RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026 Ep2 | Monty Don Explores Stunning Show Gardens

Hello and welcome to the Royal Horticultural Society's Chelsea Flower Show 2026, an event supported by Range Rover. It's fantastic to be back in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea on the banks of the River Thames, and this morning the final preparations were being made before the gates were opened to the greatest display of garden design and floral excellence There's a wide range of gardens here this year with designs inspired by Japan, the hills of Provence and even as far away as the Australian Outback which is where Rachel and I are right now. Now I have to confess Rachel that this for me is challenging in all kinds of ways but all of them good. Yes I know what you mean, I mean there are very few plants I can put a name to Yeah I could do that one but my very few I can count on the fingers of one hand. Unlike you I have been to Australia a number of times and I've seen a lot of these plants sort of in the Outback and around but I've never seen them used like this in a garden and I have to confess, I look at this, you and I popped in here yesterday didn't we and we're admiring it, coming back I'm admiring it even more. I think it's really interesting and beautifully done. I also think that it's good for us to broaden our range, I mean we have most of us a very sort of tight number of plants that we know and we can refer to and use all the time but this is making us think again and perhaps we're going to have to do that more and more. I think so and the amazing thing is apparently this has been relocated to I think it's Kensington Palace Gardens is it? In London. So all of these are reckoned to survive and thrive in London. We shall see. I have to say this is absolutely beautiful, I think this sets the theme for the whole garden. This is the nicest program which of course is based on a railway carriage because the idea of this garden is a railway journey that takes you across Australia. It's a lovely garden. It is lovely. It's really good. The acacias as well, I like those too. Well coming up tonight from dramatic landscapes to secluded spaces we'll be taking a first look at some of the finished show gardens including that of Chelsea's most decorated designer, the one and only Sarah Eberle. With around 80 world-class exhibits to enjoy, Carol Klein is celebrating the diversity of horticulture and expertise in the Great Pavilion. And I'll be talking to our very own Francis about their experience of working alongside His Majesty the King and Sir David Beckham on Francis's Curious Garden. But now as Chelsea 2026 got underway this morning there was a real buzz across the show crowd as the world's media and some famous faces got their first look at the show. We always like to come and just have a nosy, take inspiration, say we're going to do that in our garden and then never doing it. A tradition of ours until about four years ago so it's an enormous change. It's wonderful. Chelsea, well it's the Olympics of shrubbery isn't it? My own garden it's very close to the sea. We have salt storms so basically half the trees are brown one side and green the other side. We split our garden between my wife's garden where I sit and wonder what all the flowers are because I've no idea and then my bit which is in the woodland where I cut down trees and chip wood. I love nature and I love gardening and I love seeing what other people do. In the time that I've been coming it's become much more aware of ecology and much more aware of wildlife. I mean May and June apart from the weeding you can just sit back and love it as the alliums come up, the wisteria is just passing, the peonies are coming out and the roses. I mean this is a great time of year. I have a garden. I love gardening. I don't think the garden loves me as much. I do give it a go. Well I'm a big fan of irises and natural grasses so I like less gardening which means less weeding for me. I love my garden. I'm in it every day. That's all I do is garden. I've never been to Chelsea and I've decided to say yes to a vocational thing because I was born and brought up just literally about on the other side of the river. Chelsea is the embodiment of our love affair with nature and with gardening and we need nature for our mental joyous well-being. One of the first large show gardens I wanted to explore is this one the Tate Britain Garden designed by Tom Stewart Smith. Now Tom is a long-standing friend and designer here of show gardens and he has a style also with brilliance but this completely upends what you might expect to see from him. It's partly to do with the choice of plants which are sort of varied exotic beautifully laid out. There's the spread of plants here which is both exact in every point and yet full of richness and variety but also the rill. I love a rill but this snakes down with a kind of finesse and delicacy which then leads you to a sculpture. Now this is a Barbara Hepworth. This is the real thing. You don't get many of those to the pound in a show garden so the whole thing is very different. Tom, well done. I love it. Nice to see you. But I have to sort of say what's going on here? What are you up to? Well it's been a fascinating exercise because this is in many ways what you might call a retrofit in that the whole of this is designed for Tate, for Tate and was designed sort of a year ago and then we've taken elements from it and reconfigured them into a garden that fits for Chelsea. So it's a curious sort of show garden in a way because it's really about it being a civic space and clearly you can't make a civic space in a space that's 22 meters by 10. But also your choice of plants. The final garden will be in this incredible microclimate on the Thames, virtually frost free, quite dry, very very hot in summer and we should kind of in a way point the way to the sort of plants that we're going to be growing in Britain in the next 20, 30, 50 years. So yeah a lot of the plants are