Exploring the colours of Chelsea Flower Show 2025

How do you feel when you walk into a predominantly white garden? Or one that is filled with bright, punchy colours? The effect can be dramatically different, with colour the animating force at the heart of any garden scheme, not only providing visual pleasure but also energising or calming a space. Colour has the emotive power to create the appropriate atmosphere for conveying an interpretation, so is a key component of any RHS Chelsea Flower Show Garden.

Award-winning designer Jo Thompson applies this colour principle in her Gold Medal winning garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show for ‘The Glasshouse’, a social enterprise providing rehabilitation through horticulture, for women due to be released from prison. Jo is known for her tasteful, romantic designs, underpinned by a strong understanding of colour and space. In ‘The Glasshouse Garden’ the bold reds and jewel tones of the planting represent strength, with the velvety, dark crimson flowers of Rosa Tuscany Superb, together with Baptisia forming the basis of this dynamic accent. These reds are tempered with pinks: Deutzia - a wonderful flowering shrub with colour and scent that thrives in most conditions; and the delicate pinky flowers of Thalictrum. Some alternative but no less excellent varieties that would help you to create a similar effect include Thalictrum aquilegiifolium Thundercloud and Deutzia Pink Cloud, and some other beautiful pink roses that could be utilised would be Rosa Gabriel Oak and Rosa Princess Anne.

Jo always likes to use roses in her designs, as she feels they are invaluable in bringing height, form, structure and beauty to a scheme. By carefully selecting a range of companion planting, the resulting effect works to complement the rose and create a different mood. Here the roses take centre stage, drawing the eye, yet they are softened with ferns and grasses and traditional foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea) and cow parsley. The result is gentle and beautiful, perfect for surrounding the calming rill water feature, which as a natural force, shows life continuing to move forward. The representation of strength and beauty reflects optimism, and the second chance of life offered to the women prisoners.

Pink also appears in another Chelsea garden, Thomas Clarke and Ros Coutts- Harwood's ‘Children with Cancer: A Place to Be.. Garden’. The colour palette here includes pinks and burgundy, with splashes of white, before a transition into greens and whites for the calmer garden zones. Here the playful pink of Rosa ‘Emma Bridgewater’ (also used in Jo Thompson’s garden) and tall burgundy perennials are set against the white bells of Digitalis, with texture and movement provided by grasses, and the alpine wood fern Dryopteris wallichiana. Both this garden and the 'Glasshouse Garden’ have similar themes of resilience and hope, so it is interesting to see a correlation in colour and plant choice.

Red can be used in the garden as a dramatic statement, as it pulls you in and makes a space look closer. Sitting opposite green on the colour wheel, it automatically stands out against the viridescence of the garden, but it can also dominate, so should be used with care. Good examples of red statement plants are geums, geraniums, lupins and roses. Pinks are softer and reduce the energy of red, and with so many different shades, offer visual depth and contrast. A favourite of romantic planting schemes, examples include peonies, spirea, clematis, hydrangea, and, of course, roses.