Gently flowing water invigorated more show gardens than usual this year at Chelsea, from the slenderest of rills to shallow, stepped pools, the prevailing mood being calm and tranquil.

Also noticeable in the gardens were exceptionally varied trees. They ranged from substantial hawthorns in full blossom to ancient, espaliered pears and potted Persian ironwoods. There were pines in unusual abundance, size and form, convincingly despondent ‘weeping cedars’ and the contrastingly cheerful acers of Japan, in their coats of many colours.

The ‘woodland edge’ maintains its might in 2026. I did think we had reached ‘peak woodland’ a couple of years ago, but apparently not. Romantic, pretty and fashionably wild, intentionally sylvan designs took away top awards for the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), Tate Britain and the Woodland Trust.

Meanwhile, in the Great Pavilion, luscious leaves had their moment: The Sienna Hosta nursery received the coveted President’s Choice award and the unique new Hosta ‘Red Ninja’, its foliage streaked with burgundy, was anointed the Plant of the Year.

The Tate Britain Garden

Gold Medal

A forest of art: Barbara Hepworth’s bronze Bicentric Form (1949) sits amid Tom Stuart-Smith’s Chelsea scaled-down sample of the Clore Garden for Tate Britain, due to open in 2027 on its 1½-acre site at Millbank. Its bold, naturalistic planting includes herbaceous euphorbias, the tractor-seat plant Ligularia reniformis, sago palms, Cycas revoluta and sparkles of white Libertia grandiflora. Slender water rills cut through the paving.

Tokonama Garden–Sanumaya No Niwa

Silver-gilt Medal

Last year’s Best in Show winner Kazayuki Ishihara presented yet another masterpiece. The popular Japanese designer’s trademark landscapes of hefty rocks, mosses, tumbling waters, acers in varied hues and characterful, crumpled pines have earned a loyal following — and has ‘gravel gardening’ ever been as perfectly presented? I thought a silver-gilt was a little harsh, it seemed to me to be his best yet.

The Curious Garden

Presented by Frances Tophill for the RHS and The King’s Foundation, this pleasant muddle of flowers and edibles was planted around an oak building containing produce gleaned from the garden, including dyes, jams and dried herbs. As the media fixated on its several garden gnomes, gardeners were more interested in the crimson-flowered broad beans, planted for their beautiful blooms among Rosa ‘The King’s Rose’.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England Garden: On the Edge

Gold Medal, Garden of the Year

Seemingly plucked from the countryside and brought to the show by Sarah Eberle, the garden was planted with exquisite detail in its natural flora, associated with the woodland edge. Deftly presented with soft, earthen paths, its genius moment lay in the prostrate, timber form of a gigantic, sleeping ‘Gaia’, or Mother Nature, made by a chainsaw artist, the appropriately named Chris Wood.

Addelshaw Goddard: Flourish in the City

Gold Medal

Boulder dash: attention to detail in its attractive, gurgling water features and careful planting aimed at water conservation produced a unified concept by Joe and Laura Carey. Visitors appreciated its ‘user friendliness’ as a potential mild-climate, small city garden in which it would be delightful to relax or potter. Planting included poppies, verbascums, cistuses, salvias, irises and woolly leaved Ballota pseudodictamnus.

The Eden Project: Bring Me Sunshine Garden

Silver-gilt Medal

This interesting, complex garden, by Harry Holding and Alex Michaelis, was a crowd pleaser. Its central terrace and canopy are part of the permanent structure due to be relocated to a new Eden Project, at Morecambe Bay in Lancashire. The structure looks quite space age, but is modelled on the form of a bivalve sea shell. Luminous yellow Baptisia ‘Lemon Meringue’ brought sunshine in all weathers.

Flood Re: Contain the Rain Garden

Gold Medal and Best Container Garden

Drawing upon ancient Persian design, this was the most glamorous container garden I have seen at Chelsea since the category was launched some years ago. Within a tiny space, John Howlett captured the ambience of a private courtyard at an elegant Mediterranean villa or high-end hotel. Its secret was the gathering of contrasting foliages in interlocking, large containers, set off by the drama of tall, Parrotia persica trees. The copper/verdigris finishes and contrasting pale limestone and render brought calmness and unity to the bold ensemble.

The Killik & Co ‘A Seed in Time’ Garden

Gold Medal

‘Save for a rainy day’ was the subtitle for this cleverly organised garden by Baz Grainger, using its imposing, rectangular structures to gather rain and redirect it to a central wetland area, crossed through with stepping stones. Intended for family enjoyment, its planting was engagingly mixed, with fruiting trees such as big, old, espaliered pears and self-sowing flowers, such as foxgloves and primulas. The prettiness of the planting and lush greenery nicely counterpointed the hard, modern lines of the structures.

Trussell’s Together Garden

Gold Medal

Under a Constable sky and overlooked by the roof dormers and soaring chimney stacks of the Royal Hospital, this garden was laden with declared messages about ‘togetherness’, ‘connection’ and ‘communities holding each other up’ related to the ambitions of its sponsor. That is all well and good, but does it succeed also as a garden? Happily, this one did and it drew the visitor to peruse its central area of sociable seating, contained within an inventive and striking timber structure, all of which contributed to Rob Hardy receiving the Best Construction Award.

This feature originally appeared in the May 27, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

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From the moment the gates opened at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, at 7am on Monday, the London borough has felt like the centre of the universe — or, at least, Country Life's universe.

At our stand, the 'Garden Lover's Library' — beautifully designed by George Saumarez Smith of ADAM Architecture — the reception has been nothing short of extraordinary, from both visitors in person and admirers on social media.

It has been a vintage year, with appearances from four Country Life guest editors, The King, The Queen, Sir David Beckham, The Princess Royal, and one very longstanding and popular columnist, Alan Titchmarsh.

Members of our team will be on the stand until the very end so please do come and say hello if you can. Alternatively, you can read about what happened, as it happened, on the Monday and Tuesday, here and here.

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The Country Life ‘Garden Lover’s Library’, designed by George Saumarez Smith of Adam Architecture, is at stand PW215 at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, until May 23.

If you visit the stand, you can buy a year-long subscription to Country Life for £150 and save more than 40% on the cover price — our best offer ever. There are also international offers available.

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Here at Country Life, we love the Chelsea Flower Show — and we know you do too. So we're absolutely delighted to bring you this very special edition of the Country Life Podcast, recorded live in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, with Clive Nichols and Kathryn Bradley-Hole.

Kathryn was Country Life's gardens editor for 18 years until moving on to concentrate on writing, and has a lifetime of experience in the horticultural world — and it's also the 40th anniversary of her first trip to the Chelsea Flower Show.

Coincidentally, Clive has also been coming to SW3 for exactly 40 years. The man dubbed 'the king of garden photography' is a regular contributor to Country Life, and we're thrilled that he's not only taken all our pictures from the show this year, but also appeared on this episode of the Country Life Podcast.

Kathryn and Clive talk about their favourite bits of the Chelsea Flower Show, the gardens they'd most like to have back at their own homes, why the King's garden wasn't given a fair crack at having the impact it should have done, and what they'd do themselves if they were designing their own showpiece at SW3.

Episode credits

Host and editor: Toby Keel

Guests: Kathryn Bradley-Hole and Clive Nichols

Music: JuliusH via Pixabay

Back next time: James Fisher

The Country Life ‘Garden Lover’s Library’, designed by George Saumarez Smith of Adam Architecture, is at stand PW215 at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, May 18–23.

To celebrate, you can buy a year-long subscription for £150 and save more than 40% on the cover price. International offers also available. Until May 31.

The first 200 subscribers at Chelsea will receive a bottle of The Grange Classic Sparkling NV, worth £39. Rated 94 points by Decanter magazine, this premium sparkling wine from Hampshire was described in Country Life as ‘the connoisseur’s choice’. Offer available with subscriptions for UK delivery only.

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When Vita Sackville West said ‘a flowerless room is a soulless room, to my way of thinking; but even a solitary little vase of a living flower may redeem it’, I imagine she would surely include potted plants in her edict. If you enjoy plants outdoors, there is nothing more natural than wanting to bring them inside. A well-tended plant can light up a neglected corner, grace a dining table in place of an arrangement, bring either a sense of formality or ease to a room, or splash of colour or a strong punctuation of form; and science says they can even make you feel better. There is nothing else that adds a spark of vitality to an otherwise static interior quite like, well, something unmistakably alive.

For Jane Kennerley, who has created the planting scheme for Country Life’s A Garden Lover's Library stand at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show, the lure of indoor plants is not simply a matter of aesthetic enjoyment, but a nostalgic nod to the houseplants of her childhood and those that tended them. The library, designed by George Saumarez Smith of ADAM Architecture, is a graceful connector between outdoors and in; botanical art and his own curation of beloved gardening tomes fill the walls making it a place of solace for anyone who loves both books and borders.

It is Jane’s interior planting, though, which blurs the boundaries of garden and room most of all. It is full of her old-fashioned favourites, all of which were popular before the current fad for splashy variegated tropicals took over. Pelargoniums, especially the scented classics such as velvety tomentosum and Attar of Roses, are almost impossible to walk past and not touch in order to get a whiff of their scent. Citrus and rose trees, in terracotta pots, add structural weight and symmetry to the room. Charmingly dowdy stalwarts, including spider plants and aspidistra, are comforting in the homeliest of ways. For Jane, these plants speak to her memories of family and friends more so than other fashionable choices; anyone who loves plants can likely relate. It’s these humble, ubiquitous houseplants that were often a part of the daily rhythm and fabric of our homes as children — and on which we practised our green-fingered skills. A particularly doted upon Christmas cactus or a jade plant from an aunt? A grandfather’s collection of amaryllis or granny’s geraniums on the windowsill…

This instinct to bring the garden inside is nothing new; evidence is written across human history, from the potted palms of the Ancient Egyptians to the ferns and orchids of the Victorians. Historically, scented and flowering plants were brought inside for enjoyment, but also to mask bad odours. More recently, they’ve been used to boost wellbeing, with science showing that they reduce stress, improve mood and increase focus and productivity. The health benefits aren’t only physiological, as plants have been shown to improve air quality by removing toxins and adding oxygen to their surroundings (though experts suggest you would need a veritable indoor jungle to have a marked improvement). Sounds like a good idea to us.

Houseplants generally fall into two categories: year-round indoor plants — the tropical ones which require bright, diffused light and have specialised watering requirements — and the garden varieties — which can happily jump from indoors to out and back again as the season demands (think pelargoniums and amaryllis). Both categories have their place and lend a different feeling to indoor spaces when seen through a decorative lens. A well-chosen pot is key. Aged, mossy terracotta suggests ease and earthiness, a ‘just-in-from-the-garden’ temporality; while antique porcelain, such as the Chinese blue and white pots chosen by Jane, make whatever they hold feel polished and elegant. Handmade studio pottery can be especially apt for tropicals, leaning into their groovy, graphic nature, but what makes for a visually pleasing pot doesn’t necessarily mean it‘s well-suited for plants. Drainage is key, so if there are no holes, add a layer of substrate like gravel or broken pots, and keep a watchful eye on water levels. And a keen houseplant enthusiast can spot an amateur a mile off for not using a glazed saucer.

Tropical houseplants, like huge, split-leaved philodendrons and lush pothos plants with their trailing vines, have a retro quality to them and hark back to the 1970s vogue for loft living, the industrial conversions and their huge, casement windows just begging for a patchwork of plants. These types of flora need low-maintenance, but specific care; their holy trinity of needs — light, humidity, temperature — must all be in alignment and they should not, under any circumstances, be moved outside. Most originated in jungle ecosystems where it is quite hot and moist. Maidenhair and Boston variety ferns make for fabulous houseplants, but you’ll need a mister to keep them suitably hydrated.

The indoor-outdoor sort of house plant is just that, one which can be brought inside or left out as suits the season. These plants often have an elegant, country-house feel; they scream ‘my gardener has just brought in this lemon tree from the greenhouse’ (even if you live in a top-floor, city flat). Think herbs, or myrtle, trained in standard topiary form and used to flank a mantel or sideboard — like garden designer Bunny Mellon famously did — or a humble bowl full of violets, dug up, unceremoniously, from the garden and used as a table centrepiece.

Pelargoniums are the undoubted heroines of the genre, classics for a good reason and endlessly addictive to grow and collect. Originally from South Africa, they love bright, direct sunlight, moderate watering and a cool dormant winter — all easy enough to manage indoors, though they will benefit from a summer holiday to the nearest sunny balcony or terrace. The deliciously pepperminty Pelargonium tomentosum, as selected by Jane, is an excellent indoor specimen. It is tolerant of gentle light and its velvet leaves will tumble nicely rather than grow leggy and loopy as other pelargoniums are wont to do if they don’t get enough sun.

Houseplants effectively extend your garden inside, a boon to city dwellers or those with small gardens. And to those worried about maintenance, ease up on your need to get it right, right away. As a wise man once said, a few house plants will probably die in order to learn how to keep them alive.

The garden you'd most want as your actual back garden

The big show gardens on the largest plots tend to dominate the headlines at Chelsea, but this year it's one of the entries in the Small Show Gardens category that earns our vote: the Addleshaw Goddard: Flourish in the City garden.

It's the creation of garden designers Joe and Laura Carey, a Norfolk-based husband-and-wife team — and it's won them their third gold medal in four years at the Chelsea Flower Show.

'It's a garden you feel you could live in, and enjoy the planting there,' says Kathryn Bradley-Hole, Country Life's former gardens editor of this beautiful space. 'Absolutely,' says garden photographer Clive Nichols. 'I think we'd both happily have that as our back garden.'

Most ambitious garden

Sarah Eberle's design for The Campaign to Protect Rural England Garden — ‘On the Edge’ — was unarguably the standout.

The vast stone arch alone might have done it, but the undisputed talking point was the giant fallen tree carved into a giant Mother Earth-style head. Epic in scale, as well as a clear and moving comment on the state of the world. Sarah had actually retired from making show gardens, but the CPRE coaxed her back — and we're very glad they did.

The 'look what I brought home' award

'But darling, they were only £3,000 — I could hardly leave them there now, could I?'

Chi Africa's stand of animal sculptures is tucked away, yet unmissable thanks to the giraffes. For those with gardens less able to take a 9ft sculpture, they also had a family of ducks, some penguins, a spitting cobra and an adorable little warthog. Very Lion King.

Most heroic use of gravel

Last year, the Japanese designer Kazuyuki Ishihara won the Besst in Show award. This year, working alongside Paul Noritaka Tange to create 'Tokonoma Garden – Sanumaya no Niwa', he's outdone himself once again. A masterpiece wrought in gravel.