not going to be familiar to people. I mean people are going to be these cycads and think what is that about? I mean obviously not living in London, whenever I come to London I notice the planting is is changing. Yeah. You know I see things like the wonderful Melianthus which I can't get to flower in my garden. And just you know just up the road from here when I parked my car this morning that there's a there's an eight meter avocado growing out of somebody's basement. I mean this is just this is the world we're in now and you know we have to we have to wake up and and acknowledge that and actually seize the opportunity that it presents as gardeners. What I love about it is that you are not repeating tropes that have been enormously successful for you. You know you've won every gold medal, you've won best in show, you've done you've been there, you've done it, but you're doing something different. Well that's very nice of you to say that Martin. I mean sometimes I do feel I'm you know there are certain aspects of the same old. I mean I see the Sarumo which I used two years ago but that's partly because you know we we had designed the Tate garden and therefore we had to use the materials we we had in the Tate garden here. So there's a there's a kind of honesty to that which I which I like. Well it's wonderful. Thanks very much for letting me see it. Of course it's not just outside in the show gardens that Chelsea celebrates the very best of horticultural excellence. Inside the Great Pavilion there is a whole world of wonderful things to discover as Carol Klein has been finding out. I can hardly believe my eyes. These orchids are just exquisite. They're magical, victorious and they're so diverse. There's every kind of colour and shape and form. The great majority of the orchids on this stand are apophytic. Apophytic just means perching from the Greek and that's exactly what they do. Up high in the trees they perch along the branches and all that they receive is pure, pure rainwater. It may wash a few minerals down too and yet they survive. They don't just survive, they thrive beautifully and you can spend precious moments just gazing into their beautiful faces and admiring their glorious colours, patterns and shapes. I feel like writing an ode to an orchid. Look at this for a spectacular smorgasbord of succulents. It's just glorious. Look what we've got. We've got aeoniums from the Canary Islands. We've got echeverias from South America. We've even got spiky aloes from South Africa. In fact we've got the whole world in a bowl. Japan is home to some of the most exquisite and revered plants on earth like these wonderful bonsai azaleas. Some of those here are over a century old. Finally this exciting stand from a British nursery inspired by a Cornish hedge. I think it's just amazing that here in the British Isles because of our temperate climate we have the privilege of growing plants from all over the world. Here a cornice from China and over here look at this. This lovely Japanese Acer and this bright limey green. But even that vivid colour can't hide from sight the blazing inferno of this Embothrium coccineum, the Chilean firebush. Well how lucky we are to be able to grow plants from every corner of the world. The large show gardens are built in just three weeks which is remarkable given the staggering level of technical ambition of some of the designs. Well one of the most challenging builds has been that of the Lady Garden Foundation silent no more garden as Sophie discovered. It's quite tense as the crane is here it's really heavy this piece that they're fitting it's like doing a massive jigsaw puzzle. That looked quite nerve-wracking Darren what was going on? Well we're craning in three separate pieces that bolt together to join and create one structure in the garden. It's one chance and there isn't a plan b. Big relief now the process works we've just got to repeat it once more and we're out of the woods. It's an unbelievably intense process creating these gardens in such a short time. This one tell us about it. It's for a charity called the Lady Garden Foundation they promote awareness around the five gynecological cancers. I wanted to create a wonderful garden that encouraged conversation and understand that this is a really important topic that both men and women should care about. And the garden itself what are we going to see in a few weeks time? So you're going to walk into a space that becomes slightly secluded and the idea is it's a more intimate space where some of these conversations are quite private. I'm hoping that we can get this right so that from the front of the garden through to the back half we're going to fade from sort of pale pinks into more vibrant pinks and then deeper purples and then sort of softer tones right in the back part of the garden. And there's water here? Yeah so this central tank it fills up with water it drains out to the front but also from a tiny little spout inside you see water trickling all the way through the garden in both directions. How are you feeling at this stage in the project? Yes it's really hard but this has been my favourite place in the country. Well good luck with the rest of it and I look forward to seeing it progress. Thank you Sophie. What a difference a week makes look at this it's really coming along you've got all the landscaping at the moment isn't it a bit of planting when are you going to do that? This afternoon we will start dotting out big shrubs not sure where everything's going yet so I'll probably be really annoying with the team in like trying different bits. We're about transition where it starts to move from a building site to a garden. I think I'm going to get a glimpse of some other wonderful sculptures I think they just arrived didn't they? So I've been working with a fantastic artist Hannah Hartwell who's made four out of five beautiful sculptures that sit within the garden. It's like Christmas this isn't it unwrapping the presents. Whoa that's lovely. The cavities are like