This year’s Best Show Garden has been announced at Chelsea Flower Show 2024
This year’s Best Show Garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show has been announced, with Ula Maria’s garden for Muscular Dystrophy UK, supported by Project Giving Back, being named as the surprise winner.
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The garden features over 50 native trees – the most ever in a Chelsea show garden – and is inspired by the Japanese art of forest bathing, which has many health benefits. During her research, Ula met Martin, who was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy (MD) in his twenties. “Outside the hospital there was nowhere to sit and process his diagnosis. He had to sit in his car. I wanted to create a space where a person can breathe and process their thoughts.” The garden subtly tells the charity’s story via its hard landscaping.
Ula said of her win: “I am so excited and thrilled for the whole Muscular Dystrophy UK community, and all the guys who worked on the construction team, and it is amazing, because it is my first Chelsea Flower Show garden. Very excited. “
On paper, the Best in Show garden has achieved the highest score on the judges’ checklist, which covers nine criteria, including design, spatial composition, quality of the build and planting excellence. Discover what it takes to win Best in Show at Chelsea.
RHS Chair of Show Garden Judges Liz Nicholson said: “This has been one of the toughest years to judge, with exemplary designs and much to enjoy in design detailing. There are some fantastic narratives and storytelling amongst the gardens. Ula’s design is a wonderful slice of forest edge brought to the heart of the RHS Chelsea showground. It is immersive, relaxing and calming. Its use of flint, which is a difficult material to work with, is notable, creating possibly the biggest insect habitat I’ve ever seen. Coupled with faultless planting to make an innovative, artistic, and precise garden, it is a clear winner.”
After the show the garden will be relocated to the Institute of Developmental and Regenerative Medicine in Oxford.
Ula Maria initially had in mind a Sanctuary Garden for this year’s show, but Project Giving Back and the RHS loved the concept and offered her a Show Garden on Main Avenue. “It snowballed,” says Ula, 31, who was RHS Young Designer of the Year in 2017. Given that she’s now won Best in Show, beating off stiff competition from Tom Stuart-Smith (who also created a woodland style garden that was widely tipped to win, and for whom Ula used to freelance) – that is now proving something of an understatement.
Discover another garden designed by Ula Maria
In the Sanctuary Gardens category the Burma Skincare Initiative Spirit of Partnership Garden won Best in Show. Helen Olney’s designs are inspired by the landscape of Myanmar.
Best Construction Award went to the Terrence Higgins Trust Bridge to 2030 garden, designed by Matthew Childs, while the Best Balcony and Container Garden went to the Ecotherapy Garden designed by Tom Bannister. The Size of Wales Garden was the Best in Show winner in the All About Plants Gardens category.