Sponsored by Blue Diamond and the National Trust, the multi-award winning garden designer Ann-Marie Powell has designed the RHS Chelsea Octavia Hill Garden to celebrate the life and work of the pioneering social reformer. The garden was designed to increases urban-biodiversity and encourage visitors to feel part of nature by making intimate connections with plants and wildlife.
Octavia Hill (1838-1912), a founder of the National Trust, believed that “the healthy gift of air and the joy of plants and flowers” were vital in everyone’s life. Hillworked tirelessly to improve urban housing and protect green space. Yet today, one in three people in Britain still don’t have access to nearby nature-rich spaces. While celebrating Octavia’s legacy, the garden also aims to inspire people to create innovative gardens that connect people with the beauty and complexity of the natural world.
The National Trust, Blue Diamond Garden Centres and Ann-Marie Powell share the belief that gardens have the power to transform lives and should be for everyone. This is reflected in the RHS Chelsea Octavia Hill Garden design as an urban community wildlife garden set on a brownfield site.
The garden has been created with wellbeing, biodiversity, sustainability and accessibility in mind.
RHS Chelsea inspired plant collection
The garden, located on RHS Chelsea’s Main Avenue, will feature some 3,600 native and non-native plants to appeal to both wildlife and visitors. For visitors keen to take some of RHS Chelsea home, Blue Diamond Garden Centres has curated a collection of plants that are in or inspired by The Octavia Hill Garden. The plants in the collection have been chosen for their colour, shape and texture. Available from May, the collection will include herbaceous plants, fern and grasses, that provide interest, nectar and pollen throughout the year.
Jill Kerr, Group Relationship Manager for Blue Diamond, said: “We hope the RHS Chelsea Plant Collection will inspire and encourage people to create gardens or areas for plants to flourish and spend time outdoors in nature. Blue Diamond provides everything you 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 Show Garden at home.”
Sound artist Justin Wiggan, who recorded electrical impulses of plants in The Octavia Hill Garden, has also recorded the sounds of several plants in the National Trust Chelsea Plant Collection by Blue Diamond. Show visitors can scan a QR code at the Blue Diamond Garden Centres stand in the Floral Marquee to listen to plants ‘talking’. The aim is to enhance people’s connections with the plants and provide an alternative experience, especially for those who are visually impaired or blind.
New rose ‘National Trust Beauty’
The pioneering reformer and founder of the National Trust, Octavia Hill said, “We all want beauty; we all need space”.
To celebrate her life, work and these inspirational words, Blue Diamond Garden Centres will launch a new rose at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show on behalf of the National Trust, called Rosa ‘National Trust Beauty’.
Bred by Rosen Tantau, Rosa ‘National Trust Beauty’ is a fragrant shrub rose with elegant golden-yellow blooms with apricot tones. It grows to a height of 1.2m with an abundance of flowers and is disease resistant.