the safe space and if you think about female it's a safe place yeah and then you've got damage on the outside of some which kind of describes the invasion of cancer. We looked at the mutation of cancer cells as well and the sort of how although the cell regenerates it's started to get distortions and anomalies. I can't wait to see these in place excellent congratulations both of you well let's let's hope we go for gold eh? We've already got it. I've got the gold. You've already got gold. It looks absolutely fantastic talk me through what you're trying to achieve with the planting. The word that I kept coming back to was gentle something that made you relax and take a deep breath. As you get into the garden there's lovely little moments we space the plants out a bit more and there's far more shade at the back of the garden so that's kind of different style of planting all together. You've got a lot on here Jane haven't you? How long does it take just to do even an area like this? This will be today and I probably won't finish it. Really just this small space? Oh totally yeah. I love as the sun comes around now you get the real sense of how the light is going to change what you're planting. Absolutely and I also think get the shadows on the wall as well which is so pretty that movement that you get there and where it changes so quickly I really wanted to keep this height difference between the canopies and the lower levels so we can see that detail on the wall. The landscaping is very hard isn't it so you wanted to contrast that? It is but that's what's really exciting is that sort of contrast between hard and distinct rough edges and then this sort of fragility of the planting which is what I really get excited by. Are you feeling stressed at all though? Are you calm? Yeah there's huge stress because it's it's on my shoulders we haven't got enough we haven't got enough plant I mean we've got all those plants. Why haven't you got enough? You look at these plants which are all fantastic and you can never find the actual one you want or you want everything that everyone else has got and not what you've got. So what are you gonna do? I think I'm gonna jump in a van this afternoon go down to Surrey and hunt for more things so yeah there's little moments where we just need like these bits of magic. Well I'm gonna leave you to go go in search of your moments of magic and here is the finished garden and I must say as soon as you step into it you become aware of a change of atmosphere very special there's a path that's beautifully made takes you into the garden it's quite wide in this section and then it begins to narrow down as you walk through and there's a rill cutting along it very slender like a snake just moving through the garden at the back you've got these monumental evergreens and they really set the scene they're a perfect backdrop and again as you walk through the planting begins to change you get a little bit more colour things like the geranium the iris and the poppies they really begin to shine it's somewhere that then takes you to this enclosure in the middle this feels like arms wrapping around you and a space in which you could be private you could have a conversation it's it's very special indeed. Darren I very much get the sense that you've poured your heart and soul into this garden why was it important to take this on? I think well first of all I think everybody pours their heart and soul into Chelsea and it's what makes it such an amazing show for me it was a huge honour to be approached by Lady Garden Foundation and I've got two lovely daughters a wife and mother and sister and loads of god daughters and I knew that it was important that I serve them and help shed a light that men can be a part of this conversation as well both through listening and for advocating if necessary or just not being bashful about having conversation around the gynaecological cancers and then Lady Garden had said we want a beautiful garden and I think the gardens that I've done previously I think they're beautiful but they've probably been slightly harder than this and so we really wanted to create a gentle garden and I think we have. I think you have absolutely thank you and although it was a difficult build I mean you had a lot to do with getting these structures into place you've now surrounded them with the most beautiful sculptures which represent each of the five gynaecological cancers yeah and a sublime planting palette oh thank you well the the planting I kind of knew right from the start that I wanted to use these um glaucous coloured foliage plants and I and I had this idea about moving from pinks into soft reds and purples which we we've probably blended that more than I'd originally imagined but that came quite early and the idea of trying to find a way of stirring conversation around the five gynae cancers I work with a brilliant artist called Hannah Hartwell to to develop this sort of shape that we've used five different materials clay and alabaster and bronze and there's a wooden one by an artist called Anthony Bryant so there's a lot of thoughts gone into every little detail well I think that really shows it's such a considered space and I love it congratulations thank you for the medals thank you very much all week Adam Frost is going to be looking at some of the very best design ideas from the show that you can take away as inspiration at home and tonight he's exploring different ways to incorporate water into your garden one of the reasons I love coming to the because it is packed out with ideas that I get to share with you so this week we are going back to basics if you're new to design or you just maybe fancy giving the garden a revamp or adding a little detail we're going to start off with something that I think in some format every garden should have and that is water the first thing to work out is why are you adding water to the garden and what do you want from it is it sound movement a moment of calm a reflective surface do you want to