The Royal Horticultural Society’s summer festival at Hampton Court Palace, first held in 1990, gave its Best Show Garden award in 2025 to The Subaru Cocoon.
The Subaru Cocoon was named Best Show Garden at Hampton Court Palace in East Molesey, Surrey, from Tuesday 1 to Sunday 6 July 2025. The Royal Horticultural Society runs the summer festival.
The show began in July 1990 as the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, an idea of the management consultant Adrian Boyd. He brought together Historic Royal Palaces and Network SouthEast, which ran special trains from Waterloo.
When the railway withdrew its sponsorship in 1992, the Society won the right to run the show and held its first there in 1993. With room on both banks of the Long Water, it grew into the largest of the Society’s shows, and in 2019 it took the name Garden Festival.
The Society has since moved to a touring pattern of shows and has set no date for a return to Hampton Court.
Mike McMahon and Jewlsy Mathews designed The Subaru Cocoon, which also took the RHS Environmental Innovation Award. The Alan Partridge Sound Bath Garden won a gold medal. Visitors chose The Three Graces of Galicia by Nilufer Danis as their favourite show garden.
In the Floral Marquee, Burncoose Nurseries was named RHS Master Grower.