5 Ways To Make Your Garden Chelsea Flower Show Worthy Year Round

The highlight on the horticultural calendar is fast approaching: the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. If you’d like to get the Chelsea ‘wow’ factor in your own garden year-round, we’ve got you covered. Juliet Sargeant is a Chelsea award winner, a regular panellist on Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time, and a member of the Creativity Found Collective and guest on their podcast. When she’s not creating fabulous gardens from her Sussex studio, she’s teaching workshops in craft, design and gardening with her team at The Sussex Garden School. Here are Juliet’s top take-home tips to transform your garden into a Chelsea Flower Show worthy oasis.

5 Gardening Tips From A Chelsea Flower Award Winner

Juliet Sargeant at Chelsea Flower Show in 2016. © The English Garden/Sam Churchill

1. Prepare Your Soil

‘Hopefully, you won’t see much of the soil in your garden, but every successful scheme starts with well-prepared soil,’ says Juliet. ‘An early investment of time and money in a thick layer of organic compost will pay dividends, and a generous layer of mulch after planting will keep the plants healthy through the most challenging months of the year.’

2. Consider Colour

‘Garden designers think carefully about colour palettes,’ Juliet says. ‘Choose your favourite colour and then work the scheme around that, rather than having a splash of everything. A popular, pleasing combination is purple, blues and whites. An extra pop of bright pink or deep wine colour adds interest and intensity.’

3. Monthly Plant Shopping

‘Visit your local nursery every month for a year, choosing a few plants each time and then saving your pennies for the next visits,’ says Juliet. ‘Then you will have many months of seasonal interest to enjoy.’

4. Limit Your Show-Stoppers

‘Chelsea is a five-day show, so all the visual impact is designed for just one week at the end of May,’ says Juliet. ‘That’s not great for your garden at home, so choose just a few of your favourite show-stoppers, then spread the interest with other flowers through the year.’

5. Height Variation

‘Look at the way that Chelsea designers work with different heights of planting,’ Juliet recommends. ‘Dot tall plants through the planting, so it seems to undulate, and remember to have short things right at the front to soften paving edges and cover bare earth.’