collect water bring wildlife into the garden once you've nailed that then it's is it going to be modern traditional even your water bar does not need to be boring look at this it's really simple but first of all it's a big focal pool it draws you in and then you see the water it's just trickling down into this open tank but it's always practical it's collecting from a gutter you imagine your home office your greenhouse you're dropping it into an open tank you plant that up not only have you got something beautiful but it's practical as well the next thing your feature needs to feel like it belongs to your garden what I mean by that if you're full of straight strong lines that should drive that feature but if it's soft romantic like this feels natural but also how's it going to engage you is it going to be an element of surprise or like here you have to cross this little stream so you slow down you have a moment you've got the sound of water it starts quickly it slows you slow and then it arrives in this sort of perfect natural pool which is full of great habitat even if you haven't got a lot of space in your garden think about the verticals whether it's a wall an old fence look at that water coming down but also how you affect the movement here it hits bars which changes the interest in reality if you've only got enough space to put a bird bath viewed from a kitchen window I promise you it will change the way you engage really hard it's often the gardens at Chelsea that have the most immediate visual effect on visitors but here in the great pavilions some of the exhibits are so ambitious that they literally stop you in your tracks just look at this incredible display by she grows veg now they don't let me into the great pavilion as much as I would like I'm often out in the gardens but I have to say it's always a treat when I do and this display is as dramatic as any I've ever seen in here as you can see it's a table groaning with produce all of it edible obviously because it's a banquet but all of it grown by seed by the company and what a brilliant way to display your wares rather than doing the obvious thing which maybe will be packets of seeds it's enticing you on the end product and just about every fruit and vegetable you can imagine are grown here and can be grown in your garden there is nothing here that you couldn't grow in this country even though a lot of it is actually not so much exclusive and rarefied but specialized varieties because these are all heritage seeds and the whole point about heritage seeds is that they preserve varieties that otherwise will go out of fashion will go out of production because they're not necessarily so financially viable and it was only until after the second world war that seeds began to drift away these local seeds local varieties some of them very specialized in deeds which were delicious have gone and now they're coming back and that's incredibly exciting and not just to celebrate the past but to see a display like this which is so brilliantly done and so enticing and mouth-watering is really exciting you don't have to be a gardener you don't have to know anything about how to grow them but you see this and absolutely you want to try them you want to grow them so if this makes people take to growing a really exciting good produce then it's worked and if it then goes on to get a wonderful medal well so much the better but i think this is one of the the best things i've seen in this year's show here in the pavilion another equally impressive exhibit this year is this one by architectural plants and it is magnificent right in the center of the great pavilion and at each of these four corners you've got these tracheocarpus fortunii it's pretty much the only palm that's reliably hardy in the uk and look how magnificent they are they really fill the space right in the center we've got this cloud pruned yew absolutely beautiful and it's a technique a japanese technique of clipping that takes many many years to develop and you get these lovely sort of soft pads of greenery it's very satisfying to look at and to feel and this particular specimen 40 years old so if you want to create something like this you have to get cracking hello found you found you here and i think this is your kind of display well i love the formality and the fullness of it but you know that lushness is something that has evolved we take it for granted now that people want it in their gardens but i remember this particular company visiting them 35 years ago and things then were much more formal in a geometric way and at chelsea you know it was almost like a mini versailles yes well this is not versailles this is not versailles you've got the formality but then all of this i mean this fullness and the greenness and of course the great thing about the pavilion is you will find something there will be something here that exactly chimes with your interest yes rather a lot of things i think well still to come tonight on the rhs chelsea flower show 2026 an event supported by range rover the much anticipated annual visit from the royal family plus as legendary designer sarah eberly returns to chelsea for the first time since 2022 we'll discover what's inspired that return and we revel in the beauty of one of the most stunning displays of late spring as we explore the allium fields of the netherlands but first plantsman garden designer jamie butterworth who was my collaborator with the dog garden last year has been exploring the key planting styles that are emerging at the show this year tonight he's revealing how designers are embracing naturalistic planting but aren't letting things run too wild naturalistic planting is a style of planting where essentially designers try to copy mother nature looking at planting communities and how plants would naturally grow together to create an authentic style that emulates the natural world but it's very much deliberate and intentional it's a really hard style of planting to achieve you wouldn't necessarily think