The Royal Horticultural Society gave its top garden prize in 2025 to a Japanese tea garden built around the art of ikebana, while every show garden left the showground for a permanent home.
A Japanese tea garden by Kazuyuki Ishihara won the top prize at the Royal Hospital Chelsea in Chelsea, from Tuesday 20 to Saturday 24 May 2025.
The Royal Horticultural Society’s show is formally the Great Spring Show and has run at Chelsea for over a century. Its gardens are built for the week and then leave the showground.
The 2025 designs were promised homes at St Cuthbert’s Hospice in Durham and Ladyloan Primary School in Arbroath. A London community garden would test an AI tool for tree health.
Cha No Niwa was named RHS Chelsea Garden of the Year and was also the public’s favourite show garden. Ikebana, the art of making flowers alive, shaped its theme of communication and harmony, and its stones, changing levels and trees followed the Japanese countryside.
Gold medals went to The Avanade Intelligent Garden, Tom Massey and Je Ahn’s sensor-monitored urban forest, and to The King’s Trust Garden: Seeding Success. The Addleshaw Goddard: Freedom To Flourish Garden by Carey Garden Design Studio won Small Garden of the Year.
Monty Don’s first show garden, the RHS and BBC Radio 2 Dog Garden, was named Best Dog Garden.