At the February meeting of Aldersbrook Horticultural Society, Charlotte Harris, internationally renowned garden designer, spoke about the garden that Charlotte and her business partner, Hugo Bugg, designed and built for the Chelsea Flower Show 2023. The garden won a gold medal at Chelsea as well as being the ‘Best In the Show Garden’. Harris Bugg Studio is renowned as a values driven practice designing a range of gardens – residential; public; historic and botanic.
Charlotte told us how the Horatio’s Garden that they had designed for Chelsea is being relocated to The Princess Spinal Injuries Centre in Sheffield. She showed us designs for the Chelsea Garden which were made after extensive research on the effect of spinal injuries, as well as planting plans and a film of the award winning Chelsea show garden. The garden was designed as a woodland garden to provide dappled light and the main trees used were Field Maple (Acer Campestre) and Black Stemmed Birch (Betra Niger). A number of Pods were constructed to provide private spaces for patients as well as stone built ‘cairns’. The show garden incorporated beautiful planting at a level that could be seen by wheelchair users, paths which are wheelchair friendly, and a water feature including replicas of tools used in the production of Sheffield steel. A Chelsea garden takes 12 days to build and 5 days to plant – it is a risky business and Charlotte told us about the 4 out of 6 trees that they were going to plant which became defoliated just before planting, even though they had bought them two years earlier! An emergency visit to a tree nursery replaced those trees. Chelsea gardens are judged twice in two days the judges were provided with wheelchairs from which they could judge the Harris & Bugg Chelsea Garden.
Charlotte then went on to explain how the garden was being repurposed and rebuilt for the Hospital in Sheffield, sharing with us plans and 3D images of what it will look like when it is completed. It is being built on a car park, with a shelter belt provided by existing trees. The trees from the Chelsea Garden have been replanted in Sheffield and the stone wallers who built the cairns for the Chelsea garden will build the cairns in Sheffield. Once more the paths which will be built will be wide and reflect the shape of the River Rivelin. Perennial plants used in the Chelsea Garden were sold at the end of the Show and the money will be used to buy perennials for the Sheffield Garden. Horatio’s Garden is a wonderful charity bringing green spaces to hospitals for patients with spinal injuries and we are looking forward to hearing from Ashley Edwards, the Head Gardner at Horatio’s Garden in Stanmore, Middlesex who has been booked to speak to our group in February 2026.
“…wanted to tell you how much we enjoyed the last meeting. Really interestin. You all make the AHS work so well.” Sue, AHS member.
“Wonderful evening, thank yo SO much for organising it. Charlotte was an entertaining speaker and there was an awful lot about Chelsea Gold Medal gardens that I just had no idea about…” Sandra, AHS member.