of naturalistic planting in the shady environment but plant heritage have done it so beautifully over here in this woodland dappled like corner you've got the shade being cast from this beautiful acer campestry and then underneath it we've got a tapestry of foliage with just the odd speckle of phyllitorum and foxglove one thing the designer's done brilliantly is the use of layering using three big bald plants from this osmunda coming down to the hosta and then down to the regercia to create this layering that brings you down into the lower planting at the front and here on the trestle garden rob hardy's also gone with a naturalistic style planting but in fulsome conditions and this planting is bright it's colourful it's bold it's sumptuous it all melds together beautifully this is dysgamsia sespatosa which is often the plant you think of when you think of naturalistic planting but what rob's done here is created a naturalistic feel to the garden emulating what nature does best but with herbaceous perennials like this salvia caradonna the cerseums here holding it together than the peters and then just the odd little poppy and it looks like it's self-sewn into the border and that's what naturalistic planting is all about and on this side we're really into full sun with this composition of bright fiery reds and oranges but planted in a very naturalistic style we have the spires of the vabascum poking up through we have these beautiful flamboyant clump forming irish jamanicas that love these sunny conditions this is a border that looks great now and he's going get better and better and better this style of planting makes me inconceivably happy one of the most striking late spring flowers is the allium and nowhere is the display more beautiful than that the internationally renowned nursery of dutch growers as every year the fields turn a magnificent pink and purple they produce show-stopping alliums on a vast scale and when we caught up with them they were preparing to bring them to chelsea you're on the west part of holland we have glass houses and we also have some outside fields and we have about 70 different varieties of alliums different height different sizes different colors different flowering time every year we grow over a million allium bulbs i'm mark warmanhoven and the fifth generation in alliums it started in 1885 it started from grandfather to my father and now i'm here my father is still around still doing some some jobs now and then in 2019 we had a small discussion about for chelsea as well to have the flowers ready and i said some of them they were planted too late it was too cold and you're not going to make it and he said oh yeah it's going to make it so and he was right i said it's yeah that's i'm very proud of him the life cycle of a bulb so we plant the mother bulb in autumn and then as soon as we harvest them they multiply they make baby bulbs and we separate those baby bulbs in autumn and that takes another three years before there will be a good quality bulb but we can sell again and the machinery what we use these days saves a lot of time so we can shift the good quality bulbs easily from the young bulbs so i'm trying to be independent those solar panels and no gas my own water supply 62 solar panels we have on the roof what we use for the cold storage sorting machine cubic lifter some growing tips about alliums planting time is in the autumn from late september till late november just plant them in well-drained soil just sandy soil something like that if you don't have sandy soil just plant them with some grit some stones planting depth is about two and a half to three times the size of the bulbs they like the full sun but they also grow in partial shade some of the varieties they even grow in full shade as soon as they've been over finished then best thing to do is to deadhead them but as long as you don't let them make seed heads all the energy all the goodness goes back into the bulb the bulb will increase and you will get the same size flower you had the first year we're on the flower fields at the moment of course we have many bulbs so we can select the best ones i'm looking for thick stems nice good size flower heads and then they will be at the perfect conditions next week here we are with allium chicago i'm quite pleased i see some stems are bent i'd rather not have them bent but we have clothes quite a lot of them so i can pick the nice straight ones here we are in the greenhouse with the lovely allium they're ready for chelsea nice height of them nice size flowers and we cut them later today to get them in the cold storage and next week they will be available to see at chelsea flower show in the cold storage right now we have about 4 000 flowers some of them are ready for chelsea already are in this cold storage some of them of the flowers are in there for already a couple weeks and some of them just be cut yesterday and today we cut them as well they come from the greenhouse or the fields straight into our cold storage this year we are bringing three new varieties two of the medium or smaller size headed ones i think they are getting more popular three new ones three new ones the magic the chicago and new york big names but small flowers yeah but they're nice nice small flowers that's what i'm looking for yeah nice color as well this one different color different shape different size so the chicago and the new york are smaller headed sizes ones good for windy gardens or suitable in front of the garden broccoli gardens and they're also half shaped so they're different shape as well with nice colors i have two young boys if they like it they can come into the business and start working and maybe taking over one day chelsea is coming soon and we're almost ready for it 38 years already but always excited we have already 20 gold medals and hope to add one more this year mark it's so good to see you back at chelsea and your display is looking perfection absolutely beautiful i know it's a lot involved in coming here so what