The garden you’d happily downsize for

The container gardens at Chelsea are always full of clever, charming and beautiful spaces — we particularly loved the Persian-inspired Flood Re: Contain the Rain, designed by John Howlett.

Best small space with delusions of grandeur

Boon’s ‘Chelsea Cabin’ is the garden shed that dreamed it was a country cottage. It’s clad inside and out in reclaimed timber and features one bedroom, a bathroom, double-glazed windows, a wood burning stove and a minty green bath on the deck and gravel terrace.

Best use of rusty metal that somehow looks chic

A surprisingly hotly contested category this year, but there was a clear winner: Capital Garden Products 'Pavilion Glasshouse with rust finish' — so beautiful that you'll forgive the fact that it's a glasshouse without glass...

There's an honourable mention to make as well, though: ArtFe's highland cows.

Why is one wearing a traffic cone on its head? We're presuming that it hit the King's Road with a group of students the night before the show began.

The ‘yes, but could you mow it?’ award

Another hotly contested category — never before have we seen so little lawn at the Chelsea Flower Show — but this has to go to 'Journey Beyond the Tracks: From Adelaide to Perth'. How brave it is to create a garden based on one of the world's driest and most featureless deserts... and yet, Max Parker-Smith's design is utterly beautiful.

The 'it seemed like a good idea at the time' award

'Who doesn't love Sir David Attenborough? What could go wrong making a model of him from great British textiles?'

'Apart from turning him into a zombie, you mean?'

The most handsome, yet simultaneously horrifying, garden gnome

Garden gnomes will always be in Marmite territory. So why not double down and create one that goes beyond 'love it or hate it' and all the way to 'adore it or think it's so appalling that those responsible should get lifetime bans from Chelsea'? That's seemingly the Harkness Roses approach.

Most heroic interpretation of rewilding

When weeds grow up through the cracks at home, you pull them up and get out the spray. When weeds grow up through the cracks at the Chelsea Flower Show, you get applauded for your bravery. That's just the way it is, and The Children’s Society Garden — designed by Patrick Clarke — just doubles down and somehow pulls it off.

Best garden to sit in and ignore emails

In some years, the houseplant gardens have tended to be just a bit you walk past between the main show gardens and the container and balcony gardens at Chelsea. This year, they were among the most beautiful there. The Composer's Cabin, designed by Martha Krempel x London St Pancras Highspeed, was the best of them: a living roof, a grand piano inside, wonderful planting and by far the comfiest looking garden seats of Chelsea 2026. We loved it.

Most theatrically-scented bloom

Can you stop and smell the flowers at Chelsea? Not really, to be honest: the show gardens are kept safely behind ropes, and even the lucky few getting guided tours are shooed around relatively speedily. In the main marquee, things are different, and David Austin's stand does it brilliantly, with a flower walk letting you bask among the blooms, and even a scent bar. The King's Rose, originally introduced last year, may not be particularly pretty, but it's got a scent like a long weekend in Morocco.

The 'is that it?' award for the biggest disappointment

The RHS awarded its coveted 'plant of the year' award to the extraordinary achievement of creating the first ever red hosta. Sadly, the plant itself didn't play ball by flowering in time for the show. Sad times.

Best water feature which actually serves a practical purpose

Arit Anderson's design ('Parkinson’s UK — A Garden for Every Parkinson’s Journey') is one of the standout show gardens at the 2026 Chelsea Flower Show... and its highlight is a magnificent rill which snakes its way through the entire space. Sinuous, beautiful and actually quite a good way of watering the plants — unlike most of the fountains, spouts and mini-waterfalls you'll see elsewhere at Chelsea.

And finally... the garden you'll be talking about on the way home award

It has to be Darren Hawkes design of the Lady Garden Foundation ‘Silent No More’ Garden: grand, impressive, beautifully planted, full of interest, and raising awareness of the five gynaecological cancers. It's a Chelsea classic.

Eberle had actually retired from creating show gardens for the annual celebration of gardening in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, but was persuaded to come back by the CPRE.

She'll be glad that she did, as will all those who've seen her work: the garden is nothing short of breathtaking, and she now has 14 show garden gold medals and four best-in-show awards to her name — more than any other gardener in the 113-year history of the Chelsea Flower Show.

Chris Bailes of the judging panel praised the garden's 'elements of myth and remarkable theatre. The planting speaks to an exceptionally rare sense of atmosphere, created through a clear connection to the urban and the countryside. Unexpected beauty is found in the concrete drain repurposed from an agricultural accessory into a mesmerising water feature using common duckweed. The garden achieves a beautiful, natural planting style that is difficult to accomplish, bringing wildness into a garden space with elegance and light touch.'

It's not just the huge scale of the carving, but also the detail — particularly around the willow sculptures that are both around and part of the piece: 'The very twiggy hair bit is I think one of those "dead hedges", a habitat for rodents and other woodland creatures,' points out Kathryn Bradley-Hole.

Garden photographer Clive Nichols points out how the flow into each other, with the willow carving become one with the walls: Mother Earth's 'hair' flows to the dry-stone arch that snakes through the garden, while her hand hand touches water from a shallow pool.

The garden has hidden stories, too: the plants have been sourced from fly-tipped garden waste, showing that many of the natural flowers we often dismiss as weeds are actually 'rich, diverse and textural', and 'vital to our ecosystems'. The garden as a whole 'symbolises hope and resilience on our doorstep, and that with with the right care, these fragile places can recover and thrive for future generations.'

'I am thrilled to bits to receive Garden of the Year,' says Eberle.

'The difference between a good garden and a great garden is how it makes you feel and I'm often told by the next generation of gardeners that I have inspired them, which, if nothing else, is the greatest gift of all. This garden's mission is very personal to me. I am a country girl through and through so I embody the same message and beliefs that the Campaign to Protect Rural England and this garden holds.'

Among the smaller gardens the overall winner was A Little Garden of Shared Knowledge Sponsored by Viking, designed by Katerina Kantalis.

Again, it's a garden whose details add layers of richness. It's designed as a sanctuary for an imagined retired couple, who have downsized to a small home in London, but who still want a space to share their lives, their stories and their dreams with each other and their families.

In the Small Show Gardens category, the overall winner was another space designed to fit into a London home. The Addleshaw Goddard: Flourish in the City garden, created by husband and wife duo Joe and Laura Carey, offers 'sanctuary, freedom and community amid the urban rush'.

It's another of the gardens that was picked out by Kathryn and Clive for special praise on the Country Life Podcast, with both naming it the garden they'd most like to have at their own home.

Marie-Louise Agius, chair of the RHS's judging panel, called the garden, 'a subtle, dignified and elegant design,' and 'a masterpiece in the importance of pocket planting for green spaces in cities.'

The Country Life ‘Garden Lover’s Library’, designed by George Saumarez Smith of Adam Architecture, is at stand PW215 at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, May 18–23.

To celebrate, you can buy a year-long subscription for £150 and save more than 40% on the cover price. International offers also available. Until May 31.

The first 200 subscribers at Chelsea will receive a bottle of The Grange Classic Sparkling NV, worth £39. Rated 94 points by Decanter magazine, this premium sparkling wine from Hampshire was described in Country Life as ‘the connoisseur’s choice’. Offer available with subscriptions for UK delivery only.

Show Gardens

GOLD AND 'BEST IN SHOW' WINNER: The Campaign to Protect Rural England Garden: ‘On the Edge’ by Sarah Eberle

Sarah Eberle's giant carved Mother Earth is one of the most eye-catching things we've seen at Chelsea in years, and the garden around it is magnificent.

GOLD: Lady Garden Foundation ‘Silent No More’ Garden by Darren Hawkes

Richly deserved award for a dramatic garden with a great story to tell.

GOLD: The Children’s Society Garden by Patrick Clarke Landscapes

A relaxed atmosphere designed for putting teens at their ease — and Patrick Clarke's garden has plenty of post-industrial chic.

GOLD: The Killik & Co ‘A Seed in Time’ Garden by Baz Grainger

Water features are everywhere at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026, but nobody worked them harder than Baz Grainger.

GOLD: The Tate Britain Garden by Tom Stuart-Smith

The perennial star of Chelsea strikes gold again: by our count this is his ninth top award for a show garden at SW3.

SILVER GILT: The Eden Project: Bring Me Sunshine Garden by Harry Holding and Alex Michaelis

SILVER GILT: The Tokonoma Garden – Sanumaya no Niwa by Kazuyuki Ishihara and Paul Noritaka Tange

SILVER: The Asthma and Lung UK Breathing Space Garden by Angus Thompson

SILVER: Parkinson’s UK – A Garden for Every Parkinson’s Journey by Arit Anderson

Small show gardens

GOLD: Addleshaw Goddard: Flourish in the City by Joe and Laura Carey

GOLD: Trussell's Together Garden by Rob Hardy

SILVER GILT: The Boodles Garden by Catherine MacDonald

SILVER GILT: Journey Beyond the Tracks: From Adelaide to Perth by Max Parker-Smith

Balcony Gardens

GOLD AND 'BEST BALCONY/CONTAINER GARDEN' WINNER: A Little Garden of Shared Knowledge sponsored by Viking — balcony garden by Katerina Kantalis

GOLD: Hedgerow in the Sky – Tech Mahindra — balcony garden by Sarah Mayfield and Monika Greenhough

GOLD: Tales from the Riverbank Garden sponsored by Kennedys’ Independent Property Agents — balcony garden by Susie Kennedy and Kate Henning

SILVER GILT: The Transient Garden — balcony garden by Rebecca Lloyd Jones

SILVER GILT: Fettercairn: The Angels’ Share — balcony garden by May Starey

Container Gardens

GOLD: Flood Re: Contain the Rain Garden — container garden by John Howlett

GOLD: The Whittard of Chelsea Garden — container garden by Ollie Pike

SILVER: Alzheimer’s Society: Microbes and Minds Garden — container garden by Tina Worboys

BRONZE: The Seasalt Painted Garden — container garden by Lynn James

BRONZE: The Sightsavers Garden: We Start With Sight But We Don’t Stop There — container garden by Peter Karn, Sarah Fisher and Janice Molyneux

One of the many joys of collaboration is that the whole is always greater than the sum of the parts. So when Country Life asked the architect, George Saumarez Smith, to design a garden lover’s library at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show, it precipitated a chain reaction.

First, he drew all three elevations by hand, complete with architectural detailing, wallpaper, and artwork on the walls, creating a trompe-l’œil that included a long view through a window to an imaginary folly. The result celebrates his love for both drawing and classical architecture, as well as his fiancée, Jane Kennerley's, passion for plants.

To bring the space to life, he worked with Watts 1874, the furniture brand Munders Skiles and Artorius Faber, the specialist in British stone, who gave shape to his designs for a floor, fireplace and a pair of magnificent obelisks.

If there is a theme that is central to this project — and which George Saumarez Smith expresses so eloquently — it is the creative possibilities of the human hand. Everything in the space was conceived with both pen and pencil, an art form that is becoming increasingly rare with the rise of digital technology.

Drawing is at the heart of his work, both designing new buildings and bringing old buildings to life — as well as recording the grammar of classicism that he explored in Sketchbooks, which was published by Triglyph in 2021. The result is an exciting project that draws together the passions he shares with Country Life as we approach our 130th year.

The Country Life ‘Garden Lover’s Library’, designed by George Saumarez Smith of Adam Architecture, is at stand PW215 at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, May 18–23.

To celebrate, you can buy a year-long subscription for £150 and save more than 40% on the cover price. International offers also available. Until May 31.

The first 200 subscribers at Chelsea will receive a bottle of The Grange Classic Sparkling NV, worth £39. Rated 94 points by Decanter magazine, this premium sparkling wine from Hampshire was described in Country Life as ‘the connoisseur’s choice’. Offer available with subscriptions for UK delivery only.

If variety is the spice of life, then the 2026 RHS Chelsea Flower Show promises to be a richly varied show, this year sponsored for the first time by Range Rover. The gardens, as always, are far-reaching in their ambitions and presentation. Some have been brought from, or inspired by, locations across the world; others celebrate our homegrown traditions, drawing upon historical references and a very English passion for horticulture.

Nowhere is the comfort of familiar things more winningly presented than in The RHS and The King’s Foundation Curious Garden, by Frances Tophill. In essence, it is a charming English cottage garden with a centrepiece open-sided, oak-frame building, around which are productive raised beds, edged with wattle hurdles. Billed as an educational exhibit, its beds nurture abundant homegrown vegetables, flowers for cutting, herbs, dyer’s plants, and a summer bonanza of herbaceous blooms (including The King’s favourite blue delphiniums).

A traditional beehive, teepees of climbing flowers, fruit bushes and some quirky topiaries support its rustic theme. This charming and horticulturally intensive garden could well be the show’s top crowd pleaser. The point of its beautifully crafted oak hut is to display worthwhile har-vests gleaned from the homestead garden, variously dried, pickled and bottled.

A royal connection continues in The Boodles Garden, by Catherine MacDonald, inspired by key features within the Historic Royal Palaces. For example, a rill around its central flagstoned and crazy-paved courtyard hints at the shape of the (now dry) moat at the Tower of London; a ceiling in Queen Charlotte’s rustic Cottage within the botanical gardens at Kew inspired the latticed design of a central pavilion. This pretty garden features flowers in gemstone colours, such as regal purple and dark ruby in Astrantia major ‘Claret’, burgundy-petalled ‘Buckeye Belle’ peonies and darkest-violet Iris ‘Superstition’.

Plentiful flowers in both rich and pastel colours enhance The Lady Garden Foundation ‘Silent no More’ display, by Darren Hawkes. Its sculptural walls and alcoves are in peachy tones, reminiscent of rendered adobe. Curvaceous and subtly feminine, the walls are prettily draped in roses and vines. This year has not delivered the kindest start to spring for delicate iris blooms (even when the sun has shone, it has often been paired with a cold north wind), but look out for the ravishing Iris ‘Wondrous’, a peaches-and-cream charmer.

Warm-tinted elevations of a wilder kind feature in The Project Giving Back Garden, by James Basson. It focuses on a series of gouged-out, golden-orange ‘cliffs’ set within a forest of Scots pine trees (Pinus sylvestris), echoing an ancient, quarried landscape around Roussillon in southern France. This area has been mined since prehistoric times for the red and golden ochre pigments locked in its hills; the iron oxides give local villages their characteristic warm colours.

