14 Embrace the shady side of your garden
01:52 Re-wilding is more managed and curated, with pioneer species, self-seeders and wildflowers
02:12 Add logs or wood in any form
02:53 Raise a decking path off the ground to be more eco-friendly
03:10 Relax about the lawn. Short, long or both…
03:45 Balls and blobs create good contrast. See blobbery video: https://youtu.be/j5fHdSsMnkE
04:24 Use vertical space and create an ‘urban forest’ with layered planting
05:02 Pine trees are having a moment!
05:32 Replace annual bedding with wildflowers, self-seeders or pioneer species
06:08 Love your moss! Shade-loving, textural and good for wildlife
06:35 Add ferns to shady spaces
For garden ideas, gardening advice, garden design and landscaping ideas for your garden or backyard, subscribe to the Middlesized Garden YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/ThemiddlesizedgardenCoUk
Whether you love English garden style, cottage gardens or contemporary urban gardening, The Middlesized Garden has gardening advice and garden ideas for you.
Weekly videos cover gardening advice and garden design – from small space gardens to middle-sized garden landscaping – plus garden tours and tips for container gardening.
The Middlesized Garden practices sustainability, wildlife gardening and no till methods. If your garden backyard is smaller than an acre, join us and enjoy your garden even more!
The Middlesized Garden Complete Guide to Garden Privacy is available in Kindle or paperback in 13 countries (in English only). If you’d like your garden to feel more private, click here for availability in your country: https://www.themiddlesizedgarden.co.uk/books/the-complete-guide-to-garden-privacy/
#gardening #gardendesign #backyardgarden
For small and middlesized backyards and gardens….
See The Middlesized Garden blog: http://www.themiddlesizedgarden.co.uk/
For Amazon storefront see: https://www.amazon.com/shop/themiddle-sizedgarden
Note: links to Amazon are affiliate which means I get a small fee for qualifying purchases. It doesn’t affect the price you pay and I only recommend things I use myself or really think you’d like!
More garden ideas on Pinterest:https://www.pinterest.co.uk/midsizegarden/boards/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/midsizegarden
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/themiddlesizedgarden/
43 Comments
Great info!
thank you Alexandra
So good I watched it twice! 🤗
Thank for all the information. This is very helpful!
What a great summary!!!! Thank you for your insights from the state of Mississippi in the USA! We are fans of your channel!
Wonderful re-cap on the RHS Chelsea gardens, and what’s in style this year.
Thank you for this lovely peek at the Chelsea gardens
Wonderful video, perfect oratory. Just such timing for us for everything from woodland background to cut off heavy unmovable trunks to pine varieties to ‘rough’ lawns to wild flowers in unexpected places to …….. just perfect, and a real encouragement for us to keep going and make beautiful our space. Made garlic spray last week, still in the fridge though, as I saw ladybirds on the affected artichoke leaves, wait till late in the evening to spray. 7:17
Thank you.
Love this so much!❤
Great coverage of gardens and analysis of trends, thank you, Alexandra! There are various moss options. Heath pearlwort or Irish moss (Sagina subulata) can be bought as plants or seeds. Sagina subulata ‘Aurea’ is a golden variety. They prefer acid/neutral soils, moist but well drained. Small leaved thyme (Thymus serpyllum ‘Minor) could give similar effect on well drained alkaline/neutral soils.
What a lovely, lovely show. Your summary is brilliant. Thanks. I just enjoyed Hello Garden's tour of some of the street installations in the city. Visiting London during the show would be a real treat.
Brilliant recap of the show. Thank you. ❤
Outstanding video, Alexandra. Thank you! DA
A friend of mine who owns Ichi-Coo Park encouraged me to shape my Japanese Maple 'Katsura' into a multi-stemmed tree and it looks amazing in my small 30ft x 30ft garden. I have email contacted you regarding Ichi-Coo Park and hope to hear back from you.
Ferns alongside a path reminds me of a park entrance from my childhood and so I have various ferns bordering my patio. They are so beautiful and reliable.
