Chelsea Flower Show 2023: Harris Bugg’s Garden for a Good Cause Wins Best in Show
Photography by Jim Powell.
Sometimes, it’s the garden that people quietly admire at the Chelsea Flower Show that wins Best in Show—and the prognosticators have to go back and have a rethink.
“Chelsea is a stop on the way to somewhere else.” Spinal injury patients Ade Adepitan and actor George Robinson share a joke in Horatio’s Garden at the Chelsea Flower Show.
River birch and the serendipitously named Ranunculus ‘Horatio’ around a shingled outdoor shelter. Harris Bugg also wanted it to be environmentally friendly so they produced permeable paving made from crushed and smoothed aggregate to create a terrazzo effect.
Two thirds of this garden is covered in dappled shade, provided by river birch with its textured bark, and field maple. The expectation for a garden for people with spinal injuries would be that it’s all a certain height.
Textural plantings includes Cirsum rivulare and Anthriscus sylvestris ‘Ravenswing’, grown for the show by Kelways. The trees came from Deepdale and the mixed hedging is from Big Hedge Co, who will store it again while the bigger garden is being built.
“The idea of water was to bring wildlife, animation, and reflective qualities into the Horatio’s gardens,” says Hugo.