From climate-resilient spaces to whimsical retreats, explore the garden designs at this year's Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival
The RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival 2025 is officially in full bloom, with a vibrant mix of garden designs that champion sustainability, creativity and storytelling. Set against the stunning backdrop of Hampton Court Palace, the famous flower show runs from 1st to 6th July and features everything from whimsical urban pockets to climate-resilient sanctuaries and serene spaces rooted in wellness.
We're unveiling the full list of garden designs alongside the coveted medal winners — from gold and silver gilt to silver and bronze — plus the prestigious Best in Show accolades. Among the highlights? The gold-medal-winning Subaru Cocoon garden scooped up Best Show Garden, Best Construction, and the RHS Environmental Innovation Award, while A Garden of Two Tales charmed its way to win the Best Garden of Curiosity.
Ready to explore this year’s most inspiring outdoor spaces? Take a look below...
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The Feature Gardens aren’t part of the judging process, but they play an important role. Created in collaboration with the RHS, these large-scale spaces offer a powerful platform to spotlight key themes, spark conversation, and support wider campaigns or causes.
FEATURE GARDEN
Blending architecture with ecology, RHS Vertigro reimagines urban greening through dramatic vertical planting. Through towering living walls and sun-seeking climbers, the garden highlights the benefits of vertical habitats — enhancing biodiversity, cooling urban heat, and capturing carbon – while transforming overlooked spaces into vibrant, living corridors.
FEATURE GARDEN
The RSPB and RHS Swift Garden celebrates swifts and champions wildlife-friendly gardening. Showcasing nest boxes, sculptures, and diverse planting, it highlights how varied garden styles can support biodiversity. The garden inspires a deeper connection with nature and helps secure a future for swifts and other struggling species.
FEATURE GARDEN
RHS Healer’s Hollow is a serene tribute to our deep-rooted relationship with plants and their vital role in human wellbeing. Celebrating their healing power —from ecosystems to modern medicine — the garden invites reflection on how we can reconnect with nature. It champions a respectful, nurturing approach to plants as essential allies in health and daily life.
New for 2025, the Gardens of Curiosity category invites designers to push creative boundaries, resulting in visually striking spaces brimming with inspiration and clever ideas that visitors can take home and try themselves.
GARDENS OF CURIOSITY
Awards: Gold | Best Garden of Curiosity
The Garden of Two Tales encourages curiosity and quiet reflection. Visitors journey across a water feature into a secluded space framed by ornamental installations. Inspired by cottage-style gardens, its naturalistic planting — lush greenery dotted with colourful blooms — creates a wildlife-friendly haven designed to spark questions, invite pause, and deepen connection.
GARDENS OF CURIOSITY
Awards: Silver Gilt | Best Construction Award
Inspired by woodland edges, this garden blends natural materials with handcrafted features made from over 20 tree and plant species. Woven walls, log trenches, and living willow create a secluded, calming space. A dry hedge supports wildlife and enriches the soil, encouraging biodiversity and reflecting the slow, regenerative rhythms of the woodland ecosystem.
GARDENS OF CURIOSITY
Award: Silver
Illusion 2050 is a modern courtyard garden that blends art, nature, and innovation to raise awareness about sustainable design. With drought-tolerant planting and a dream-like atmosphere, it explores how we might garden by 2050. The space invites peaceful contemplation while encouraging proactive conversations about adapting to climate change with beauty, resilience, and hope.
GARDENS OF CURIOSITY
Award: Bronze
Aster of Senses celebrates London as a National Park City, reconnecting people with nature through sensory forest garden planting. Created by diverse Park City Rangers, the garden features hügelkultur mounds, edible meadows, and reused materials inspired by urban edgelands. Its five-sense design and community spirit champion grassroots, nature-based solutions for urban climate resilience.
Celebrating horticultural flair at its finest, this category gives talented designers the chance to wow with showstopping creations that blend innovation, beauty, and bold ideas.
SHOW GARDEN
Awards: Gold | Best Show Garden | Best Construction Award | Environmental Innovation Award
The Subaru Cocoon spotlights the UK’s threatened temperate rainforests through naturalistic planting and sustainable design. A jali-style K-Briq wall made from recycled waste supports pollinators, while a mirrored water threshold and raised path offer fresh perspectives. Recycled paper seating and rich biodiversity highlight the garden’s eco ethos and invitation to quiet reflection.
SHOW GARDEN
Award: Gold
Devised by TV character Alan Partridge (played by Steve Coogan) in collaboration with leading designers, The Alan Partridge Sound Bath Garden features a Larch fence with his name in soundwave form, gold-detailed metalwork, and wheelchair-friendly paths. Thoughtfully chosen plants nod to music, local landscapes, and Alan’s countryside rambles.
SHOW GARDEN
Award: Silver
Charleston 250 celebrates the elegance of historic Charleston, South Carolina, blending English garden formality with Southern charm. Featuring reclaimed brick, a crushed seashells pathway, antique ironwork, and a Freedman’s Cottage, the garden is rich in authentic detail. A marble statue inspired by Middleton Place adds a striking focal point, honouring the city’s heritage and timeless beauty.
SHOW GARDEN
Award: Silver
Reclaiming Spaces, Creating Healthy Streets transforms parking bays into vibrant green spaces that connect people with nature. Designed for biodiversity, pollution absorption, and water resilience, the low-maintenance planting offers year-round interest. Built with input from the Surrey Youth Offer Team, the garden promotes wellbeing, community, and greener streets across the county.
SHOW GARDEN
Award: Silver
The Three Graces of Galicia pays tribute to three pioneering 19th-century Galician women through a romantic garden of winding paths, serene water features, and scented nooks. Reflecting their literary and social legacies, the design blends topiary, vintage structures, and evocative art to celebrate poetry, progressive thought, and social justice in a tranquil, contemplative setting.
SHOW GARDEN
Award: N/A
Oregon Garden channels the wild beauty of the Pacific Northwest, celebrating Oregon’s diverse landscapes and outdoor lifestyle. Featuring a canvas tent, fire pit, and pollinator-friendly planting, it evokes forests, waterfalls, and coastal views. Set in the UK, the garden invites nature lovers to embrace a more adventurous, regenerative approach to green space design.
Pocket Planting returns this year with a fresh 'city' theme, brought to life in compact beds. Open to current students and recent graduates of horticultural courses (within the last five years), the category offers up-and-coming talent the chance to be mentored by a professional garden designer and bring their vision to the show.
POCKET PLANTING
Awards: Gold | Best City Pocket Planting
Green the Gap reimagines neglected urban spaces as havens for nature and people. Sculpted Portland Stone and recycled materials blend with drought-tolerant planting to support wildlife in harsh city conditions. This low-maintenance garden softens hardscapes, celebrates resilience, and encourages us to see overlooked corners as vital green pockets in our growing cities.
POCKET PLANTING
Award: Gold
Sunlight Shining Through is a climate-resilient community garden in coastal Hove. Using recycled materials and drought-tolerant, Mediterranean-inspired planting, it addresses the local impact of climate change. The garden promotes biodiversity and sustainability, offering a welcoming, low-maintenance green space for daily use — designed with care, local insight, and a forward-thinking horticultural ethos.
POCKET PLANTING
Award: Silver Gilt
Hot Pocket is a striking, pollinator-friendly planting pocket designed for hot, dry, low-fertility conditions. Inspired by gravel gardens and dry meadows, it features resilient plants like achillea, salvia, and eryngium. Created as a space to pause and reconnect with nature, its legacy lives on through plans to rehome the plants in Molesey’s public green spaces.
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