The National Trust and Blue Diamond Garden Centres are delighted to be working with multi-award-winning garden design practice Ann-Marie Powell Gardens and award winning sound artist Justin Wiggan to create a prestigious show garden for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024.
The Octavia Hill Garden by Blue Diamond with the National Trust will celebrate pioneering social reformer Octavia Hill (1838-1912), a founder of the National Trust, who believed that ‘the healthy gift of air and the joy of plants and flowers’ were vital in everyone’s life.
Designed by Ann-Marie Powell with the Blue Diamond team, the garden has a relaxed feel and natural planting style. It is laid out as a series of ‘outdoor sitting rooms’ – a core idea from Octavia Hill – where each individual garden compartment has its own atmosphere. Visitors are invited to feel they are part of nature, a fundamental need as important today as in Octavia Hill’s lifetime.
Dividing the space in this way echoes the ‘winding ways’ that Octavia often referred to, offering the opportunity to wander, both physically and emotionally.
Ann-Marie Powell said: “Research proves that access to public green space improves so many outcomes: educational; physical, mental and social; resilience and recovery. Providing green space isn’t a niche idea; it was, and still is, crucial to our health and happiness.”
The garden includes an installation by sound artist Justin Wiggan which records the electrical impulses of the plants, the earth beneath our feet, and the colours within blooms, wind and water. This will enhance connections with the garden and provide alternative experiences for visitors who are visually impaired or blind. Thanks to geocaching, visitors will even be able to share and ‘replant’ the garden’s sounds, creating their own ‘sound gardens’ around the world.
Download your own sonic seed kit here to access the sounds Justin has taken from some of the key plants and flowers. We encourage all, young and old to use these sonic seeds to make inspirational soundscapes. Please share your work with us on Instagram use the hashtag : #sonicseedcfs24 and tag the team @gardeninternal / @ann_mariepowell / @bluediamond.homeandgarden / @nationaltrust
List of plants / Flowers :
- BAPTISIA AUSTRALIS
- BUDDLEJA DAVIDII ” FLOWER POWER”
- CLEMATIS
- CORYLUS AVELLANA
- DIGITALIS
- GIANT SCABIOUS
- HAWTHORN
- IRIS HOLDEN CLOUGH
- LUNARIA ANNUA ” CHEDGLOW”
- MAACKIA AMURENSIS
- SALVIA LA MANCHA
- THALICTRUM KIUSIANUM
- ZANTHOXYLUM PEPPER SIMULANS
Download the Sonic Seed Kit (zip)
Andy Jasper, the National Trust’s Director of Gardens & Parklands, said: “We’re so excited to have a garden at Chelsea Flower Show for the first time in a decade. What we wanted to do was ask: if Octavia Hill was alive today, what would concern her? Without a doubt, she’d want to provide access to nature for urban communities, because we believe gardens and green space have the power to transform lives in so many ways.
“We hope everyone will come away from this garden with an appreciation of Octavia Hill, what she stood for and how important she has been to the formation of the National Trust. We remain inspired by the role she played and we believe that gardens can continue to address the biodiversity crisis.
“We’re proud to be working with Blue Diamond and Ann-Marie Powell Gardens to be part of one of the most sustainable, most accessible and most uplifting gardens to ever come to Chelsea Flower Show. And, of course, we hope people will be inspired to go on and visit the many historic gardens that we care for.”
Jill Kerr, Group Relationship Manager for Blue Diamond, said: “Blue Diamond, along with the National Trust and Ann-Marie Powell Gardens, believe in gardens for all – for people, nature and for wildlife. Research shows that spending time outdoors, whether it be in public green spaces or your own garden, results in better physical, mental and social wellbeing.
“We had an idea for an Octavia Hill themed garden and so approached the National Trust who we were working in collaboration with, suggesting that we design a garden based upon Octavia Hill’s ideals. Octavia believed that a garden should be the complement of every home and campaigned to save even the smallest neighbourhood open space as an ‘outdoor sitting room’ providing ‘pure earth, clean air and blue sky’.
“We hope the garden will inspire and encourage people to get involved and create gardens or areas for plants to flourish, to spend time outdoors in nature and in their gardens to enjoy the many proven benefits. Blue Diamond provides everything you could need to create your own ‘outdoor sitting room’ and nature friendly space, including a range of plants to capture the look and feel of our RHS Chelsea Garden, at home.”
Ann-Marie Powell continued: “In honour of Octavia Hill, we’ve created ‘a place to sit in, a place to play in, a place to stroll in and a place to spend the day in’. It is a place of refuge, a place to withdraw from personal challenges and the everyday. In this space, surrounded by wildlife, your spirit can be nurtured and revived.
“The garden also shows that the parks, verges and gardens of our cities and towns present a huge opportunity to increase plant diversity and provide habitats and food for wildlife including pollinators. Many people think of biodiversity as a luxury – a nice-to-have – but it’s the engine that produces everything that we consume. When it is diminished, everything loses out.”
She concluded: “To have the opportunity to design a garden whose message I feel so passionate about at the world’s most famous flower show is a dream come true for me and the wider design team. I hope this garden educates, inspires, invigorates and puts a huge smile on the face of all that visit, and highlights the importance of green space, plants, wildlife, nature and air being a basic human right that should be accessible to all.”
After the show, the garden will be rebuilt at Blue Diamond-owned Bridgemere Show Gardens (an RHS Partner Garden) near Nantwich in Cheshire, where it can be visited year-round.
Landscape build for The Octavia Hill Garden by Blue Diamond with the National Trust is by The Landscaping Consultants, with plants supplied by Hortus Loci.