keeps you coming back to chelsea uh the comments from the visitors who are really like it they are always keen gardeners so they're already always interested in your product and that's what is most important for us like people who know their stuff and know what they're talking about and interested in new varieties or different varieties or help or planting tips that's where well you've got some new varieties here can you tell me which ones they are yeah we brought three new varieties this year to chelsea we have the alien magic alien chicago alien new york they're lovely nice uh small flowering headed ones as we call them not too tall medium-sized flower heads or small flowering heads as well different shapes and some of them are even scented scent is a great thing how wonderful and i love these smaller ones because they work really well in a container but how else do you recommend growing them in the garden so containers for the other ones yeah that's suitable definitely growing tips just a good well-drained soil after flowering time just deadhead them if you really like the dead heads just cut them at the base dry them as a cut flower all the goodness goes back into the bulb and then you have a nice flower for the following year for the next year so they just go on and on i absolutely love growing alliums in my garden i must say this is spectacular so congratulations on another beautiful display we'll see you again next year definitely thank you four years ago chelsea's most awarded designer sarah eberle said she was retiring from creating gardens here at the show but she's been tempted back by a cause that's extremely close to her heart and we recently joined her in the hampshire countryside to find out more countryside for me is really special it's a place i feel at home i feel safe it's a sanctuary for me i'm a real country girl i was born in the west country and grew up on the fringes of a town and i was one of those wild children i was allowed out from breakfast time till the evening this was our playground the fringes of the town and we used to climb trees in the woodland and make dens and for me it's just completely embedded in my psyche of who i am it's a real soul thing for me this year i've come back to chelsea to do a garden called on the edge and it deals with the fringe lands of towns and cities that are under so much threat i'm working with the campaign to protect rural england who are a charity that champion the countryside the government have got this huge target actually but really important target to restore 30 of the land so it's delivering for nature by 2030 and if we're going to do that sites like this can play their part i think absolutely in these islands here they're so important for everyday everyday life for communities yeah about 85 of the population live in towns and cities in the country so places like this it is their countryside and we can think about the countryside as a place we go on holiday to but actually the countryside that means the most to people is the country said on their doorstep it's the most precious to people but it's also the most vulnerable these areas are so important for both plant communities and people communities and maintaining the health of both and allowing people to benefit from that and for nature to recover as well yeah developers favor greenfield development sites and one of the things we really advocate for is for the development of brownfield sites so sites in our towns and cities that have already been used looking for a new purpose let's start there there's there's room for 1.4 million you know nearly all of the government's housing target on brownfield sites so although the garden is very simple in its layout it centers around the most amazing i guess you would call it land art there's a fallen tree which has been carved and manipulated with stonework as well into the figure of mother nature gaia is traditionally her name and it seems to me to be so fitting to use this image of the protection of nature we have three artisans we have chris wood who's a chainsaw artist we have tom hair ironically doing the hair of gaia and he weaves willow and also lydia noble who's a fifth generation stone mason so i think gaia will surprise us all including me you can see she has these trees around her almost a pillow a cushion of plants so as we've been looking at her head here her body with her point of her hip which is the stone arch where you walk underneath and then the hair continues over the stone wall step into this community space and then two big multi-stem hawthorns which i think are very mythical i love them so the garden is very informal it's very naturalistic the idea is you feel very immersed in nature and so she's in it she's not just sitting on top of everything i want her to portray peace and serenity in the garden hopefully she'll communicate that to people the timber we're making her out of this is giant sequoia which is a giant redwood most of it came to create a more hedgerow kind of feel i'm going to introduce some saplings we've been trimming back some sycamore some brash that's got some lovely likings on it so it'll feel kind of that it has a life of its own so we're building the walls in the garden and it's going to join into the wood the woodwork that chris is doing and married together really nicely part of the wall that we're doing is built around this steel structure creates its own challenges but it's going to really create an impressive archway to create a nice path in the garden the challenges for chelsea this year i mean there are always challenges when you're in chelsea it wouldn't be chelsea otherwise but this year there are several there is the scale the sculpture is enormous it's coming together in three pieces on site and then working with other creatives it is a joy but it is giving away elements of control and i think most designers at chelsea like to feel they're in control this is my 20th return to chelsea i kind of resigned at the last garden i did i was brought