Each year Chelsea Flower Show gardens showcase beautifully crafted furniture. Here is inspiration from recent years
From benches to swing seats and from sofas to stools, Chelsea Flower Show is a great place to pick up some inspiration for your garden furniture needs.
In 2024, highlights included burnt-ash seating, al fresco dining set ups and all shapes and sizes of garden chairs.
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Furniture inspiration from RHS Chelsea Flower Show
Benches
The sculptural benches made by master carver Kate Hanrahan for Ann-Marie Powell’s The Octavia Hill Garden came from oak trees that fell on National Trust properties. They were loved by the junior judges who awarded the garden the inaugural Children’s Choice Award at the Chelsea Flower Show 2024.
Hear from Ann-Marie on the Talking Gardens podcast, where she chats about her Show Garden.
Another garden which featured large wooden benches was Ula Maria’s garden for Muscular Dystrophy UK, which won a Gold Medal and Best Show Garden. It was made by West Sussex-based craftsman Oli Carter from trees that already needed to be felled. The wood is ash, which has been scorched in Shou Shugi Ban style – a Japanese style of flame-treated finish that goes well with the garden’s Japanese forest bathing ethos – to give it the blackened exterior and extend the longevity of the piece.
This beautifully crafted teak hardwood benches in designer Katherine Holland’s garden in the All About Plants category are formed of undulating slats for maximum comfort and feature stylish thin cushion pads. They are the Amaze Garden Bench from Cane-line and retail from £2,279.
How to choose the best garden bench and garden seat
Small scale pieces
In the Balcony & Container Gardens category, there was plenty of inspiring furniture to be found, including this minimalist but pleasing little stool in Tsuyako Asada’s garden. It ties in with the accompanying ladder and each piece gives the garden a cohesive feel.
Tucked off to one side of Tom Bannister’s The Ecotherapy Garden is a small wooden bench, the perfect spot to contemplate and listen to all the running water in this space.
Al-fresco dining set-ups
This simple but striking wooden table and chairs in the shade in The National Autistic Society Garden was designer and created by the designer herself from leftover wood.
A dining set-up in Baz Grainger’s Kilik & Co ‘Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees’ Garden includes Vincent Sheppard’s new Frida dining chairs, made from teak and wound rope, available in two colours from suppliers including Heal’s, with a starting price of £675. The table is styled with products from Nkuku.
Outside dining: the best for the open air
Modern seating
These bright and bold seats in Penelope Walker’s The Panathlon Joy Garden are certainly eye-catching and would be perfect for anyone who loves bright colours in the garden.
This contoured seat in Catherine MacDonald’s Boodles National Gallery Garden is the Otto outdoor armchair by Paola Lenti would fit a contemporary space.
Armchairs and seats for lounging
These stylish lounge chairs in Miria Harris’s garden for The Stroke Association – a sort of maxxed out deck chair – created a welcome focal point amongst her soft planting and warm hard landscaping. They were created by budding furniture designer Olivia Gonsalves.
Listen to Miria Harris talk about her Show Garden on the Gardens Illustrated podcast, Talking Gardens.
These cushioned armchairs in the Kilik & Co ‘Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees’ Garden look like the perfect place to lounge in the shade of the silver birches on a warm day.
Another atmospheric spot to sit in the shade, this seat in Tom Stuart-Smith’s garden for The National Garden Scheme was crafted specially for the show, just like the other wooden wonder in the space – the amazing shed. Carpenter Fenton Scott-Fielder and his team crafted many of the elements out of oak and a beech tree that fell in Tom Stuart-Smith’s sister’s garden.
Listen to Tom Stuart-Smith talking about garden design on the Talking Gardens podcast.
The best garden chairs for the garden
We have plenty of recommendations of the best garden furniture if you’re feeling inspired!