Basson has pushed the boundaries of garden versus wild landscape in previous shows and executes his wildernesses with panache and deft plantsmanship. Expect the ambience of the South, with aromas of pine, cistus, heather and thyme.

Is 2026 the year of the pine tree? The Eden Project Bring Me Sunshine Garden features Austrian or black pines (Pinus nigra) to provide structure and scale across its evocation of a coastal garden. Its moated ‘open-air classroom’ in the garden’s heart is roofed with a shell-shaped canopy, with paths fanning out into different parts of the garden, among grasses, meadow flowers and edibles, such as sea kale, samphire and artichokes. It is a sample, in miniature, of the Eden Project’s proposed satellite garden in Morecambe, Lancashire, due to open in 2028.

Specimen Scots pines lend a different feel to the Asthma + Lung UK Breathing Space Garden by Angus Thompson, pictured at the top of the page. Amid a show with much curvaceousness, this is one of the few rectilinear gardens. Mr Thompson draws upon the Japanese concept of yohaku no bi (the beauty of empty space), ‘a design philosophy that values restraint and uncluttering, reducing visual noise and allowing both mind and body to rest,’ he says.

The empty space is a large, cantilevered platform in the garden’s heart, appearing to float above water. Its gnarled pines are placed to anchor the garden amid soft, woodland-edge planting in a predominantly soothing green and white palette.

Compare and contrast it with Tokonama Garden — Sanumaya no Niwa, which delivers a different flavour of Japanese gardening, from Kazuyuki Ishihara and Paul Noritaka Tange. Crowded with colour and incident, yet mesmerising and contemplative in their refined detail, Mr Ishihara’s gardens have charmed showgoers for more than 20 years with their compositions of serene waterscapes, neat little buildings and layered emerald, lime and copper leaves of acers.

His pine trees differ greatly from all others at the show, being of the discreet, bonsai kind, crouching at the waterside among the immaculately positioned rocks and vivid green moss.

Inspiration from East Asia continues, in the planting of The Tate Britain Garden, by Tom Stuart-Smith. It showcases part of the new Clore Garden at Tate Britain on London’s Millbank, due to open later this year. Its serpentine pathway incorporates an inlaid water feature including bronze dishes and lights, with water flowing along thin rills.

The heart of the garden displays Barbara Hepworth’s Bicentric Form (1949), plucked from Tate’s collection for the duration of the show. Planting is drawn from Asian woodland species, including Schefflera shweliensis, from the Himalayas, and Japanese sago palm Cycas revoluta, as well as fruiting trees, such as figs, pineapple guava and pomegranates.

Still with thoughts from abroad, the Indian Pacific epic train ride across Australia has inspired Journey Beyond the Tracks: From Adelaide to Perth, by Max Parker-Smith. Its central garden building is modelled on a railway carriage, facing ‘the wild Western Australian outback’ on one side, with tiered sand beds and native plants.

The other side suggests the city of Adelaide, its national-park status and cooling water among much greenery. Planting throughout focuses on native species including gnarled eucalyptus trees and bright flowers, particularly reds, from callistemons, grevilleas, hakea and the felty fingers of kangaroo paw, Anigozanthos.

At home and away, there is something for everyone at Chelsea — including Country Life’s elegant stand. Do drop by to say ‘hello’.

The Country Life ‘Garden Lover’s Library’, designed by George Saumarez Smith of Adam Architecture, is at stand PW215 at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, May 18–23.

To celebrate, you can buy a year-long subscription for £150 and save more than 40% on the cover price. International offers also available. Until May 31.

The first 200 subscribers at Chelsea will receive a bottle of The Grange Classic Sparkling NV, worth £39. Rated 94 points by Decanter magazine, this premium sparkling wine from Hampshire was described in Country Life as ‘the connoisseur’s choice’. Offer available with subscriptions for UK delivery only.

The Country Life quiz runs daily every afternoon, with new editions published on weekdays at 4pm.

Missed a day? Want more quizzes? Catch up with all our previous quizzes here.

In parallel with the British enthusiasm for gardening, we have always had an appetite for gardening books. Every month fresh titles appear, beautifully photographed and packed with suggestions for making better gardens. Carry on through the bookshop to the second-hand section, however, and you’ll find books that are as useful now as when they were first published. Thus, it was a no brainer to fill Garden Lover's Library, Country Life's stand at this year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show, with hundreds of vintage gardening books.

The way a rambling rose should be pruned in 2026 is exactly the same as it was in 1926. The reliance on chemicals may have changed, some plant names have been reclassified and tastes in garden styles have certainly altered, but the fundamental practice of making and maintaining a garden remains, by and large, the same.

Without sumptuous photography, earlier books relied very much on their authors’ skills to explain, evoke and entertain, often providing a rich and entertaining read. In addition, each has been handled, used and appreciated by our predecessors, providing a link back in time to other gardeners and reminding us that our guardianship of our gardens is only temporary.

The book I consult most for practical advice is the RHS Dictionary of Gardening, second edition, published in 1956 and originally owned, according to the elaborate bookplate, by Arthur J. Davis. Everything a gardener needs is contained within its four volumes. Mine was found 20 years ago and I regularly see copies when exploring bookshops. It is a compendium worth acquiring.

The techniques of gardening do not change, but the fashion in plants does. In her 1869 book The Fern Garden, Shirley Hibberd apologises to readers ‘perplexed by the abundance of books on the subject. Almost everybody has written a book on ferns’. Perhaps then, but not now. Second-hand books dedicated to families of plants no longer popular or fashionable are easy to find. Volumes abound on phlox, gladiolus, carnations and lilies. Considering growing violets? Then get hold of a copy of Howard H. Crane’s 1908 work The Book of the Pansy, Viola and Violet.

The names of most of these early 20th-century writers have not endured, but a few wrote books of such significance that they are unlikely to be surpassed. E. A. Bowles’s A Handbook of Crocus and Colchicum for Gardeners, published in 1924, is a magisterial study of the two plants, filled with anecdotes and accessible to the general reader.

Marion Cran, now long forgotten, was a prolific writer of gardening books at the beginning of the century and one of the few women to be made, in 1913, a Fellow of the RHS. Her books are easy to find, entertaining, informative and a joy to read. The Garden of Ignorance offers straightforward garden advice woven through a sanitised autobiography (she was married three times and had a child outside marriage). It details her journey of discovery of plants, horticultural techniques and aspects of design that every gardener takes at the start of their gardening life.

Sometimes, an author’s name that is not even vaguely familiar will emerge from the bookshelves. Little known in Britain, writer and designer Edna Walling, who died in 1973, was at one time the most revered gardener in Australia, celebrated both for her books and for the gardens she created, including one for Dame Nellie Melba. Gardens in Australia: Their Design and Care, published in 1943, weaves her interest in the Arts-and-Crafts Movement and her familiarity with Italian gardens into an account of the landscape, climate and flora of Australia.

Most of these second-hand books can be bought for no more than a few pounds but those by some well-known personalities, such as Gertrude Jekyll, are valued far higher. In 1912, Country Life published Jekyll and Sir Lawrence Weaver’s Gardens for Small Country Houses. Jekyll, probably the most famous garden designer at the time, was a regular contributor to the magazine and Weaver was its Architectural Editor. It is an imposing, large-format book that lands with a thud on the desk and demands to be read sat upright.

Although these old books are sources of information — and sometimes of new ideas — a considerable part of their interest and charm lies in the handwritten dedications, elegant bookplates, marginalia, the pieces of notepaper and even pressed flowers, hidden for decades, that fall from between the pages. Lists of plants made by previous owners, a certificate in recompense for a display of sweet peas, a pressed tulip, and an advertisement for Clay & Son, ‘Manure Manufacturers and Bone Crushers’ in east London, are only a few of the gems that my books have sheltered.

It is this link to the past that makes these books so appealing. A thread reaches back not only to the gardening joys and frustrations that we all face, but to the lives of the unknown fellow readers and gardeners that came before us, and to the times they gardened in.

Country Life’s favourite vintage gardening books

Charles Quest-Ritson

My favourite gardening book? Goodness, that's difficult. I value most my run of the RHS's Journal — before it became The Garden and went down market. I have all of the editions since joining the RHS in 1972, and inherited 1950-1971 from my grandmother. Such wisdom… and such stylish writing!

Amy Merrick — stylist, writer and Country Life contributor

Onward and Upward in the Garden (1979) by Katharine White is a collection of essays for the New Yorker where she was the fiction editor but also moonlighted as a gardening columnist; her lively literary criticism of seed catalogs is especially genius. As other books go, it's the incredibly special illustrations by John Farleigh in Old Fashioned Flowers by Sacheverell Sitwell (1939) that make this book so cherished to me: auriculas, pinks, moss roses, each in perfect deco style. Elizabeth and her German Garden (1898) by Elizabeth von Arnim is also a favourite; her ascorbic wit and delight in flowers never fail to amuse.

Isabel Bannerman and Julian Bannerman — garden designers, writers and Country Life contributors

For Julian and I, books and gardening are indivisible, our house is swamped with books. Julian would choose all of Vita Sackville West's collected garden writing, especially In Your Garden which was published when he was born in 1951 and since then has become a loadstone for many gardeners. It is a beautiful object and seminal writing. Among our most precious books are limited editions of Sackville West's poems 'The Land' and 'The Garden', but sometimes I just need to get my hands on a copy of Margery Fish, say. I would choose Roy Genders’ gardening books — practical and gentle books written on every subject with the kind of knowledge which was possible in a world without the distractions and delights of modern living. When I need to re-ignite my love of landscape and gardens though I often turn to Russian literature; to Turgenev, Pasternak and Nabokov for some unparalleled observation and yearning. To read a handsome hard back before getting up in the morning is a pleasure beyond measure.

Mary Keen — garden designer, writer and Country Life contributor

Most gardening books fall into predictable catégories. Boastful, Bossy, Beguiling and Beautiful are all useful, but rarely funny. So my choice, in the unique ‘Bewildered’ category, is Karel Capek’s The Gardener's Year. His puzzled record of failures is written in the most delightful way as he wrestles with the coils of a hose, steps on the shoots of emerging rarities, bewails the state of his soil, bickers about identifying plants, agonises over the weather and worries whenever he leaves the garden with which he is totally obsessed. Written in 1929, it remains the most truthful and funny account of what it is to be a gardener.

Tilly Ware — gardener, writer and Country Life contributor

Plant Names Simplified (1931), the exact size to fit a back pocket, comes with me everywhere. The pronunciation, history and etymology make it indispensable at nurseries or garden visits, a kick-start to intimacy with a plant. Extra joy comes from accidental discoveries on either side of the name you’re looking up, a nudging reminder of all sorts of things you’d forgotten or ignored, a serendipity that the internet never provides. This is the book I give anyone starting to garden: it demystifies the vast botanical world, building confidence and understanding of different habits and needs. There’s so much to be discovered in a name.

The Country Life 'Garden Lover’s Library', designed by George Saumarez-Smith of ADAM Architecture features a myriad of vintage gardening books. It is at stand PW215 at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show from May 18–23. To celebrate, you can purchase a year-long subscription for £150 and save more than 40% on the cover price. International offers are available, too. If you’re attending the Show, you can subscribe in person and receive a complimentary bottle of The Grange sparkling wine. Limited to the first 200 UK-based subscribers. Until May 31, 2026

The introduction to this feature first appeared in the September 24, 2025, issue of Country Life and has since been cut down and edited. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

The Country Life quiz runs daily every afternoon, with new editions published on weekdays at 4pm.

Missed a day? Want more quizzes? Catch up with all our previous quizzes here.

The Country Life quiz runs daily every afternoon, with new editions published on weekdays at 4pm.

Missed a day? Want more quizzes? Catch up with all our previous quizzes here.

'The best bit of advice I was ever given for dressing at Chelsea,’ garden designer James Alexander-Sinclair reveals, ‘is to wear sensible shoes. Thankfully, I am not a slingback kind of guy.’

The perennial question for those planning a visit to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show is what to wear. Practicality is a priority — weather conditions and walking around 11 acres of showground demand it — but it needn’t come at the expense of dressing up, which is part of the show’s charm.

For men, a shirt with a lightweight wool blend or linen suit looks smart and is appropriate for the spectrum of weather conditions. Neutral tones are refreshing and classic blues can be enlivened by a bolt of colour in your tie or pocket square (Alan Titchmarsh, above, chose bubblegum pink for his last year). Avoid a new-shoe debut; instead, a soft loafer or suede boot will keep you fit on your feet.

Ladies keen for a change from the florals can try stripes or tropical motifs (Alémais is good for both). A single colour head to toe looks particularly striking against the hustle and bustle of plants and people. Shirt dresses and heavier linen styles are smart and summery, yet offer welcome warmth should the sun dip. A cardigan is indispensable, even if it spends the day around your shoulders, or take a cue from Isabelle de la Bruyère and accessorise with a gracefully draped shawl.

Comfortable shoes don’t have to be staid. A pointed or almond-toe flat is elegant; a wedge style is sustainable for walking; and if, unlike James, you can’t resist a slingback, choose one with a chunkier heel. Even a little extra height can work miracles.

Pack a small umbrella (‘they’re expensive to buy at the show,’ warns Editor-in-Chief Mark Hedges). A handkerchief is wise if hayfever is a concern with the plane trees in full force. Glasses — sun and reading — are not to be forgotten and a notebook is useful (Smythson’s Chelsea design is a fitting choice).

The most important accessory? A smile — it is a blooming marvellous occasion after all.

The Country Life ‘Garden Lover’s Library’, designed by George Saumarez Smith of Adam Architecture, is at stand PW215 at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, May 18–23.

To celebrate, you can buy a year-long subscription for £150 and save more than 40% on the cover price. International offers also available. Until May 31.

The first 200 subscribers at Chelsea will receive a bottle of The Grange Classic Sparkling NV, worth £39. Rated 94 points by Decanter magazine, this premium sparkling wine from Hampshire was described in Country Life as ‘the connoisseur’s choice’. Offer available with subscriptions for UK delivery only.

Despite all the excitement over the famous faces, it is the plants that are the real stars of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, which opens next week (May 19–23). If our gardens are anything to go by, then this year promises to deliver an awe-inspiring display of perfect flowers and brilliant foliage. Whether you are a seasoned visitor or will be heading to the Royal Hospital grounds for the first time, here are Country Life’s tips to ensure you get the best out of the show—and don’t forget to visit our stand (PW215).

