10 Design Ideas For Your Garden

We select some our favourite designer solutions for you to take home from this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

- Zia Allaway

1 CREATE A TRANQUIL RETREAT Garden and interior designer Fiona Cadwallader is making her debut at this year’s show in the Artisan category. The Poetry Lover’s Garden is a serene space wrapped in lush planting,perfect for relaxing with your favourite book of verse on a swing seat, soothed by the sound of gently cascading water.

Fiona’s tips for creating a tranquil retreat: “Enclose your space with climbing roses or clematis fixed to a trellis, wall or arch. Water is very relaxing, too – in my Chelsea garden, it ripples down a steel water feature, while discreet fibre optics add sparkling highlights.A decorative bird bath can have a similar effect, attracting wildlife to drink and bathe and bringing you closer to nature.”

2 AN EQUINE-FRIENDLY PADDOCK Chelsea veterans Adam Woolcott and Jonathan Smith’s Artisan garden highlights the work of the World Horse Welfare charity. Designed as a healthy wildflower meadow environment for rescue horses to escape neglect and discomfort, it features Tom Hill’s striking equine sculpture made from reclaimed horseshoes.

Adam and Jonathan’s tips for establishing an equine-friendly paddock: “A large garden, a couple of acres in size, planted as a wildflower meadow can double as a perfect paddock for a horse. It is best to split the garden into sections, so you can rotate the grazing spaces to allow time for regrowth. A shelter of some kind should be provided in the form of a thick hedge of field maple or hawthorn, if not a traditional stable. Horses not only eat grass, they also love herbs so you could add a border of chamomile, meadowsweet and comfrey, and let nettles and dandelions grow alongside.”