- We have confirmed our 2022 garden sponsorship at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
- The Meta Garden: Growing the Future will be rehomed in partnership with the UK’s National Forest.
- The interactive installation will bring to life the complex communication webs found in nature for visitors to experience through technology.
We have commissioned award-winning landscape designer, Joe Perkins MSGD, for our Main Avenue garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2022.
Joe won three awards with his Chelsea Flower Show debut with us in 2019, including an RHS Gold medal, Best Construction and the coveted Best in Category.
The Meta Garden: Growing the Future is inspired by the mission to support British woodlands and forests for future generations. The garden has been designed to highlight the crucial relationship between soil, fungi and plants, which together form the basis of resilient forest ecosystems.
The garden will be an immersive experience, featuring a complex pavilion structure that represents the mycelium networks that connect and support woodland life. It will also include a central seating area sunken within the environment rather than imposed above it. An interactive installation will bring to life the complex communication webs found in nature, for visitors to experience through technology.
There is an urgent need to redress the balance of our relationship with the natural world, and there is so much to learn from the connections in nature, both in terms of how we learn to support and preserve sustainable forest ecosystems, and in how we act together as communities ourselves to tackle climate change. The garden’s focus on the symbiotic relationship between trees, plants, and the mycorrhizae systems they depend upon, demonstrates the necessity of connection and how vital it is for the health of all communities.
– Joe Perkins MSGD
A colourful planting scheme of white, yellow, purple and red will feature specimens threatened by climate change, such as Linnaea borealis. It will also feature planting that is well suited to predicted future climatic conditions like Sweet Chestnut and Douglas Fir. Alder will also feature for its ability to fix nitrogen in the soil, making it available to other species.
The naturalistic garden will also include a stylised meadow, showcasing almost 3000 plants both native to the UK and from around the world.
Following our successful partnership in 2019, we are proud to partner with Joe again on a garden that embodies communities in all its forms and sizes: woodland-wide and microscopic; individual and collective.
“The Meta garden is all about championing natural ways we can tackle climate change and how we can protect our wonderful British woodlands. We’ve seen a boom in enthusiastic plant-lovers across the UK during the pandemic. Individuals and communities are coming together on places like Facebook Groups and Instagram to share their tips, get inspired, and educate themselves on how we can all make more sustainable decisions for our planet.”
– Steve Hatch, VP of Northern Europe, Meta
The Meta Garden: Growing the Future is being supported by the National Forest. It will rehome the garden after the Chelsea Flower Show, as part of The Queen’s Green Canopy campaign, which focuses on planting trees to celebrate The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
“This is a forest of people, as much as trees, and is a forest for everyone. We are stronger growing together, as an entity, like the forest itself and the unseen mycelium that underpins its biodiversity. The networks of the National Forest are strong, and are essential to the changes we have seen over the past 30 years working with partners to create the Forest. We believe in the power of trees to transform people’s lives and the landscape, and will be excited to see Joe Perkins’s Meta garden relocated to the Forest. Many more people will be able to see it here and enjoy his interpretation of our interdependence through a forest-inspired garden.”
– John Everitt, Chief Executive, National Forest
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show will take place May 24-28, in London, UK.