1. Don’t go with the flow. In all the hustle and bustle of actually getting to the showground (and, once inside, encountering the often overwhelming rush of humanity), it’s easy to forget what you came to see. Some will have a check list of gardens and nurseries drawn up and tick them off one by one. Others take a cartographic approach, first heading up Main Avenue to look at the big show gardens, from there looping round the back to the smaller gardens and finally working their way through the Great Pavilion. Both systems work, but it pays always to head to where the crowds are thinnest and, if you can, be there for the last couple of hours in the day when things quieten down.
2. Pre-arrange a meeting spot. Even with mobile phones, it’s surprisingly easy not to hear the ring or to miss an urgent message. The picnic tables by the coffee stalls in Ranelagh Gardens are usually a good bet and offer some shade, too.
3. Allow plenty of time for the Great Pavilion. This is the heart of the show, where you’ll find new and rare plants immaculately grown and displayed. There’s always so much to see and never enough time.
4. Take notes. Have a notebook and pen or mobile phone to hand for jotting down favourite things in the Great Pavilion. The individual plant displays are particularly useful in comparing like for like: tulips and daffodils, roses, sweet peas, delphiniums and peonies, to mention but a few. This way, you’ll be ready to put in orders with specialist suppliers for that never-before-seen specimen before it sells out.
5. Examine plant groupings. If there is one thing you should keep in mind as you look at the show gardens, it is how their creators combine plants. In the quiet understorey of a bold design are the clever pairings of colour and shape and contrasting or complementary silhouettes and forms. This is what mere mortals most struggle to get right, but if you look carefully and photograph those plant groups you like, you can reproduce them at home — always bearing in mind your own garden’s soil and situation.
6. Check the forecast and wear comfortable shoes. Boring, but important.
7. Last, but not least: don’t worry if you don’t see everything — it is almost impossible to do so. Simply make a glorious day of it and come home with a head brimful of beautiful flowers and ideas for your own garden.

This feature first appeared in the May 13, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

The Country Life 'Garden Lover’s Library', designed by George Saumarez-Smith of ADAM Architecture, is at stand PW215 at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show from May 18–23. To celebrate, you can purchase a year-long subscription for £150 and save more than 40% on the cover price. International offers are available, too. If you’re attending the Show, you can subscribe in person and receive a complimentary bottle of The Grange sparkling wine. Limited to the first 200 UK-based subscribers. Until May 31, 2026 (https://countrylifesubs.co.uk/Flowers).

The Country Life quiz runs daily every afternoon, with new editions published on weekdays at 4pm.

Missed a day? Want more quizzes? Catch up with all our previous quizzes here.

The best way to get to know George Saumarez Smith is to look at his work. ‘In a way, every time I design a house for somebody else, I'm sort of slightly designing it for myself. With any creative thing there's always a piece of you in it,’ the architect says.

When I look at George’s design for the Country Life stand at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show, it is easy to see parts of him in there.

His love of tradition is reflected in the white and blue colourway, reminiscent of delftware; his predilection for the wacky in the eclectic collection of vintage gardening books that will line the stand’s shelves; his slight neuroses in the neat lines that run through the design as a whole.

George has been a director of ADAM Architecture since 2004 and has worked on everything from country houses to more urban designs.

His grandfather was the leading Classical architect Raymond Erith, who was chosen to rebuild 10 and 11, Downing Street after they had been bombed in the war.

George has passed his love of drawing on to his two sons (the eldest of which is studying architecture) who he shares with his ex-wife. His fiancée Jane Kennerley is similarly creative — he has roped her in to attend to the plants on the Country Life stand.

The couple live apart, but are planning to move in together soon, which may prove difficult as George’s house is hardly sparsely decorated.

His Winchester home demands to be looked at. Black-beige wallpaper in a botanical print serves as the backdrop to a wide-ranging art collection. Silver and gold candlesticks holding slender orange and pink candles fight for space on the large living room table with an army of different papers and books. For reasons entirely unclear to me, he boils his kettle on the floor.

George’s mother was a tapestry designer. His bookseller father also had a big impact on him growing up (hence the many books set to line the shelves of the Country Life stand, and the even larger collection in George’s own home).

‘​​I wanted it to have a sort of antique feel about it. So the rule is the books have to be a minimum of 40 years old. So 1986 is the cut off,’ he says. I pick one up at random. It’s a beautiful gardening book, but somehow it has snuck through the cracks; the publication date is 1994. ‘We can’t have that,’ says George, aghast. I joke that I am sure no one will notice, but he is adamant, ejecting it from the pile with vigour.

George had one older brother, Joe, who died last year ‘much too young’ from a rare form of cancer, aged 53. It has affected him greatly. ‘You just assume that your sibling will always be there,’ he says. At one point when we are discussing Joe he looks as though he might cry. He considers whether this is on or off the record before ultimately deciding ‘it might help to sort of add something interesting to the piece’.

His pain is clearly still incredibly fresh, and his brother's memory is everywhere, but George is throwing himself into Chelsea preparations headfirst. That’s always what his brother used to do with things he loved, George says.

Your aesthetic hero

In England, there's an architect called Andrea Palladio, who is particularly influential — Palladian architecture comes from Palladio. There's a near-contemporary of Palladio called Michele Sanmicheli, who came from Verona, and I think he's my architectural hero. Every building I've seen of his has got that stamp of confidence and quality about it, and he designed a very wide range of buildings. He's my real hero, and I would go quite a long way out of my way to go and see buildings of his.

A book you’ve found inspiring

A book called Venice, by Jan Morris. I think it’s the best travel book ever written. I have my grandfather's copy and the opening two pages of it actually move me to tears. The writing is just extraordinary.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

I don't go to exhibitions as much as I would like, but Jane and I went to an exhibition last year at the Design Museum, and it was all about the Blitz Club. It was amazing.

The last podcast you listened to

I listened to a podcast that's called About Buildings + Cities. There are two hosts, Luke Jones and George Gingelland. They have a very sort of down-the-line, architecture school view on everything, and so I quite like listening to it, because often I will disagree with what they're saying, and I think that it's good to listen to that, because it kind of gives you a sense of balance.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

What I actually thought was, nobody's going to make a film about my life, because it would just be lots of really, really boring close ups of me doing unbelievably slow, painstaking drawings. It would make a terrible film. I don't know who would play me. I don't know enough actors to be able to answer.

The last thing of note that you bought for yourself

I collect lino cuts and cardboard prints by an artist called Sheila Robinson. I recently bought another. Her mastery of the printing technique is just incredible. This is from a spice market in Istanbul. She did a few prints in Istanbul. I think I'm probably the biggest private collector, I've got about 35 of her pieces.

The music that you work to

I think I've got quite eclectic musical tastes, as most people do in the days of Spotify. When I was at school, the art master used to play music over the speakers in the art studio, and so we had no choice over the music that was playing, and he was a big Leonard Cohen fan. It seemed very grown up when we were at school, these songs that were about grown-up subjects sung by a man with a very low, gravelly voice. I really then developed a love for him, and so if I need to really concentrate, it is definitely his music.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

I said earlier about how much I love lino cuts. I used to do them at school, and I now collect them, and one of the things I'm always thinking to myself is, it would be fun to do more lino cuts. And that never happens, because as an architect, there's always a lot happening, and so things that you think you've got time for, you don't. So, on a desert island, what I'd really like is lots of lino cutting tools, ink and an Albion press, which is like a big, massive cast iron press. I could make lino cuts of palm trees.

Your favourite painting

It's a difficult question to answer, because my favourite painting probably is going to be a different one today from if you'd asked me a week ago, but I have always loved this painting. I was at university in Edinburgh and it's in the National Gallery of Scotland, so I often used to go and look at it. It's The Virgin and Child with Saints Jerome, Peter, Francis and an Unidentified Female Saint by Lorenzo Lotto. It is such an amazing picture. There's something about the kind of architectural nature of it with the layer behind them, and the scene in front, which seems to be sort of part of it, but somehow separate too. I love the painting, because for me it's about Venetian painting, but it's also about memories of living in Edinburgh.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

I mean, honestly, I feel lucky to do a job that I love, so I don't really ever have any problems with motivation. I think that it's an incredible gift and privilege to end up doing a job where you never have to even think about getting out of bed.

The items you collect

Sheila Robinson prints, lino cuts in particular, lustre ware jugs, lot of books obviously — and recently, gardening books.

A hotel you could go back and back to

Years ago, I designed a house in New Delhi, and I used to be put up by the clients in the Imperial Hotel, and I really loved it. It's just the most well run, incredible hotel.

A possession you would never sell

My sketchbooks. In 1986 I had two friends called Francis and Jane (not my fiancée Jane) and we thought it would be fun to go on a trip around country houses in England. So we each went and bought a sketchbook, mine was made by Cinelli in Paris, but I bought it from a shop in Russell Street in London. I drew a plan with dimensions on it of all the buildings on our trip. My friend said I should name the sketchbook, because one day I might have loads of them. And so, because we'd just been to Kedleston Hall, and it's a particularly Roman building, I wrote the name of the first Roman emperor, Augustus, on the spine of the book. The sketchbooks are now full of measured drawings of buildings from all over the world.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten

So unlike my brother — he was a real foodie, he would literally go to the other side of the city just to visit a cheese shop — I am not as into food as he was. And I mean, memorable meals for me tend to be the people around the table as much as the food. And we've had lots of family meals over the years around this table. It's nice because it's by candlelight. Slightly unexpectedly, given my furniture tastes, this dining room table is actually steel. The children and I used to play ping pong on it.

The best present you’ve ever received

There's a little family tradition that we make cards for each other at Christmas and for birthdays, and both of my children have inherited a love of drawing, and so one is at Camberwell School of Art at the moment, and the other is at the Glasgow School of Art, so getting handmade cards from them is my favourite thing.

The Country Life ‘Garden Lover’s Library’, designed by George Saumarez Smith of Adam Architecture, is at stand PW215 at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, May 18–23.

To celebrate, you can buy a year-long subscription for £150 and save more than 40% on the cover price. International offers also available. Until May 31.

The first 200 subscribers at Chelsea will receive a bottle of The Grange Classic Sparkling NV, worth £39. Rated 94 points by Decanter magazine, this premium sparkling wine from Hampshire was described in Country Life as ‘the connoisseur’s choice’. Offer available with subscriptions for UK delivery only.

The Country Life quiz runs daily every afternoon, with new editions published on weekdays at 4pm.

Missed a day? Want more quizzes? Catch up with all our previous quizzes here.

The Country Life quiz runs daily every afternoon, with new editions published on weekdays at 4pm.

Missed a day? Want more quizzes? Catch up with all our previous quizzes here.

When the Country Life stand at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show is unveiled, it will shine a spotlight on our home-grown stone. For the ‘Garden Lover’s Library’, architect George Saumarez Smith of ADAM Architecture has conceived a classically inspired domestic interior. As part of the stand, he commissioned Somerset-based English stone specialists Artorius Faber to create a fireplace carved from fossil limestone in mid-grey from Derbyshire and a geometric floor featuring hexagons of blue-black limestone from southern Ireland and triangles of grey-cream limestone from Derbyshire. Completing the stonework on display is a pair of bespoke decorative obelisks displayed on the mantelpiece. These are made from Cloam English agglomerate.

Not many visitors to the show will instantly recognise the stones. Those typically associated with this country are building stones, such as those from Portland, which were used to build large parts of Georgian London, alongside the honey-coloured stone of the Cotswolds and the sandstones of the North. Few British limestones have been embraced for interiors, although with an eye on environmental impact and a desire to use more native materials, that is changing.

Edward Smith, co-founder of the family-run firm, is just back from a trip to the southern American states of Alabama and Tennessee. The American South is a growing market for their products, he explains. It’s where homeowners are particularly interested in the idea of using British stones for their house projects.

Significantly, none of the samples that Smith was demonstrating to his American clients replicates the classic look of stones typically used in high-end interiors. That landscape has been heavily dominated by Carrara, Arabescato and Statuario marbles in the past few decades. ‘White marbles are unique to Italy and Greece and we don’t have a similar very pale or white hard-wearing replica,’ Smith explains. ‘The marble-like stones we do have in this country come in browns, greys and pinks.’

Part of the somewhat limited market for British stone comes down to scale. Anyone driving north from the airport in Verona can’t fail to notice a vast tract of hillside bearing the scars of large-scale quarrying, feeding the hungry appetites for book-matched Rosso Verona, a distinctive, durable red or pink ammonitic limestone from the Lessini mountains. The Apuan Alps in the northernmost tip of Tuscany have been quarried since Roman times. There, Carrara, Arabescato and Statuario marble is cut out of the face of the quarry in large chunks.

English stones are dug out in smaller quantities and most British quarries exist to create aggregate. Only about 10% of what gets extracted ends up cut and polished — the other 90% is typically used in construction for roads, concrete and other uses. ‘Purbeck Marble was used extensively as decorative details for churches, but never received the immense and sustained patronage that Italian marble benefited from,’ says Smith.

The family behind Artorius Faber began working in the early 1990s when the appetite for hard flooring was growing in the UK. Chinese slate and Spanish terracotta captivated the market at the time, but the company spotted a gap serving a desire for matching or tying in stones within existing country house floors, such as flagstones.

Everything they do is bespoke and the team work on anything from flooring to staircases, architraves, fireplaces, stone basins, terraces and steps. One of their landmark projects includes the Weston Tower in Westminster Abbey. Constructed in 2018 and designed by Ptolemy Dean, it is a square lift shaft encased in 16 different stone types representing all the stones found at the abbey. Others include the reclaimed stone terrace at Annabel’s, designed by Martin Brudnizki Design Studio. They also made the black-and-white paving of the terrace at recently renovated Monmouth House in London’s Hyde Park Gate based on evidence of the garden terracing designed by Edwin Lutyens for the house in 1928.

Artorius Faber owns a quarry on the Isle of Purbeck near Swanage in Dorset. Here, the limestone has 17 layers, each of which has a different colour and application. As the layers were created at different times with different minerals and sea animals, each one performs differently from the next. For example, some will be frost-proof, others not; some will have lots of fossils, while others will be plainer. They also buy blocks from more than 60 others located in all parts of the British Isles, including limestone from southern Ireland through to sandstone from Yorkshire and Lancashire.

Embracing British stone, rather than reaching for popular European marbles, requires a change in mindset, Smith believes. ‘British Stone has a kind of less-is-more style, it’s the classic understatement and more designers are using the hard British stones instead of white marbles due to their uniqueness.’ Rather than creating whole marble bathrooms, it’s about having a simple bath surround or a vanity top on top of an antique washstand. ‘It also has a sense of belonging, thanks to its colour texture and the fact that it’s an integral part of this landscape.’

