The Royal Horticultural Society announced the second show garden for the 2027 Chelsea Flower Show, marking the return of designers Joe and Laura after three consecutive gold medals and a Best Small Garden award.
Design team expands its footprint
For the upcoming exhibition, the pair will present their first large-scale garden, named the Addleshaw Goddard Flourish As One Garden, on Main Avenue. The new layout offers roughly twice the area they used in previous years.
Laura’s expertise in colour stems from a childhood among native wildflowers in coastal Wales and a career creating botanical prints. Joe draws on years as a design instructor to shape architecture and material use, with a focus on urban settings.
Record-Setting Dual Gold Medals
Last year, Joe and Laura became the first designers to win RHS Gold Medals at both Chelsea and Hampton Court within a single calendar year, a double-gold milestone for the society.
Their garden will employ micro-climates that reproduce the native conditions of each species, helping the plants endure extreme weather events. Rather than grouping plants by geographic origin, the design mixes them throughout the space to highlight how diverse planting can connect people. The Outdoor Room, established in 1995, builds with the expressed purpose of delivering outstanding gardens.
Concept and visitor experience
The garden draws inspiration from gardeners worldwide, celebrating historic botanical exchange and the flow of research that supports resilient environments in a changing climate.
Visitors will encounter a layered setting of rare plants, a cantilevered pavilion with a green roof, and an eight-metre-tall tree that predates the structure, showing the importance of living elements.
Across the site, a series of micro-climates will mimic native conditions for the diverse plant collection. The Outdoor Room, a firm founded in 1995, is responsible for construction.
The planting stock comes from Katie’s Garden Plant Centre, Creepers, Crug Farm and Kevock Garden Plants, ensuring a broad genetic base.
By substituting struggling native UK species with drought-tolerant non-native selections, the design acknowledges rising global temperatures and the need for shared horticultural knowledge.
Structural grasses, flowering perennials, umbels and varied leaf forms will create botanical diversity. Colour highlights include lemon yellow, smoky lilac, plum and acid green.
Signature foliage such as the fern Araiostegia pulchra, subshrub Asparagus meioclados, tufted hair grass Deschampsia cespitosa and several Eschscholzia varieties will feature prominently.