back by the potential of this project you know to work on a subject that's so important to me do i think this will be my last chelsea well never say never and here is the finished garden and it is exceptionally beautiful what i really like about it is the way it takes simplicity and expands that out without ever losing that essence of the countryside as a place full of familiar plants but beautifully set together and there used to be a phase you often saw at show gardens sort of five ten years ago of recreating a natural landscape often brilliantly done but not really a garden and what sarah has done is take the elements of the british countryside that she so loves and turn them into a garden without the garden losing that sense of domesticity and yet without the plants losing the sense of wilderness and of course we're talking about the planting here but dominating the front of the garden is the sleeping figure of gaia carved from a redwood and a huge head in the front lying with the eyes closed a body coming round and then the tail sweeping up through here and coming up over a stone bridge and under the bridge we have a water feature and a circular sort of open communal space and sarah hello monty so i'm so glad that you did decide to come back to chelsea because i think it's wonderful thank you there's lots of really lovely things but first of all what made you why why having won so much or achieved so much why would you put yourself through it all well cpre approached me and their message is so important to me that i just had to say yes you know i really like to believe in the subject matter otherwise they don't become genuine and just let's look at that message again what is the core message the core message is about the vulnerability of fringe lands on our towns and cities whether they're green belts or not they tend to get eradicated by inappropriate building by fly tipping but they are the first touch zones of nature for people who live in towns and cities and there's so much potential there i mean what you've taken is all those elements and plants but it is a garden yes yes so for me it's a sanctuary but it's a sanctuary for nature and it's a sanctuary for people because i do believe that nature offers that sanctuary and that's really important we talk a lot about people talk about going into nature and there's like this thing out there is it something that we can incorporate fully in our gardens or do we need to go out into the no i think i think there's there's something for both and i think gardens are perhaps the last opportunity for that private sanctuary where you can turn your phone off you know you're you can be fully alone and for me nature is so healing it really is you know my whole psyche is based in nature and i think the difference between a good garden and a great garden is how it makes you feel so that sense of it it's a sort of soothing and you go there to heal and we can do that in our gardens and we can respect nature while we do it we have to talk about the sculpture yes i mean it is incredibly dramatic yes was that your idea to to bring yes i think you know for me because it's gaia who is mother nature yeah it's a symbol of the caring for nature and for that protector so for me i think all chelsea gardens need a big wow yeah and i thought this was an opportunity it's a it's a big wow it's a good one uh no it's wonderful because it stops people in their tracks yes and then they start to delve into the goal i mean it takes six to ten seconds for somebody to walk past a garden you've got to stop them bring them in and then you can engage them see that's all your experience showing that's that's the master craftsperson applying itself to the garden um i'm sure everybody's going to love it i hope they get the message because it's an important one as you say yeah that we look after our countryside but at the same time incorporate it into our gardens and i'm sure you're past caring about what medal you get or anything like that but you're never past caring you're never you know maybe maybe it just knocks the edge off but that's all well good luck it's lovely thank you so much thank you monty i'm on the rhs and the king's foundation curious garden designed by none other than our lovely francis top hill in collaboration with his majesty the king sir david beckham and alan titchmarsh well francis and alan are with me now and my goodness francis what a day it's been already what's the response from people coming to see it generally really lovely you know when we were planting it as well i had my head down in the border with hive is on and just an ear wig what people are saying about it generally people like seeing veg which is great for me i love veg you know we've got it all in amongst the flowers it's it's a little bit overwhelming there's a lot of people you know i'm not used to it i'm used to having the mucky hands that i've got but it's lovely but alan you've been here to give france's support and sort of work in a very collaborative way so how has that been for you have you done very little other than be at the end of the phone and meeting up now and again saying look it's fine so i'm just i feel like young mr grace you know you're all doing very well but she is such a good friend it's been wonderful working with francis since she started doing tv and the talent you can see this is francis this is nobody else a couple of friends you know katie from love your garden as well but it's just she's hugely talented so he's not right he has been on the end of the phone many times full of loads of advice and that kind of experience of having done this before and working with the rhs and the king's foundation before it's it's been lovely having alan and also providing lots of little bits of bric-a-brac for in here so francis tell me a bit about the planting because that absolutely sings to me favorite plant this garden is about plants i know it's got a very big building that's because it's going on to be an outdoor classroom for farnborough