Furthermore, natural British stone doesn’t date. ‘While cheap imports of travertine, which were fashionable in the 1990s, are now being taken out, we’ve never had to replace a floor that a client has become tired of in 36 years of owning the business. In a world hooked on speed and disposability, stone is a fixed element and, with the right care, will last forever. Clients understand this — they consider the legacy of what they are passing on.’

There are other benefits, too. Compared with marbles from further afield, the carbon footprint of British stone is light. It’s quarried, cut and polished with minimal additives and, more importantly, blocks are selected and cut for specific projects with very little wastage.

Anyone considering using British stone in a significant way, such as a floor of the type on display at the Country Life stand, needs to design it in at the earliest stages. ‘That’s why we like architects and designers to come to the workshop to see the materials and design from the ground up with that element in place from the beginning — not as an afterthought,’ says Smith. ‘A stone floor should be designed for the space; it’s part of the architecture, not a transient covering.’

To ensure someone is on hand to help, visits to the Artorius Faber showroom in Yeovil, Somerset, are by appointment only from Monday to Friday, 7am – 5pm. Contact the team on 01935 847333 or fill in a form here.

The Country Life ‘Garden Lover’s Library’, designed by George Saumarez Smith of Adam Architecture, is at stand PW215 at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, May 18–23.

The Country Life quiz runs daily every afternoon, with new editions published on weekdays at 4pm.

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The Dowager Countess

Although now advanced in years, Serena considers her annual visit to the Royal Enclosure at Ascot as essential as Christmas. It has taken her nearly two decades to come to terms with the new grandstand, but even she has to admit the escalators do make things easier in her dotage, especially after a Bollinger-boosted picnic. She finds the name badges incredibly useful when she can’t remember what those people they met in Spain are called, although she has never got used to the idea of men, particularly ones she doesn’t really know, looking intently at her, admittedly ample, bosom. The older the man, the worse the eyesight, the more lingering the hard stare.

She hankers after that time she and her late husband were invited by His Majesty’s Representative to lunch in his box, and she was charmed by a man called Rio, who seemed to know more about football than racing, but was giving a prize nevertheless and looked splendid in a top hat.

Her grandson’s racing tips are always enthusiastically communicated, if rarely fiscally sound, although the horses Serena really likes to watch are the ones in the Royal Procession as the carriages make their way down the racecourse. Rupert Uloth

The Hay veterans

Before he went freelance as a literary PR, Tom was a Penguin publicist, so he has been coming to Hay for years. When they first got together, Stuart, who runs a cheese shop in Bloomsbury, thought a weekend at the world’s most famous book festival sounded jolly. Tom quickly disabused him of this notion: going to Hay is not unlike going to war, specifically the First World War, in that there is a lot of mud and everyone wants to kill each other.

They stay in a draughty farmhouse a 15-minute drive away: the owner, Mrs Davies, waves them off each morning with a picnic of homemade quiche and Welsh cakes. As Stuart has been put on Mounjaro by his GP, he reluctantly gives most of his lunch to Tom, although he does sneak in a scoop of blackberry-ripple ice cream from Shepherds. Eschewing the digital programme so as not to be hostage to the wifi, Tom gets them printed programmes, which he attacks with highlighters and places in plastic wallets. They both have tote bags: Tom’s is from Daunt Books, Stuart’s hopefully advertises his shop.

There’s so much to see that no breaks are allowed; thanks to Tom’s connections, they secure front-row seats for Zadie Smith and Margaret Atwood and invitations to all the after-parties. Tom is in his element at these, trading publishing gossip with agents and knocking back the Cloudy Bay sauvignon blanc. Stuart, nursing an alcohol-free beer as designated driver, wonders whether there are any Welsh cakes left in Mrs Davies’s larder. Emma Hughes

The schoolboy rower’s squeeze

Poppy thought (and hoped) it was a rock festival when new boyfriend Jack first invited her to join his parents for Henley. If she had known it was a regular parade of simultaneously bulging male biceps she would have been even more enthusiastic. Correctly attired for the Stewards’ Enclosure in a long flowing dress below the knee, it is, however, unfortunate that, by the time Jack’s Eton eight heaves into view, Poppy’s eyes have become decidedly misty after repeatedly accepting glasses of Champagne from men in a visual cacophony of brightly striped blazers, some of whom she knows.

Jack’s father, a member of the Cambridge eight in 1984, insists they go to the Leander Club to watch the teams ‘boat’, a journey that Poppy only completes after stumbling into an official she later learns won an Olympic gold in 1996. His crucial job on Finals day is to track the Princess Grace Challenge Cup, awarded to the now exuberant women’s quadruple sculls, before it disappears into a mêlée or, worse still, the Thames.

Reunited with Jack at last, Poppy develops a second wind for the after-party on Saturday night when schoolboys, university girls and Olympic heroes from across the world all join up for the traditional celebration in the centre of Henley town, an evening when Jack’s father, Poppy is relieved to note, is ensconced at the bar of the Leander Club fully distracted by his cerise sock-wearing former crew mates. RU

The former tennis prodigy

The first fortnight in July is bittersweet for Boris. When he was born in 1985, his parents named him after the young Becker, who had just won his first title, hoping that their son might emulate the German’s heroics one day. He did make it to the quarter-finals of junior Wimbledon, but this was not enough to secure membership of the highly exclusive All England Tennis & Croquet Club. Like everyone else, he has to enter the online ballot for tickets, although his ageing mother still cannot understand why he doesn’t simply send in a stamped addressed envelope like she always did.

His job as a country solicitor is fairly humdrum, although it was a thrill last year when a new client turned out to have debenture seats; Boris is keeping his fingers crossed that successfully expunging a footpath across the hedge funder’s field by use of an obscure bye-law will secure an invitation this year.

He regularly plays tennis with his wife, Anna, at Rye Lawn Tennis Club and she loves the annual outing, dressing up in her floral ME+EM dress with a denim jacket and little plimsolls, a topped-up tan, blonded hair and expensive sunglasses. He was mortified when the umpire admonished them for their exploding Champagne cork that landed in the tram lines on Centre Court last year and has made a vow to stick to jugs of Pimm’s instead. They could go by car and park in one of the nearby private driveways, although Boris resents the fact that one acquaintance of his makes enough money this way for an annual Mauritius holiday. As if the strawberries aren’t expensive enough.

The Glyndebourne Under 30s member

By the time Francesca’s parents were her age they had a four-bedroom house in Wandsworth, two children and a dog. Francesca has none of these things — but she does have a Glyndebourne Under 30s membership, which is now freighted with all her hopes for upper-middle-class adulthood.

In preparation for Don Giovanni, to which she has invited five friends via an increasingly passive-aggressive Whatsapp group, she has bought a second-hand Edwardian-style hamper on wheels off eBay and stayed up until 3am baking her own pastry cases for the canapés.

Things get off to a bad start when one of the party misses the train from London Victoria to Glynde and the wheeled hamper gets stuck in the aisle. Francesca’s spirits lift when the cork on the first bottle of Champagne is popped, then plummet when everyone turns out to be much more enthusiastic about the bag of Doritos a friend has smuggled in than her canapés. She fumes through the first act and nearly explodes when they all come out for the interval and find another group sitting at the Upper Circle table she specifically reserved.

She proceeds to get very drunk and, from that point onwards, has a much better time, even when one of the hamper’s wheels falls off when they all have to run for the last bus back to Glynde station. EH

The undergraduate crew member

Even before it begins, Rocco knows that the four-hours-on, two-hours-off routine of an Atlantic crossing is nothing to the sleep deprivation of Cowes Week, with its days of fresh sea air crewing on a J70 segueing seamlessly into the parties that rage like Force 10 gales all week. Newcastle freshers’ week has nothing on the Thursday-night pub crawl through Cowes.

It’s always a panic when his uncle invites him to the Royal Yacht Squadron Ball after-party — as he rifles through his sail bag for his crumpled dinner jacket to replace his deck shoes, shorts and Henri-Lloyd sailing jacket — but it would be a pity to miss out, especially on the espresso martinis. He also makes a point of attending the Mount Gay Rum party, the best chance of securing one of its caps with the year emblazoned on the front and as sought after as any sailing trophy. His godfather’s 1989 one, with its red faded to dusky pink by years of salt water, is held in reverence by young and old sea dogs alike.

It will be the 200th anniversary of Cowes Week this year and Rocco is looking forward to the puff of smoke and the loud report from the ancient cannon that start the races from the castle of the Royal Yacht Squadron and the sight of yachts of all sizes and shapes slicing through the Solent. At night, he will probably sleep the few hours available on the boat to remain in the thick of the action, but he is hoping for romantic pyrotechnics with the spirited blonde working at the marina, who has the added bonus of access to a decent shower. RU

The Wilderness glampers

It all sounded so promising: four nights at the country’s coolest festival, sleeping in a luxury shepherd’s hut. Now the twins are old enough to stay with their grandparents, Heather and Hamish decided to splash out on ‘glamping’ tickets for Wilderness; Heather, who has never been to a festival before, got a blow-dry to last her for the weekend.

The rose-tinted spectacles come off quickly: in the drizzle, the shepherd’s hut looks like something from The Great Escape. Still, the first evening is fun, with Basement Jaxx on the main stage, and they drink enough spicy margaritas to pass out. Heather comes to with her teeth chattering — she hadn’t realised the huts would be unheated — and finds the rain has become torrential. She and Hamish, who keeps making annoying jokes about them being on a Duke of Edinburgh expedition, spend the day shivering in the talks tent and trekking miles to use the ‘posh portaloos’.

There’s a nice long-table banquet cooked by a celebrity chef, but then it turns out the hut next door to theirs has been booked by some rowdy doctors intent on reliving their 1997 lads’ trip to Ibiza. Heather wakes in the small hours to find Hamish has gone with them to a rave in the valley.

Standing in the rain-lashed coffee queue the next morning as he sleeps it off, she gets wind of a bedroom going at a smart gastropub in the village. An hour later, she is sobbing with relief under its hot shower, having performed a Great Escape of her own. EH

The Country Life ‘Garden Lover’s Library’, designed by George Saumarez Smith of Adam Architecture, is at stand PW215 at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, May 18–23.

To celebrate, you can buy a year-long subscription for £150 and save more than 40% on the cover price. International offers also available. Until May 31.

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My childhood was spent among books and architectural drawings. The latter were those of my grandfather, the Classical architect Raymond Erith, and the former were those of my father, who was a bookseller, so it is perhaps no surprise that I now live surrounded by both.

This house is in Winchester, where I moved 15 years ago to become a director of ADAM Architecture. At first, the house was rather empty and simply decorated in muted colours. To make it a bit more homely, I started buying furniture at local auction houses, mainly from Andrew Smith at Itchen Stoke near Winchester, Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury and Bellmans in Winchester.

I found, to my surprise, that it was possible to buy late-Georgian tables and chairs very cheaply and my house soon filled up with brown furniture.

The next things I started to collect were pictures. I had made linocuts at school and had a couple of large architectural linocuts by Quinlan Terry, who had taken over my grandfather’s practice and in whose office I had trained when I left university.

I also love the work of a group of linocut artists in Great Bardfield in Essex, perhaps the best known of whom was Edward Bawden. I was very lucky to find several linocuts by Sheila Robinson, a pupil and later a close friend of Bawden’s, which I bought from her daughter Chloë Cheese about 10 years ago.

As well as linocuts, I have collected engravings with a connection to Winchester, particularly views of the cathedral and the college. There is a lovely print shop that I walk past on my way to and from work every day and which I often drop into at weekends.

I have also bought a few works by younger artists who have been inspired by the Great Bardfield artists, such as Emily Sutton, Ed Kluz and Michael Kirkman.

Although most of my architectural work is in England, there are occasional exceptions and, in 2010, I was commissioned to design a house in New Delhi. I had never been to India before and my visits offered an amazing opportunity to find out more about Indian architecture and culture. The experience also gave me a taste for Indian textiles and my house is now full of cushions, tablecloths and bedspreads in a wide range of beautiful hand-blocked fabrics.

The house is also full of my own work. A few years ago, I joined forces with my friends Francis Terry and Ben Pentreath to put on an exhibition at the RIBA in London that we called ‘Three Classicists’. We produced some large presentation drawings for it, most of which now hang in my office at work.

A few years later, I approached the RIBA about doing a show on my own called ‘Measure Draw Build’, which was held in 2017. After the exhibition, the drawings came back to Winchester and, to ensure they were in a safe place, I hung them all in my small study, which also has an old oak plan chest and a mahogany architect’s desk.

As well as drawings, the study is also usually full of books. It has become a kind of halfway house for books intended for either upstairs or downstairs and, every now and then, I have a big tidy up and they find their way onto shelves. But I find piles of books are a good thing to have around anyway, so there is always something close at hand to read. Many were from my father’s shop, Heywood Hill in Mayfair, and others have been gifts over the years. I also buy books from a stall in the cathedral close that is run by a friend, Miranda Bennett, and which raises money for the cathedral choristers.

As the house has filled up with furniture, pictures and books, I have begun to run out of space. For this reason, I have, more recently, been collecting smaller objects such as glass and china. Over the years, I have collected quite a bit of mochaware and lustreware, although I probably have enough of both now.

One of my most recent purchases were two lots of English Delftware plates, which I have hung on the wall — it seems like the best way to display them, although I’m aware it might seem old-fashioned.

Less old-fashioned is my kitchen, the central workbench of which was made by Bulthaup. I cook on an Aga, which is great for most of the year, but does make the kitchen rather warm in summer. Around the edge of the kitchen are cabinets that I designed to hide appliances and provide lots of storage.

Having painted most of the walls in tasteful blues, greens and greys when I first moved in, I have tried to be a bit more adventurous about colour and pattern in recent years. The house was built in the 1860s, so it seemed appropriate to use a bold wallpaper in the dining room. After much searching, I found a paper called Indian, produced by Morris and Co and designed by the architect George Gilbert Scott. It has a bold, graphic quality that goes well with the textiles and linocuts elsewhere in the house.

One of the bedrooms has been wallpapered in a pattern named Monkeys and Birds, designed by Sheila Robinson and re-issued by St Judes Gallery. I am currently looking at more wallpapers for other rooms in the house, but I don’t feel any great hurry to do this — it will simply happen when I find the right thing.

This is the same approach, I suppose, that I have taken to the whole house; it might be called Slow Decorating.

