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.

Ruth Martin, our AHS chair talked about Winter Gardens at the January meeting, in the place of the advertised speaker who had to postpone due to family illness. She began by showing pictures of plants and flowers from members’ gardens blooming during December and early January (before the freeze), emphasising the effects of climate change in our gardens. However, Ruth went on to emphasise the importance of planting particular shrubs, trees and early flowering bulbs to provide colour, interest and perfume in the cold, grey and dismal months. She stated the importance of providing a good winter view from the window. Ruth spoke about the changes in gardening habits and the necessity of keeping dead plants and foliage over the winter, providing feed for birds and insects. In the same way a number of flowering shrubs such as Daphne, Clematis cirrhosa, Hamamelis, & Winter flowering honeysuckle and early bulbs like Iris reticulata, Crocus, Galanthus (snowdrops) & Eranthis provide pollen for early flying single bees. Shrubs which flower in Winter have a strong perfume precisely to attract bees – they also perfume a room if one or two sprigs are brought into the house. A number of sprigs of winter flowering plants were available for members to see and smell. 

Pictures of trees of interest in winter, like Silver Birch and the Paperback maple with stunning trunks were displayed as well as shrubs with coloured stems such as Cornus and Rubus cockburnianus which give winter colour. Ruth suggested that planting a border with one or two evergreen shrubs provides a good background to plants with coloured stems. She recommended identifying an area of the garden which can be seen from a window and in that area planting an interesting tree, with evergreens and shrubs with coloured stems and strong perfume to provide more interest. She also suggested planting up pots with early flowering bulbs such as Iris reticulata and Crocus which can be seen from the window and planting perfumed shrubs by paths and outside doors so they can be appreciated best. 

She concluded her talk with some pictures of the Winter garden at Anglesey Abbey which members of the AHS