college but this is all about plants so we have flowery cottage gardening with veg there's a rain garden in the back here and then as you move along there's herbs i've got so many different herbs this is the idea is it's a botanist's garden so there's so many different interesting species we've got a really rare lavender lavender buckeye bar buckeye that's from jecker um also there's a critically endangered um edible called oyster leaf which is right on the front there's there's alice artindale delphinium in the middle here that's only 12 of them in existence and we've got three which is a little bit scary because i can't lose them but um it's about showcasing um how important plants are in globally you know not just in gardens we've got a dye bed and there's linseed so i'm growing all the things kind of about fashion and fibers and textiles and medicine and then trying to show all of that in the museum of curiosity so the hope is that people will see this as a career path i mean francis and i love it we have loved gardening you can be a designer you can be a scientist you can be a botanist you can be a tree surgeon you can be a groundsman it's all to do with practically making the planet and our little patch of islands better and if this enthusiasm enthuses younger people to say do you know i'd quite like to do that for a living yeah you get a bit wet and a bit cold on days like this it's the best job on earth it certainly is isn't it and i know that one of the things caught my eye the roses on here you've got the king's rose you've got a rose for alan titchmarsh david beckham i feel we need a it's a must well i hope mine's a bit of a hedge climbing sprawling natural looking thing maybe a little unruly and you've got the royal tour later on how are you feeling about that slightly nervous i what i feel like is that there's a big responsibility to get this right you know for the rhs and the king's foundation and everybody who's been involved in the project we had a meeting with the king at highgrove and she went down a storm it was amazing david and i sat and let her just let her do it yes did i talk too much she was father i mean as you can see she's engaging she's enthusiastic who couldn't like it well i just think it's the most incredible garden it's a triumph well earlier today their majesties the king and queen paid their annual visit to rhs chelsea and sophie joined the royal party just to see what caught their eye the king and queen arriving here at the chelsea flower show as they do every year but this year has a special twist because the king has been involved in the creation of the rhs and king's foundation curious garden and he's about to see it for the first time inside this garden in the museum of curiosities sir david beckham alan titchmarsh the king and queen all discussing the garden that they have worked together to create with francis tochill what did the king say to you he said it was everything that he had expected and hoped for which is pretty amazing but you know him well no but i mean that was quite genuine the queen particularly liked it because she said this is my kind of gardens oh did she say that she did i didn't hear her say that oh you've worked so hard next on the king's tour of the chelsea flower show is the on the edge garden designed by sarah eberle and it has in it this absolutely fantastic sculpture the king is being introduced to chris wood the man who sculpted this extraordinary piece of work using a chainsaw chris yes what was that like meeting the king i met him before about 15 years ago my business was started by the prince's trust how was that that was brilliant it's a lovely opportunity to show the garden off and you know it appears he appreciated it which is lovely we all know that he loves nature a wonderful moment as the king spots dame judy dench among the crowd the king and queen have been here on the showground for more than an hour now and his final stop is right here our very own arid anderson's garden that she's created for parkinson's uk and a queen is already enjoying it how do you feel now sort of this is the big hurdle you've done now haven't you the royal visit yeah the royal visit i mean you know obviously you hope the royals will come through and you know be able to sort of see the work that you've done and so to have you know both like i said the king and the queen come through it's been it's great for the charity it what we wanted to do is to raise more awareness and hopefully you know their visit will validate that congratulations well done well of course the royal visit was incredibly important but the king came to see his own garden the gardener king came to see a garden not the best garden yes i mean i always think of him as our gardener king because he really does love it with a passion so you're right absolutely uh changing the tone but i think it's important to acknowledge uh the death of nigel dunnett who who was you know won gold medals here at chelsea i had the privilege of visiting him in his own garden at home and he was just someone that we we all knew and respected and liked and it's a great story yes i was very lucky to meet him at the olympic park in 2012 and he just designed this beautiful sort of sparkling colors yeah and very informal all for pollinators it was wonderful and he was a great educator he was passed that on no i mean he he was an academic and made real contribution and changes and and he's sorely missed that's it for tonight uh rachel and i will be back tomorrow at eight o'clock on bbc2 when we will be revealing the winner of the rhs chelsea garden of the year and we'll be answering your gardening questions so please do get in touch we love hearing from you send them in via the hashtag ask bbc chelsea and don't forget that nikki and angelica will be back tomorrow at two o'clock on bbc one for the first look at the all-important medal results and they'll also be inspiring you to garden to help nature flourish and we'll see you tomorrow so bye-bye good night you