I have tried to make the house more comfortable over the years. Architects often seem to be happy living in quite Spartan conditions, but, influenced by my fiancée, Jane, and my teenage children, I have tried to create lots of places that are comfortable places to sit and relax for a chat or to curl up with a good book.

Every year, I go to Rome to teach measured drawing to American students and, if I have any spare time, I look out for small Grand Tour souvenirs in the antique shops around the Via dei Coronari. Recently, I found some marble obelisks and a pair of small bronze urns on pedestals. I also purchased a plaster bust of Ariadne, a cast of a Roman bust in the Capitoline Museum in Rome, from an auction house in West Sussex.

I have never really wanted to design a house for myself; I generally find it much easier to make decisions for other people. Perhaps one day, a client will commission me to completely design and decorate their house, which I would love to do — but only if they like bold wallpapers, Indian fabrics and lots of books.

Decorating is probably a job best left to professionals — and I have worked with many amazing decorators over the years — but I do think there is much to be said for decorating slowly and allowing layers to build up gradually. Homes are most interesting, after all, when they reflect the lives of their owners.

This feature originally appeared in the April 1, 2020, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Is there anywhere more beautiful than a library? The smell of musty books, rows upon rows of stories, lovesick heroes or heroines, great works of fiction, non-fiction, art, culture, philosophy and science — all beg you to choose them; to let theirs be the pages you reveal, pore over and learn from.

We can’t think of anywhere better. That is why, this year, Country Life has commissioned the architect George Saumarez Smith to design our Chelsea Flower Show stand as a shrine to books. It will be named ‘Garden Lover’s Library’. A safe haven in which readers seeking a quiet place can escape the hustle and bustle for a moment among vintage books.

Although all libraries are beautiful in themselves, filled with books as they are, that only tells half the story. As important as those books may be, libraries can also be great works of architecture; vast monuments to our collective creativity, art enshrined in art, accessible to all. So, without further ado, here is our list of the world’s most beautiful public libraries to tide you over until you can come and visit Country Life’s very own at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show.

Gladstone’s Library, Wales

Politicians don't leave many great things behind after their tenure these days, but perhaps William Gladstone was an exception. The UK's only Prime Ministerial library was built following a bequest from Gladstone and the Grade-I listed building houses thousands of books, including many items from the four-time Prime Minister’s own personal collection. The current building was designed by John Douglas in 1902, and it is a Jacobethan delight with sundrenched wooden interiors full of old dusty volumes. It’s a bookworm’s paradise, and one where the fun doesn’t stop at 5pm. At this library, you can stay the night. Gladstone’s is the UK’s only residential library and has 26 reasonably priced bedrooms. It has me daydreaming about a bookish getaway. LB

Duchess Anna Amalia Library, Germany

The Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek, as it is called in German, is located in Weimar. Built at the behest of Duchess Anna Amalia of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach to preserve and present the collections of Duke Wilhelm Ernst, one of its famed patrons is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who worked there from 1797 to 1832. The building was converted into a library in 1761 and became a designated UNESCO World Heritage site in 1998. The oval hall is divided by open-backed bookcases and walls of clean, white woodwork. Garnished with gold, there is an elegance and femininity to the Rococo decor. Small portraits and white busts line the two-storey room, directing the eyes to the end of the hall where a shock of teal blue and a portrait of the Grand Duke Carl August, the son of the Duchess, hangs with prominence. The library has among its collection an important Shakespearean collection of approximately 10,000 volumes, many of which belonged to Christoph Martin Wieland who was hired by the Duchess to tutor her son. The Duchess’s 13,000-volume music collection is available to view, as well as a 16th-century Bible connected to Martin Luther. AEW

Espace Gabrielle Chanel, China

You may not immediately hear Chanel and think: ‘library’, but the world-recognised fashion brand has recently opened one in the Power Station of Art in Shanghai. It’s the first of Mainland China’s libraries run by the government that celebrates contemporary art. Designed by the Japanese architect Kazunari Sakamoto, the library also contains the Archive of Chinese Contemporary Art. The space itself is light, modern and large — at 1,700sq m. It used to be the Nanshi Power Plant; built in 1897, the plant provided energy, including for some of China’s first electrical lights. A wonderful repurposing of a historic building by a historic brand. LB

The British Library, England

It was impossible not to include a library close to home on this list. This beloved treasure of our capital contains everything from Magna Carta to handwritten lyrics by The Beatles. Not to brag, but it’s also one of the largest libraries in the world and, as a legal deposit library, receives a copy of all books produced in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Created in 1973, the library moved to its current Grade-I listed building in St Pancras in 1997. This was designed by the architect Colin St John Wilson and his wife MJ Long and was the largest public building constructed in the United Kingdom in the 20th century. There is always a fight for a table in its various cafes — such remains its popularity among tourists and locals alike. LB

Abbey Library of St Gall, Switzerland

Founded by St Othmar, the first real abbot of the convent of St Gall, the present library in Switzerland was designed by the architect Peter Thumb. The original abbey library was built in the 7th century, but the present library room was constructed between 1758 and 1767. A glory of honey brown shelves and leather bound spines is hooded by a ceiling of elaborate stucco, which twists to divide and embellish biblical frescoes. Playful putti sit atop the shelves and glass cases, offering a visual clue as to the contents below: the case of astronomy-related materials bears a cherub observing the books through a telescope. The Greek inscription above the entrance door, ΨΥΧΗΣ ΙΑΤΡΕΙΟΝ, translates as ‘healing place for the soul’.

The library collection is the oldest in Switzerland, holding around 160,000 volumes, with most available for public use. Notable works include the St. Gall Cantatorium, believed to be the earliest known complete music manuscript in the world; a 4th-century Vergilius Sangallensis; an 8th-century bill of sale for the abbey property; a Gospel of John from about 800AD; biographies of saints from as early as the 8th century; and works providing insight into the daily lives of the abbey monks from the 9th century through the Middle Ages. AEW

New York Public Library, USA

This Manhattan building by Stephen A. Schwarzman is a haven for many New Yorkers. The second largest public library in the USA, and one of the largest in the world, was developed in the 19th century. It’s worth visiting for the The Rose Reading Room alone, which displays a myriad of crystal chandeliers. The lion statues that stand guard at its entrance are made from Tennessee marble and named Patience and Fortitude — something that seems to be in short supply as of late. Long may they protect this magnificent collection of books. LB

Library of St Mark, Italy

Named after St Mark, the patron saint of Venice, this regal library holds one of the world’s most significant collections of classical texts. Founded in 1468, it is the work of the Italian Renaissance sculptor and architect Jacopo Sansovino. ‘It is perhaps the richest and most ornate building that there has been since ancient times up until now,’ said Andrea Palladio — an argument that still stands today.

Library of the Academy of Fine Arts, Austria

Vienna has many great things: Schnitzel, strudel, that song by Billy Joel — and the library at the Academy of Fine Arts. The dark wood decor and classic gold reading lamps with green lampshades transport visitors to a time before iPhones, where books were king. Its library houses around 110,000 volumes and an ‘etching cabinet’, containing around 150,000 drawings and prints. LB

The Mitchell Library, Scotland

I couldn’t finish my list without a Scottish entry. The Mitchell Library in Glasgow is well worthy of inclusion. Tobacco producer Stephen Mitchell is to thank for the grand building and philanthropist and Glaswegian William Euing is to thank for much of the original collection of early books. You can’t miss the distinctive copper dome upon which stands Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom. Always a good omen when there is studying to be done. LB

The Country Life ‘Garden Lover’s Library’, designed by George Saumarez Smith of Adam Architecture, is at stand PW215 at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, May 18–23.

To celebrate, you can buy a year-long subscription for £150 and save more than 40% on the cover price. International offers also available. Until May 31.

The first 200 subscribers at Chelsea will receive a bottle of The Grange Classic Sparkling NV, worth £39. Rated 94 points by Decanter magazine, this premium sparkling wine from Hampshire was described in Country Life as ‘the connoisseur’s choice’. Offer available with subscriptions for UK delivery only.

The Country Life quiz runs daily every afternoon, with new editions published on weekdays at 4pm.

Missed a day? Want more quizzes? Catch up with all our previous quizzes here.

'I love interiors that include things handed down over the years, with furniture and pictures that don’t quite go together and slightly clashing colour schemes,’ says George Saumarez Smith (below), a director of Adam Architecture. ‘The defining element of English style is that things are a little bit imperfect.’

George envisioned a comfortable room with a view of the garden, filled with plants, books and personal treasures. He is passionate about drawing, as evidenced by his book Sketchbooks: Collected Measured Drawings and Architectural Sketches (Triglyph, £40). ‘I decided to evoke the feeling of a panelled room by drawing it in pencil on paper and having it made into a wallcovering,’ he explains. Watts 1874 stepped in to reproduce his detailed drawing as a bespoke design on linen, its blue-and-white colourway providing the principal palette for the room.

The structure of the room is classical, as is to be expected of one of Britain’s most respected classical architects. Among his ongoing projects is the extensive restoration of the Grade I-listed Tottenham House, near Marlborough in Wiltshire, widely reported to be the most ambitious home renovation in the UK, after more than two decades on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk register. He is the author of several books on architecture, and his new book, The Romance of Classicism, will be published by Rizzoli in September.

After studying architecture at the University of Edinburgh, he was taken on as a pupil of architect Quinlan Terry, who had begun his career with George’s grandfather, classical architect Raymond Erith. The latter had worked on the reconstruction of Nos 10 and 11 Downing Street after they were damaged by bombing during the Second World War. ‘Architecture is in my blood,’ he says, ‘but so is a love of books.’ His father, John Saumarez Smith, ran the Heywood Hill bookshop on Curzon Street, London, for more than 30 years, as well as editing book reviews for Country Life in the 1980s and 1990s. ‘I have inherited the disease of the book collector — I am destined to a life surrounded by books with never quite enough shelves,’ he says.

The panoramic wallcovering features drawings of George’s favourite works by an eclectic mix of British artists, including linocuts by Sheila Robinson, drawings by John Aldridge, paintings by Pat Albeck and an early-19th-century engraving of Winchester College, where he was at school, above the fireplace. ‘I like the sense that they have been collected over time,’ he says. The backdrop features a hexagonal design, inspired by a classical coffered ceiling, with a drawing of a large window looking onto a garden pavilion in the distance.

A tented ceiling in blue-and-white striped fabric hangs above a striking hexagonal stone floor and a Palladian-inspired chimneypiece, designed by George and made by the Somerset stone specialist Artorius Faber.

Comfortable chairs and an elegant demi-lune table from Munder Skiles are paired with an antique hexagonal table and a small mahogany writing desk. ‘This was made for the ship HMS Orion, which took part in the Battle of Trafalgar and was at one time captained by a distant relative, Admiral James Saumarez,’ he reveals.

To complete the design, a bookcase designed by George for his home some years ago houses a collection of carefully selected gardening books. ‘Given my father’s occupation, trawling bookshops was part of my childhood, so this was a nice excuse to dive right back into doing just that,’ he says. He set himself the goal of only buying books published before 1986. ‘Because they are more than 40 years old, they simply have a different feel,’ he says of the 300-volume collection he has amassed. (After the show, he plans to give them to his fiancée, Jane, as an early wedding present.)

‘By combining antiques with pieces from the 20th century, the 1960s and 1970s and more contemporary elements,’ he concludes, ‘the room is designed to show how Country Life represents both heritage and Englishness.’

The Country Life ‘Garden Lover’s Library’, designed by George Saumarez Smith of Adam Architecture, is at stand PW215 at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, May 18–23.

To celebrate, you can buy a year-long subscription for £150 and save more than 40% on the cover price. International offers also available. Until May 31.

The first 200 subscribers at Chelsea will receive a bottle of The Grange Classic Sparkling NV, worth £39. Rated 94 points by Decanter magazine, this premium sparkling wine from Hampshire was described in Country Life as ‘the connoisseur’s choice’. Offer available with subscriptions for UK delivery only.

When the interior designer Isabella Worsley sourced a wall finish for the Palladian- style loggia that she created for Country Life at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in June, she worked with Nigel England, general manager of the Dorset-based Rose of Jericho, a supplier of traditional materials for the decoration and repair of historic buildings. Together, they devised Turmeric Chalk Wash that was intended to bring the space to life. The result was a colour that is vibrant in bright sunlight and which gently glows in fading evening light.

Chalk Wash is a permeable, matt, decorative paint that’s based on natural, sustainable ingredients including animal size and fine chalk. It’s slightly transparent and intended to replicate the look of limewash on substrates that limewash might not be suitable for. It’s ideal for creating layered decorative effects such as ragging, French wash and dry brushing.

Artist-quality earth and natural powder pigments provide matchless purity and quality of colour. Much of Chalk Wash’s charm is the lack of uniformity with subtle variations of both colour and tone.

Visit www.roseofjericho.co.uk

Munder-Skiles was launched over three decades ago by John Danzer, the leading expert on historic garden furniture who has built a collection of pieces based on original designs he has brought back to life. The firm’s timeless furniture was chosen by interior designer Isabella Worsley to complement the mix of antique pieces and architectural setting that furnished Country Life’s ‘outdoor drawing room’ at RHS Chelsea Flower show, intended as a transitional space between house and garden — ideal for entertaining and relaxing during the day and into the evening.

Isabella’s drawing room included a pair of all-weather wicker Belmont armchairs, a teak Xylo bench, as well as Munder-Skiles’s versatile metal Windsor chair.

These refined, highly ergonomic designs are constructed using the highest quality materials and offer comfort and longevity, as well as a capacity to withstand whatever the weather subjects them to.

The result at RHS Chelsea was a convivial space that offered all the comforts of an indoor space with the pleasures of al fresco living.

Visit www.munder-skiles.com

Last week, Country Life made a triumphant return to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2025 with its Italian loggia-inspired 'Outdoor Drawing Room'.

The tradestand was designed by interior designer Isabella Worsley and landscape designer Hugo Elwes — with support from Artorius Faber, Munder Skiles and Rose of Jericho.

The design and preparation process took months and in our behind-the-scenes video we reveal exactly how everything came together.

At Chelsea itself, we were delighted to meet as many readers as we did — as well as welcome new ones to the Country Life fold. We loved hearing about the parts of the magazine you look forward to most and who you share your copies with. Tearing everything down on the Saturday evening felt somewhat emotional, but we hope to see you back on the Royal Chelsea Hospital grounds next year.

Watch this space (and, of course, the video).