WOW to you! Thank you for this recap of the Chelsea Garden Show. The designers are amazing and I love how they put together all these plants together ! Hard work!!💐👩🌾💕
Chelsea is on my bucket list, but a long way from Florida. I love watching this channel and GW every week even though a lot of the plants aren’t Florida resilient. An expat in Ft Lauderdale.
Love Monty Dons Dog garden, weeds and all! So realistic and an inspiration to us who have yards, dogs and kids!
Chelsea is for middle class and up toffs.
Yes here in the USA we are in Pennsylvania and we’ve had a lot of Ash trees killed by the ash borer bug thank you for the ideas I got for the stumps and other ideas! Love your videos
Great job once again showcasing what we can adapt to our home gardens. I now know the importance of a green backdrop to our woodland flower beds. So more ferns in the back and more color in the front. We in the Pacific Northwest love our ferns. So more ferns! Hooray.
I realy love your chanel.❤
Hallo from South Africa😊 If you want moss in your garden you paint buttermilk on the surface where you want the moss. I have moss on stone pillars in the shade, using this method. It needs lots of moisture, so if it is dry, use a spray bottle and mist the area every day.
Wonderful video. I love all of these ideas. I have a woodland garden and a cottage garden near an old cottage. I went with some beautiful tall grasses to add to mine this year. The blooms on them are beautiful. Thank you for sharing with us.
Terrific summary of the highlights, Alexandra! Always appreciate how organized you are, and how much information you provide. I'm across the world in California, but it was fun to catch a clip online of His Majesty chatting with Monty Don in the Dog garden. Knowing how much the King has always cared about gardening, this was a great moment. Gardens definitely bring us all together.
Ive watched it every evening so far and really like it! Ive got a new tree well i got it last year. Its a weeping silver birch and was really just a twig with a few roots. Its done really well and is now my height. Unfortunately yesterday evening a pigeon landed in it and broke the leader – not completely. So ive put it together with a plaster and tied it to the next leading branch and given it a large drink of water. It was looking remarkably well today. I fixed the plum tree that way a few years ago and it looks like we may get a bumper crop of plums this year. Trees are amazing they can even mend themselves. Still we are not out of the woods yet!😂 Our garden is very shady and im hoping to get it looking similar to some of the very small gardens i just love the way they look and so does the wildlife. We presently have two hedgehogs , several frogs in the small pond, butterflies have visited early this year as have bees. There a lots of birds everyday including the pigeons!
Lovely, thank you.
This was so interesting and informative. Thank you for showing the latest ideas at The Chelsea Flower Show as myself and many others could not make it.
Great inspiration for gardeners 🌱🌸👍
Thank you for bringing us fantastic content and education! Very inspiring.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, I have conditions for moss and woodland gardening. I loved every photo you showed. I also agree that lawn, in that context, doesn’t need to be perfect.
You’re really good at giving an accurate synopsis of the salient elements of the show! You’re way better than some of their regular presenters. We should mount a campaign for you to get a presenting slot at Chelsea next year! 😃
I love logs and scruffy old stumps in the garden – it’s a delightful rustic whimsical look.
I do have to say, I was thrilled that Mr Ishihara finally received recognition for his amazing Japanese gardens! Year after year, his gardens are a bit overlooked by the judges but they’re invariably completely fabulous and deserving every medal and trophy in the cabinet!!! 💯✨
North side of a large stone urn on plinth.Mix Comfrey tea with Greek natural Yogurt .Allow to rest a day and make like a thick paint .Apply to nicks cracks and joints and surfaces not so flat. Stand back and fill in any spots that are bare and can take moist mix. Forget and in time real think green moss appears as if by magic.I have used stable manure and yogurt but its a bit messy. Comfrey tea i make from garden an store in plastic tanks .Its great for feeding all plants but with Tomato really sets to work . I grow 30 Comfrey plants near the greenhouse and use leaves chopped up by lawnmower and steep into water tank until its crowded . Leave for a month and its black tea to dilute into 10 gallon containers at rate of half cup of tea . You can make it thinker stronger or weaker depending of your need for each watering job ,Hope this helps
It's always a thrill to see glimpses of the Chelsea gardens. I especially loved seeing the shade and woodland gardens since that is the style of my garden. Thanks for another wonderful video, happy gardening!
