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Another year, another RHS Chelsea Flower Show. You’d think we’d be blasé about it, but it never gets old! Each Chelsea brings its own special blend of fabulousness. We saw all the excitement and the famous faces from our high-profile stand on Main Avenue, in among the show gardens.
This year saw near-perfect weather – apart from a very wet Wednesday morning! It was a hugely busy year for us, and we were delighted to meet so many people who love our tools, visiting from all over the world.
We took as the inspiration for our stand our new BoronGreen range of RHS-endorsed tools. The range uses 80 per cent recycled steel in the tool heads, and we challenged ourselves to create our stand largely from recycled and upcycled materials. We think our team did a great job! So did the trade stand judges – we were over the moon to win four stars for our excellent presentation.
But we did get a little time during the week to wander around the showground and drink in the horticultural inspiration. Here are our favourite things from the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2025.
The Addleshaw Goddard: Freedom To Flourish Garden (above)
We were keen to see this, as it was designed by our friends Joe and Laura Carey, of Carey Garden Design. We’d supported them two years ago with some tools for the build of their first show garden, when they won a gold medal. This year we’d supported them with tools once again. Could they repeat that top honour? The garden was packed with the Careys’ attention to detail, with the smallest sub-tones in the materials subtly echoed in the planting. Inspired by the natural landscapes of north Norfolk, this relaxing space managed water, hard landscaping and planting in the most harmonious way. And the judges loved it! It won not only a gold medal, but also the Best Small Garden, and Best Construction awards. What an extraordinary achievement. Huge congratulations to Joe and Laura Carey on this fabulous garden.
Flora of South Africa
This amazing exhibit in the Great Pavilion stopped us in our tracks! The creativity, ambition and sheer scale was something to behold. The design represented both the cooler Atlantic habitats of South Africa and also the more tropical zones on the Indian Ocean. The exhibit also represented a mountain highlands, cut through with a ravine, complete with waterfall. Seeing the collision of habitats and plant life, from delicate orchids to show-stopping protea, was beyond impressive. We could have spent hours there, taking it all in. An astonishing exhibit from the team led by Leon Kluge and Tristan Woudberg.
The Glasshouse Garden
This garden was our next-door-but-one neighbour on Main Avenue, so we saw quite a lot of it. Or, more accurately, we smelt quite a lot of it. It was packed with the most heavenly roses, we’d get delicious scents wafting to us on the breeze, especially on still evenings as the sun moved round and warmed the blooms. The Glasshouse is a not-for-profit social enterprise which uses the benefits of horticulture to create second chances for women in prison, and the garden’s planting was designed around the notion of ‘strong beauty’ and feminine strength. Luscious roses in shades from deep red through to soft apricot, feathery ferns, stately foxgloves and towering angelica. It was at once a restful woodland garden and a celebration of feminine strength and resilience. Congratulations to designer Jo Thompson on a well-deserved gold medal – and thank you for filling our days with perfume.
Our stand!
This one is a little bit cheeky! Please forgive our hubris, but we loved our stand this year, we think our team did a cracking job. Inspired by the recycled steel of our new BoronGreen tools, we challenged ourselves to come up with a stand that was all recycled or upcycled - or as far as possible. We think we managed it! From the walls which were re-used from previous Chelsea incarnations, to the pallets which made our feature wall, we’ve spent months hoarding and scrounging, squirrelling and saving, to keep much material as possible out of landfill – and we used it to create a showpiece on Main Avenue at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. We were especially pleased with our moss-filled logo made from scrap steel, and our display bench made from pallets and industrial cable trays. A big thankyou to everyone at Burgon & Ball who worked so hard and so creatively!
The Boodles Raindance Garden
Another near neighbour on Main Avenue this garden in the Small Gardens category was subtle and enchanting. Taking its name from a jewellery collection which was itself inspired by light dancing on raindrops at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, seeing it brought a moment of circularity. Circles were echoed in the design of the garden, with the concentric circles of water droplets creating an ever-changing view. We loved the circular pavilion with its rain chains, the wonderful ginkgo biloba with its distinctive fan-shaped leaves, and the subtle pink tones to the restful, largely white planting. What a gem of a garden from Dr Catherine MacDonald, and a worthy winner of a gold medal.
The Chelsea Pensioners
Of course! We can’t spend the week in their back garden and not mention them. The RHS Chelsea Flower Show has been held in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea since 1912 – with breaks only for world wars, and for Covid. Founded in 1682, the Royal Hospital is a retirement home for up to 300 veterans of the British Army, both male and female. We got chatting to the lovely Mike Vowles, who told us that currently there are around 240 Chelsea Pensioners currently in residence, of whom around 80 take an active interest in gardening. As well as the grounds which are home to the flower show, there are allotments and greenhouses on the site, so there’s plenty of scope for residents to flex their green fingers. It always feels like a privilege to spot a Chelsea Pensioner around the gardens, wearing their distinctive red tunics. Many of them enjoy looking around the show, and seem to relish having a chat to the many visitors. We have a slight suspicion that some of them rather enjoy the rock star treatment and the requests for selfies! But who can blame them? We’re just pleased that they’re happy to share their garden with us for a wonderful week of horticulture each year.
And so Chelsea drew to a close once more. It was fabulous, as always – let’s do it again next year!