To celebrate Country Life's return to the Chelsea Flower Show, we're offering up to 40% off subscriptions to Country Life Magazine. It's our best offer ever; available until June 30, 2025

I designed my first show garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show nearly 30 years ago. It was an experience that I really enjoyed and that went down well with the public — not so well with the judges, but what do they know? After a week standing in the garden, chatting to people, schmoozing the sponsor and nodding at the Queen, I was pretty much on my knees with exhaustion.

The last thing to engineer was the breakdown of the garden. The constraints of the site at the Royal Hospital require the ground to be restored to grass as quickly as possible, so garden teams have to remove all their debris and put all the soil back in place. This process is absolutely no fun at all for anybody: a garden you have laboured over for more than a year has reached the end of its life and, especially in those days, it was a brutal process.

The first thing was to dig up and sell off as many plants as possible, which generated a nice little cash bonus for everybody (I still have the very snappy toaster I bought with the proceeds) and led to the classic ‘last-day-of-Chelsea’ news photographs of people struggling onto buses clutching 8ft-tall Delphiniums.

After that a man came and drove a metal spike through the base of the pond in order to drain the water followed by a digger that laid into the structure of the garden with ruthless enthusiasm. I have to admit that, at this moment, my wife took me by the elbow and persuaded me to go home and not stay to witness the rest of the destruction. The awful truth was that much of the garden ended up in skip somewhere.

Lots of things have changed. I have spent 10 years as a trustee of the RHS and have been judging gardens at RHS Chelsea for the past 18. We have shaken up the judging system and, in recent years, looked sternly at the sustainability of the show gardens as a whole. It seemed immoral that these very expensive and beautiful creations were only in existence for five days and then discarded. Although things had improved since the days when (as happened a long time ago) palm trees were flown in from the Middle East and thrown on the compost at the end of the show, it needed even more.

The first step was to make sure that as much as possible of the waste from the show was recycled — we are now on 98%. A borehole was dug to reduce reliance on mains water, power was run across the site at build-up stage so contractors did not have to run noisy, fuel guzzling generators and changes made to catering and shopping. You will no longer find a plastic bag or fork at RHS Chelsea.

A further policy was introduced a few years ago that all gardens exhibited at all RHS Shows (Malvern, Chelsea, Hampton Court and Tatton Park — this year, for the first time, moved to Wentworth Woodhouse) could not be accepted unless they had a final destination. Chelsea is now only a stop along the way, before they end up somewhere where the trees, the structures and the idea have a further life.

We are quite broad minded about this — some gardens are recreated verbatim, others are redesigned using the same ingredients, and some are broken up with the components scattered among a number of different places. The essential fact is that anybody who sponsors a garden at an RHS Show owns that garden and can donate it to whosoever they wish: they could have it at their office or they could rebuild it to help a local good cause.

This was helped by the arrival in 2022 of Project Giving Back — this is one of the great Chelsea good news stories. It came from an inspired idea, conjured up by the anonymous founders, to support a wide range of charities whose work suffered due to the pandemic and, more recently, because of the cost-of-living crisis. Their vision was that they would give grants to a varied and geographically widespread selection of charities so that they could have the unique opportunity of promoting their work at RHS Chelsea. Over the past five years, they have sponsored 60 gardens, both large and small, and all of them have been re-created after the show to benefit an extraordinary range of charities.

Joe and Laura Carey, an up and coming design duo based in Norfolk, exhibited a small garden at Chelsea in aid of the Talitha Arts. The garden was transferred to the St Margaret’s House in Bethnal Green, London, where it now lives a vibrant second life: by day, it’s a café garden, and by night and weekend, it transforms into a venue for performances, local events, community groups, and therapy sessions.

‘The relocation turned out to be the unexpected icing on the cake,’ remembers Joe. ‘After the excitement and recognition of Chelsea, we had braced ourselves for an uphill struggle, so we were genuinely surprised (and relieved!) by how quickly and smoothly everything went.’ This year they are designing two show gardens: one at Chelsea and another at Hampton Court. ‘For us, it’s always the long term that fuels the passion behind any show garden. The few days on the show ground are exhilarating, but it’s the garden’s legacy that truly excites us.’

Hospitals are a popular option for relocated gardens as they are accessible by lots of people and we all know what a difference gardens can make to patients. Take the delicious garden that won Best in Show in 2023: designed by the talented duo, Charlotte Harris and Hugo Bugg for Horatio's Garden — a charity that puts well designed and maintained gardens in spinal injury centres across the British Isles. Currently they have seven working gardens across the United Kingdom and the Chelsea garden was always destined to be rebuilt as the eighth garden in Sheffield. The trees, paving and buildings that we all saw at Chelsea have been reinstalled on the site of an old car park at the Northern General Hospital. It has taken time and a lot of wrangling, but this June, the garden will open up for patients, visitors and staff.

Another 2023 Gold medal winning garden, immaculately designed by Nicola Semple and Susan Begg for the Teapot Trust, ended up in the Queen Elizabeth II hospital in Glasgow and the Miller Brothers 2022 Foraging Garden went to Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool. Tom Stuart-Smith's garden for Maggie's Centres from 2024 will settle in Cambridge, the Terrence Higgins Trust Garden designed by Matthew Childs is going to Croydon University Hospital and Miria Harris's garden for the Stroke association has reappeared at the Chapel Allerton hospital in Leeds

Schools also benefit from the gardens. The Bee Garden, which was the RHS feature garden in 2023, was re-created as a whole at St George's Primary School in South London and Harry Holding's School Food Matters Garden was reconfigured and divided between two schools in Ealing and Liverpool. Lottie Delamain's Textile Garden now lives at Headington School in Oxford while Charlie Hawkes Wilderness Foundation Garden settled in Henry Maynard School in Walthamstow.

Not all gardens go to charities — often a particular feature or building is destined to grace a client's garden. I myself am the proud owner of some of the rocks from Cleve West's beautiful, Gold medal winning garden for M&G in 2016, which currently adorn my pond at home while various clients of mine are now in possession of trees, boulders and paving that I recycled from various show gardens over the years. The yard belonging to Crocus (who have built over 30 Gold Medal winning gardens and 12 Best in Show since 2000) is a fertile hunting ground for interesting leftovers!

Chelsea is a big show, full of flamboyance and lots of people drinking champagne and enjoying the very best in horticulture. What should not be forgotten is that this week raises a lot of money that is spent by the RHS over the following 51 weeks on all manner of great things: community gardens, mental wellbeing, gardening in schools, horticultural careers, libraries, gardens and world leading scientific research. The fact that all the gardens are now going on to light up the lives of others is yet another reason to cheer the RHS.

Herbaceous perennials are now bolting out of the ground, looking vigorous and healthy. It is precisely at this moment that some gardeners, to the bewilderment of many people, will ruthlessly cut their plants back. Applied at about the same time as the flower show, the Chelsea chop, as it is known, is simply a method of pruning some perennial plants so that they produce more blooms later in the season and generally look neater.

Pruning is a job usually confined to trees and shrubs, but there are ways in which perennials can be pruned and this, the Chelsea chop, is the most popular. The Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening explains succinctly that pruning is a mechanism for keeping plants neat and tidy, to bring them to the desired shape and to ‘induce the plants to produce to the maximum those qualities for which they are grown’. This is exactly what the Chelsea chop does.

Two decades ago, American author Tracy DiSabato-Aust dedicated a large part of her book The Well-Tended Perennial Garden to the pruning of herbaceous perennials and did much to popularise the ‘chop’, as it is referred to by its champions. However, although the technique appears to be the ideal way to achieve tidy, floriferous plants, it cannot always be used. Perennials that are pruned in this way will never reach their true stature and their flowers are often smaller than if the plant had been left alone.

Before deciding if the approach is suitable for your plants or for the look of your garden, it is useful to consider the science of what is happening to perennials as they grow. A little bit of botany can go a long way in helping us garden. The tip of a shoot, the apical bud, is where new plant growth happens. As well as spurring on the main stem, the bud produces a hormone, auxin, that flows down the stem and inhibits auxiliary buds from developing. Without this hormone, these buds would produce new side shoots. The effect of the hormone is strongest close to the stem’s tip. Further down, towards the base of the shoot, the hormone is weak and lateral buds are able to develop.

Cutting off the tip of the primary shoot removes the apical bud and the hormone is no longer produced, causing the stem to lose its apical dominance and allowing side shoots to develop. These side shoots can now grow at the same rate as the main stem, resulting in bushier growth with numerous stems producing more flowers later in the season than they normally would.

It is not easy to dare to cut down plants that appear to be flourishing, but, having decided to go ahead with the chop, take courage — and shears — in both hands and remove the top part of the plant. Most gardeners will reduce the plant by one-third, whereas fearless ones cut away the whole top half. A light touch is advisable until you are familiar with both the technique and its effect on your plants. Gardeners with time and patience could use secateurs to cut each individual stem just above a leaf joint, but most of us have too much else to do in late May and shearing works fine. However the cuts are made, the plant will look sad for a couple of weeks, but new shoots appear quickly.

Cutting back a section of a plant and allowing some stems to grow on will produce a two-tier effect, with tall stems and short. The taller ones will flower before the shorter and thus lengthen the flowering period. For some gardeners, increasing the time a plant is in flower is an important reason for performing the Chelsea chop. Do you prefer uniform flowers at a similar height or are you happy with differing heights and flower sizes over a longer period? For many gardeners, the reason to grow, for example, Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’ is to have the 5ft-tall wands of sunshine-yellow flowers swaying in late-summer light. Reducing its height diminishes its impact. As with so many aspects of gardening, it is a matter of personal choice.

Plants that are cut back obviously need time to regrow, so the chop is only suitable for late-flowering perennials, such as asters (now mainly known as Symphyotrichum), rudbeckia, hardy chrysanthemums, nepeta, heleniums and Phlox paniculata. Upright sedums, such as ‘Purple Emperor’, ‘Herbstfreude’, ’Xenox’ and Sedum spectabile cultivars, are, perhaps, the plants that benefit most from being cut down. Allowed to develop naturally, by the end of August the stems have flopped over and are sprawling across the ground, so that the centre of the plant is bare. Staking can help some plants, but sedums invariably seem to appear to be trussed up, however discreet the stakes. When they have been chopped in May, they remain upright and sturdy.

It is important not to be gung-ho with the technique. Ensure that a plant has time to produce its flowers after having been cut down and keep the shears away from early-flowering plants. The chop should not be confused with the practice of removing stems of perennials that have already flowered. Delphiniums, poppies and hardy geraniums will often respond with a second small crop of weaker flowers after the first flush is removed, but chopping them down before flowering could result in no flowers at all. If in doubt, resist the chop and enjoy the plants as they are naturally meant to be.

John Hoyland is gardens advisor at Glyndebourne, East Sussex

To celebrate Country Life's return to the Chelsea Flower Show, we're offering up to 40% off subscriptions to Country Life Magazine. It's our best offer ever; available until June 30, 2025.

I’ve been coming to Chelsea Flower Show for two decades; and this year, there seems to be even more stands than usual and more to see. It is surely the best year since Covid struck us all down.

What’s really surprised me is how international this most British of institutions is. I’ve spoken to readers of Country Life from as far afield as the west coast of America and Melbourne, Australia. Perhaps I should not be surprised — after all, Chelsea is the best event on the global horticultural calendar.

Why, you might ask? Because it has something for everyone, from the Royal gaze — HM King Charles visited on Monday with The Queen, David Beckham and Alan Titchmarsh in town — to simple allotment style (the balcony gardens, hidden away in the woods, are a treasure trove of small space inspiration).

Put simply, if I was a plant, I’d want to be seen at Chelsea.

So, without further ado, here are six of things that have caught my eye:

The Japanese Tea Garden

I know, I know, this is a very boring one to start with because it’s at the top of everyone’s lists, but it really is head and shoulders above everything else.

Whatever angle you look at it from, it is utterly mesmerising and extraordinarily beautiful. Kazuyuki Ishihara's attention to detail is second to none and there is a simplicity in its perfection.

Claverton Cloches

A stand a few down from Country Life’s selling greenhouses in miniature form. There’s joy in their size; they are the gardener’s dollhouse.

Norfield Nursery

This seller, situated inside the Great Pavilion, sells just acers — also known as maples. The smaller, more compact, shrub-like varieties are known as Japanese maples.

They are delicate things, but their delicacy belies a dramatic, secret talent. Come Autumn, their flush of youthful leaves turn the most spectacular and vibrant colours. When it comes to colour, they are the most generous of trees.

Woodpecker Joinery

I bought a cedar waterbutt from this company that also sells quality cedar and Victorian greenhouses.

Imagine the scent of cedar every time you go to water your plants, bringing interest to an otherwise mundane job. Your plants will thank you for taking a renewed interest in their wellbeing!

David Austin Roses

Every year, David Austin is the star of the Great Pavilion, and right now is no exception. Their stand is circular in shape and framed by a walkway covered in garden arches groaning in a myriad fragrant rose species. It is almost obscene in its beauty. Who doesn’t love a rambling rector?

Alan and Raymond

Last, but not least, I have to mention the thrill I got when Chef Raymond Blanc dragged Alan Titchmarsh onto our stand to look at a picture of his garden — which we used on the front cover of an October 2024 issue.

To celebrate Country Life's return to the Chelsea Flower Show, we're offering up to 40% off subscriptions to Country Life Magazine. It's our best offer ever; available until June 30, 2025.

The garden we'd most like to have at home

For all the pizzazz of the show gardens, it's often in the serene, wooded space off to one side of the main show, where the Balcony Gardens and Container Gardens are set up, that you find some of the most creative ideas at Chelsea. This year brought several perfect examples. Wonderful, though slightly wacky, was the Room to Breathe Hospital Garden for the TSA, featuring a sort of suspended bed that was something between a swing and a hammock.

Just as nice — and less tricky to squeeze in to — was the armchair at A Space to Read Balcony Garden sponsored by Viking, a Container Garden showing that even in a limited area, you can create a wonderful and usable outdoor space.

Most sumptuous succulents

The Newt's Karoo Succulent Garden sits in a prime spot at the heart of the Chelsea Flower Show, but tucked away in the woodland, among the RHS's houseplant studios, The Victorian Arid House showed a really wonderful mix of plants that we absolutely loved.

Most heartwarming moment

Kazuyuki Ishihara, a man who started his horticultural career selling flowers on the streets, has been coming to the Chelsea Flower Show for two decades, creating smaller gardens around the site. In 2025, for the first time, he had a chance — and ended up winning both a gold medal and the 'RHS Garden of the Year' title. His joy and exhilaration were plain for all to see.