An excellent video as usual. Your insight into what Chelsea is promoting were valuable. However as usual you went far to fast with the filming and the commentary. Today was an absolute gallop . Eventually I turned the speed right down and then was able to thoroughly enjoy it . Blobs made from different plants was particularly interesting. I wish i could try it . I can no longer garden because of arthritis. Thankyou
I was a bit disappointed in Chelsea this year, until I watched your video. It seemed too heavy with “concrete” like structures weighing down the woodland features, especially much of the seating and communal areas. Thanks for this more refreshing POV especially the winding little pathways and other interpretations of what was the overriding theme this year. Perhaps I was watching the wrong programmes.😉
Lovely video as ever. But what do you mean by using AI and an app so the trees can tell us what they want?
As an amateur gardener, I felt quite smug up until 5 minutes in, now need some pines 😂
Not sure somebody mentioned it already, but you can start your own moss by "spreading" yogurt on surfaces such as stone or brick, provided they're in a shady, possibly humid area. I tried it in my garden and it worked, or at least after I did that moss appeared. It might have grown anyway eventually, the conditions were suitable
I can comment about moss, as I established a moss lawn on one side of my house that's about 10 feet by 25 feet. It's easier to pick an area where there's already some moss growing, as that lets you know that the conditions are right for moss, typically shady and wet enough. Then, as they say in the moss garden world, it's the three Ws — weed, water, and walk. Weeding is just what it sounds like, and in the beginning it will take a lot of time. But then it becomes less as you get rid of the perennial weeds, like the grass that you might have been trying to grow there. Watering moss is different from how we water most other plants, the opposite really. As moss has no roots, it takes in water from the top only, so it likes to be watered often, at least once a day, but only until it's soaked through. If you can't water it every day, it's OK; the moss goes dormant if it gets too dry, but can be awakened again just with water. It won't spread as much, though, if it's not getting watered regularly. And, finally, while you can't be too rough on moss without dislodging it, it really likes to be walked on, especially if there are loose areas, or transplanted areas (you can transplant moss pretty easily) that haven't attached yet. For me, it took about a year and a half for those 250 square feet to go from a weedy mess, to an uninterrupted emerald green moss lawn.
I was interested to know your insights about Chelsea. I was fortunate enough to visit it this year – what I noticed is the more informal style that was featured. The flowers very prevalent were the blue colored salvias, the delphiniums and larkspur and those deep purple black poppies – all quintessentially English flowers. The tree stumps are something I have already welcomed into my garden so it was not new. I enjoyed seeing how each designer interpreted their theme. It was very I inspirational indeed.
Thank you for the recap of the Chelsea flower show! AI as a tool is fascinating to me. My sister got a bid from landscape architect that was well over $15,000 to do a planting plan and plant list for her somewhat modest backyard. She decided to use AI… She took some photographs and gave an overall idea of the kind of plants and environment. AI responded with an amazing Drafted plan and plant list! I’ve never been good at following a plan in my gardens. I’m one of those gardeners who do a lot of planting, then pulling up and moving things to suit me.😊
What's stayed with me during the nine days since I watched this video, is the "imperfect" lawn in that garden. That's just about what my lawn looks like, and though I was OK with that, now I'm more OK with it. So liberating! Garden designers have been moving away from lawns for years now, but this was different: It wasn't a clover lawn, or a meadow-like lawn with wild flowers. It was just a rather ordinary looking lawn that had not been pumped up with fertilizers and pesticides, a bit brown and shabby compared to the uniform green lawns that only lot of toxins can maintain. Yay!