Best handover

The Chelsea Flower Show is full of famous faces, but just as recognisable as the Hollywood stars and sporting legends are Alan Titchmarsh and Dame Mary Berry. The two came together to mark the passing of a baton: Dame Mary is stepping down as president of the National Garden Scheme, and Alan is taking up the mantle.

Best reminder that gardening isn't all glamour

On an unassuming stand (548) in South Ranelagh Way we spotted our favourite organic compost producer, Dalefoot, which has solved the apparently insoluble problem of providing a good alternative to peat. Their secret ingredients? Cumbrian bracken and Herdwick sheep wool, blended with other organic components such as comfrey leaves to make a range of seed and potting composts that don't dry out or cake hard. The mixes are reliably consistent with a healthy smell and texture — almost good enough to eat (well, almost...). They also won a deserved gold medal for their display in the Great Pavilion, produced alongside the Eden Project, explaining exactly why peat-free compost is so important and showing off some of the work they do in peat bog restoration.

Cleverest touch

The London Square Chelsea Pensioners Garden is a charming woodland space with a communal space at its heart — one whose table features a military map, surrounded by seating that is upholstered in recycled Pensioners’ scarlet uniforms, complete with buttons, rank badges and epaulettes.

Best multi-sensory experience

We tend to focus on how beautiful things look at RHS Chelsea, but as any gardener knows the other senses are equally important. David Austin Roses reminded us of this with their 'Fragrance Bar', letting visitors appreciate the spectrum of scents at the show, from fruity 'Gabriel Oak' to the musk of the freshly-launched King Charles III rose.

There was also a display to get your sense of taste going — and we're not talking about the cakes on sale at Colicci (although they were good too). The She Grows Veg exhibit, Grow the Rainbow, literally looked good enough to eat.

Most elegant shopping

The beautifully-rusted garden animals of Dorset-based Beechwood Trinkets caught the eye, as did the rainbow colours of Anya Sushko's leather bags, made at workshops in Kent. But for a shop which could have passed for a show garden all of its own, the Muckboot stand was hard to beat; it was actually fairly tricky picking out the boots from among the foliage and water features.

Biggest surprises

Coming away from Chelsea's Great Pavilion and Main Avenue into the woodland area normally offers a calmer, more serene experience for visitors to the show — as it did again this year, for the most part. That made it all the more surprising to round a corner and come across the Babylon Beats garden, an explosion of plants and primary colours which is like stepping into a 1980s pop video.

That wasn't the only surprise, though: close behind was the Architectural Plants 'Help-o-meter', with a giant crank handle and a spinning wheel lit up by miniature bulbs; the appearance of a grand piano decked with roses, in honour of Harkness Roses' display of The Elton John AIDS Foundation Rose;and Chelsea in Bloom's 12ft hight punk rocker head, created for the neighbourhood event by florist Ricky Paul to celebrate Chelsea’s legacy as the birthplace of the British punk scene.

Most overlooked displays

The sponsored show gardens created by lauded designers catch the headlines, the trade stands show off wares from around the world and the Great Pavilion showcases extraordinary plant life... and amid all this, it's easy to miss the little touches created by the RHS's own team, which dot the grounds and light up the show to little fanfare. We see them, and we love them.

And finally... Country Life's Garden of the Year

Every year without fail, our favourite garden of the Chelsea Flower Show is something that's beautiful, calming, inspiring, restful, intriguing... and overlooked by the judges in favour of something trendier and cleverer.

Not this year, though. Country Life's team at Chelsea all loved Cha No Niwa — Japanese Tea Garden, designed by Kazuyuki Ishihara, and we picked it as our best in show on Monday. The next morning, the RHS published their own awards — and Cha No Niwa had won 'Best in Show'. It's been years coming for Ishihara, and wonderful to see him win the prize for a garden we described as 'just perfect'.

To celebrate Country Life's return to the Chelsea Flower Show, we're offering up to 40% off subscriptions to Country Life Magazine. It's our best offer ever; available until June 30, 2025.

The Country Life quiz runs daily every afternoon, with new editions published at 4pm.

Missed a day? Want more quizzes? Catch up with all our previous quizzes here.

The displays at the 2025 Chelsea Flower Show are humming with happy plants and visitors who wisely escape the heat of the sun and the crowds around the show gardens on Main Avenue to find respite under the high roof of the Great Pavilion.

The best way through is simply to take your time and wander as you will and, as you do, look out for the ever inventive colour-themed heirloom cauliflowers, cabbages and peas at She Grows Veg (Stand 54).

As for where to start? How about the jaw-dropping display from The Cape Flora of South Africa (76) with their mountain of proteas and leptospermums looking even more brilliant than ever — which is saying something.

Once you've seen those, here's my pick of the things not to miss in the tent at Chelsea this year. One word of warning, though: trying to locate certain stands on the map can be done.... but often ends up with walking in circles. That said, it's hard to imagine a more pleasant place to get a little bit lost.

Roses at David Austin and Peter Beales

Both Peter Beales (28) and David Austin’s (72) stands are brimming with fully flowering roses, so exuberant that you will smell their fragrance some way away. There is no better way to compare varieties and ask the experts for what will do best in your garden.

GreenJJam Nurseries

GreenJJam Nurseries (48) have again brought a stop-and-look-at-me stand of white flowered plants that include Eleagnus ‘Quicksilver’ and Cornus controversa ‘Variegata’ that should persuade anyone who turns up their noses at variegated plants to think again. Smaller treats include the white Dianthus arenarius and the useful Geranium cantabrigiense ‘Biokovo’.

Apples and pears at Frank P Matthews

Frank P Matthews (75) arrive for their first ever Chelsea with a display of ornamental Malus as well as trained apples and pears. Look out for the Pyrus communis ‘Conference’ whose limbs have been trained into informal loops in the French method of arcure lepage.

The dramatically deep ruby upright tree in the centre of the display is the only one of its kind. Simply named Malus No 4, it will surely be coming to a garden near you some day soon.

Raymond Evison Clematis

With starry petals bigger and bloomier than they have any right to be, the Guernsey-based Raymond Evison Clematis (96) nursery have surpassed themselves.

Kells Bay trees and ferns

The Kells Bay Gardens nursery of County Kerry (30) have created an outstanding display of tree and other ferns with a path through the middle.

Designed by Billy Alexander this is the biggest stand they have made to date and includes recreations of a primeval forest and bog garden. A must for fern lovers — and indeed everyone.

To celebrate Country Life's return to the Chelsea Flower Show, we're offering up to 40% off subscriptions to Country Life Magazine. It's our best offer ever; available until June 30.

On the opening day of the 2025 Chelsea Flower Show, the Country Life team at SW3 sat down to discuss the best garden of the year. 'Oh, well, it has to be the Japanese Tea Garden,' were the first words out of the mouth of our garden editor, Tiffany Daneff.

It's not every year that we agree with the judges on our favourite garden at the world's greatest flower show. Quite the opposite, in fact: it's a semi-regular occurrence for our favourite designs to have been overlooked on the official criteria.

LISTEN: Tiffany Daneff on the Country Life Podcast from the Chelsea Flower Show

This time, we're all in agreement. Kazuyuki Ishihara's 'Cha No Niwa – Japanese Tea Garden' is like a slice of imperial Kyoto transplanted to leafy west London. There's a mix of elevations and depths, a mix of plants and trees — acers mingling with irises — and a blend of raked gravel, moss installation and craggy boulders, all framed by a traditional Japanese building at the rear.

Ishihara has created gardens at Chelsea several times in recent years, but so far they have always been among the smaller garden categories. In 2025 his sponsors — Ambius, Calmic Japan, HB-101 and Glion — have backed him to create one of the main show gardens at RHS Chelsea, and he has paid back their confidence in wonderful style with a design which makes use of Acer palmatum, Enkianthus perulatus, Iris, Sedum, Hornbeam and Pachysandra terminalis.

'It's perfect,' added Tiffany. 'Everywhere you stand, there's a perfect vignette; the view is framed.

'No matter which angle you look at it from, it feels as if it was meant to be seen from exactly where you are... If you're a photographer, it must be a complete heaven.'

It's not just the overall view that makes this garden special, though. 'You've still got this amazing attention to detail, the little hillocks of moss for example, and even round the back, there are gate entrances. all covered with vegetation,' Tiffany said.

'There's not a moment in this garden that's not been beautifully thought about. It's got water, it's so peaceful and lush, and still has flashes of colour with the irises.

'And then there's the Zen garden feel with the gravel that has been raked into circles. It's a tour de force. It's beautiful.'

Ishihara himself started his working life as a flower seller before setting up his company in 1995, but his love affair with traditional Japanese gardens goes back further than that. 'Forty-five years ago, when I first practiced Ikebana, I was deeply moved by the world of forms created with just three branches,' he told the RHS.

'Since then, my design style has been about recreating those unforgettable, nostalgic landscapes that people around the world have seen at some point in their lives, within a garden.'

To celebrate Country Life's return to the Chelsea Flower Show, we're offering up to 40% off subscriptions to Country Life Magazine. It's our best offer ever; available until June 30.

SHOW GARDENS

GOLD — Cha No Niwa – Japanese Tea Garden

Also named RHS Garden of the Year in the Best in Show awards

Designer: Kazuyuki Ishihara

Kazuyuki Ishihara has been creating gardens at Chelsea for several years, but this is his first full-scale show garden — and its's a triumph, described as 'perfect' by Tiffany Daneff, Country Life's gardens editor.

GOLD — The Glasshouse Garden

Designer: Jo Thompson

No garden has more beautiful planting this year than Jo Thompson's creation, where a plethora of roses create a wonderful mix of sight and scent.

GOLD — The Avanade Intelligent Garden

Also awarded Best Construction (Show garden) in the Best in Show awards

Designer: Tom Massey & Je Ahn

An 'urban forest' planted with the environment in mind, full of things to monitor urban air quality and intended to be a test environment for urban tree planting in the future.

GOLD — The King’s Trust Garden: Seeding Success

Designer: Joe Perkins

The colourful stained glass installations make an immediate and bold impression, contrasting with the muted tones of the grasses and perennials that dominate the planting.

SILVER GILT — Hospice UK: Garden of Compassion

Designer: Tom Hoblyn

Not just beautiful, a garden full of clever ideas that's been made as much for its future life at a hospice as it has been for Chelsea. Just one example: paths made intentionally large enough for a hospital bed to be pushed along.

SILVER GILT — The Hospitalfield Arts Garden

Designer: Nigel Dunnett

A Scottish dunescape transported to London — quite something to see.

SMALL SHOW GARDENS

GOLD — London Square Chelsea Pensioners Garden

Designer: Dave Green

GOLD — Garden of the Future

Designer: Matthew Butler & Josh Parker

GOLD — Boodles Raindance Garden

Designer: Dr Catherine MacDonald

GOLD — Killik & Co ‘Save for a Rainy Day Garden’

Designer: Baz Grainger

GOLD — The Addleshaw Goddard: Freedom To Flourish Garden

Also named RHS Chelsea Small Garden of the Year and Best Construction (Small Show Garden) in the Best in Show awards

Designer: Carey Garden Design Studio

GOLD — The British Red Cross ‘Here for Humanity’ Garden

Designer: John Warland & Tom Bannister

SILVER GILT — Down’s Syndrome Scotland Garden

Designer: Nick Burton and Duncan Hall

SILVER GILT — Tackle HIV Challenging Stigma Garden

Designer: Manoj Malde

SILVER GILT — The Pathway Garden

Designer: Allon Hoskin & Robert Beaudin

SILVER — Children With Cancer UK ‘A Place To Be...’

Designer: Tom Clarke and Ros Coutts-Harwood

ALL ABOUT PLANTS

BEST ALL ABOUT PLANTS GARDEN — Seawilding

Designed by: Ryan McMahon

CONTAINER GARDENS

GOLD — Room to Breathe Hospital Garden for the TSA

Also named Best Container and Balcony Garden of the Year in the Best in Show awards

Designer: Jen Donnelly and Catherine Gibbon

GOLD — Komorebi Garden

Designer: Masa Taniguchi

SILVER GILT — C6

Designer: Joshua Fenton

SILVER GILT — Secret Base – The Another Green Room garden

Designer: Jun Ishihara

SILVER— MS Amlin Peace of Mind Garden

Designer: Hamzah-Adam Desai

BALCONY GARDENS

GOLD — Navium Marine: Blue Mind Garden

Designer: Ashleigh Aylett

SILVER GILT — A Space to Read Balcony Garden sponsored by Viking

Designer: Freddie Strickland & Ben Gifford

SILVER GILT — Making Life Better With Bees

Designer: Humble-Bee Gardeners

SILVER — Fettercairn Wilderness Retrea

Designer: ssh scapes : Sonia Kamel; Sally Giles; Helier Bowling

BRONZE — The ME+EM City Garden

Designer: Caroline and Peter Clayton of Viriditas Studio

To celebrate Country Life's return to the Chelsea Flower Show, we're offering up to 40% off subscriptions to Country Life Magazine. It's our best offer ever; available until June 30, 2025.

The Chelsea Flower Show is one of the high points of the summer: a celebration of plants, gardens and creativity, as well as an unbeatable opportunity to rub shoulders with those who share the passion for making the most of this gorgeous time of year in England.

This year, Country Life has its own presence at the show, at stand PW210, and we're thrilled to be part of this incomparable event. We'll be reporting from SW3 throughout the week, and you can see all our Chelsea 2025 stories right here, where we have been (and will continue) to share all the best photographs, stories and more from the show.

To kick things off on the opening day, we were delighted that Country Life's gardens editor Tiffany Daneff was able to record a podcast at the show itself, speaking to Country Life's Toby Keel. Tiffany is a veteran of the show, having been literally dozens of times in her career, and has been talking to many of the garden designers whose work is on display in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea.

She talks through the things not to miss at this year's show, from the best of the show gardens to the cleverest ideas from among the smaller gardens tucked away in the corners, and she also gives a rundown of the finest flowers from inside the Great Pavilion, all while telling the stories and sharing the insights about behind how the show comes together.

And yes, Tiffany also shares her very favourite plant from this year's show, one which she'd just seen before we started recording — so much so that she didn't yet have a note of the name. As promised in the recording, we've added the name here: it's called Ranunculus acris 'Citrinus'.

To celebrate Country Life's return to the Chelsea Flower Show, we're offering up to 40% off subscriptions to Country Life Magazine. It's our best offer ever; available until June 30, 2025.

Episode credits

Host: Toby Keel

Guest: Tiffany Daneff

Producer and editor: Toby Keel

Music: JuliusH via Pixabay

Back next week: James Fisher