It seems, at first glance, to be quite easy to win a Gold medal at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. The judging rules and requirements are set out very clearly and all you have tdo is follow them to the letter. It sounds so simple, and yet achieving a coveted RHS Gold medal remains the pinnacle of achievement for many garden designers.
Paul Hervey-Brookes has been an RHS judge for nearly ten years. As a professional designer, he has also had his own show garden work judged by others (bagging six Chelsea Golds, but also some less shiny medals), so he has a unique perspective on the whole process.
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“We have put an enormous amount of effort into ensuring that the judging process is as fair and transparent as possible,” he says. “It is based on nine clear criteria, including spatial composition, quality of build and planting excellence, but each designer really sets their own scoresheet when they submit their ‘Client Brief ’, which explains exactly who they are designing the garden for, where it is, and how it will be used.
“If they tell us it is a garden for a family of four, and they include a terrace, we will assess whether that number of people could actually sit comfortably on it. If they say it is a wildlife garden in damp shade, we will expect the plant selection to be horticulturally appropriate as well as of the very highest quality.”
We are looking for original ideas executed with flair and polish. What we absolutely do not judge is whether we like a garden. That has no place in an objective process – Paul Hervey-Brookes, Chelsea Judge
Be the judge
It is a huge responsibility to pass public judgement on someone else’s work, and the process is taken extremely seriously. Every judging panel includes a moderator, chair of judging, chair of assessing, two additional assessing judges and three additional garden judges, drawn by invitation from a range of relevant expert professions, including plantspeople, contractors and designers, among others.
“Our job is to help everyone succeed. Everyone starts out with a full allocation of points – four per criterion – from which we deduct marks for each shortcoming we identify. We are looking for original ideas executed with flair and polish. What we absolutely do not judge is whether or not we like a garden,” says Paul. “That has no place in an objective process.”
Anyone scoring 30 points or more will receive a coveted gold medal. Score 24-29 and you go home with Silver-gilt; 19-23 gets Silver; and 15-18 will bag you a Bronze. But there is no guarantee you will receive any medal at all.
There is no maximum number of medals available in any category, and the gardens are not judged against each other, only against the judges’ score cards, so any designer scoring 14 points or lower will go home empty-handed. It doesn’t happen very often, but it does happen. And when disappointment is handed out, the unlucky recipient is likely to be an emotional and physical wreck, with a TV camera and hundreds of mobile phones zooming in to catch their reaction.
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Perfect plants?
In 2024, first-time Chelsea designer Naomi Slade received a Silver medal for the widely admired Flood Resilient Garden she created in collaboration with Dr Ed Barsley. “I had realised our garden wasn’t going to get Gold, and I would have been happy with Silver-gilt, but it wasn’t to be,” she says.
There was, she admits, a moment when she just stared into space and tried not cry. “It is thoroughly demoralising when you don’t get what you hoped for, and it hits you when you are at your lowest ebb, but then you have to take a breath and remember that there are many ways of measuring success.”
They got a huge amount of positive coverage for the sponsor, she explains, and for their important environmental message about the need to build flood resilience into our gardens. “We successfully
We are looking for original ideas executed with flair and polish. What we absolutely do not judge is whether we like a garden. That has no place in an objective process demonstrated how to deal with extreme weather, and if our plants weren’t quite Gold standard, that, ironically, was in part because the months running up to the show had been unprecedentedly wet and the nurseries found it difficult to cope.”
Her real reward, Naomi says, was “the barrage of positive comments I received all week long, and in the end my only regret was that I never got a moment alone on that garden to enjoy what we had created, because there was always someone popping up who wanted to talk about what we had done.”
Taking risks
Established designer Miria Harris also made her first appearance at Chelsea last year with an ambitious garden on Main Avenue, in support of the Stroke Association, in which she showcased a range of pioneering environmental alternatives to traditional garden construction techniques.
“I took a lot of risks with innovative materials, the biggest of which was centring the garden on a pond with a puddled clay, base,” says Miria. “We didn’t even have our aquatics in the usual plastic planting baskets, so it was all pretty muddy in the build-up, and water features are always judged in part on the clarity of their water. But I wasn’t prepared to compromise myself or my garden- making process just to chase a better medal.”
In the end, Miria was awarded Bronze. “It was a traumatic experience. Of course I wanted the top prize, but every decision that took a point away from me is a decision I still stand by today.
I wanted to explore new materials and get people talking about environmental alternatives.” In this she succeeded brilliantly – a fact recognised by the RHS itself, which named her and Naomi Slade as joint-runners up for its new Environmental Innovation Award.
Miria also won a huge amount of press coverage for The Stroke Association. As a stroke survivor herself, she took this as another golden achievement, even if it was something that wouldn’t be taken into account by the judges.
“We have to stay objective at all times,” says judge Paul Hervey-Brookes. “It is impossible to judge intangibles such as media coverage or positive feedback, which is also why no marks are awarded for the creation of beauty as such. You will never hear an RHS judge discuss whether they like a garden or not (at least, not until after the medals are decided). My taste will differ from your taste, and it would not be a fair criterion to judge on. That’s what the People’s Choice Award is for.”
Stick to the brief
Designers are, however, creative souls, and can find it hard to retain strict objectivity in their pursuit of aesthetic perfection. Even Tom Stuart-Smith, a celebrated designer with eight Golds and an unprecedented three Best in Show awards to his name, has been known to slip up. His exquisitely atmospheric 2024 garden for the National Garden Scheme added another Gold to his tally, but failed to bag the top Best in Show prize, and Tom has no illusions about what went wrong.
“I made the basic Chelsea mistake, and didn’t stick to my design brief,” he says. “That garden was relocating to a site in Cambridgeshire on dry clay, and my plant lists were carefully designed to suit those conditions, but then, in the run up to show, I went to check on everything at the nursery and fell in love with some gorgeous azaleas. They hadn’t been in my original planting plan, and they wouldn’t have worked in the new site, but I succumbed to temptation because they were so delicious. It was a foolish mistake, and I am cross with myself for letting my team down. But I still think they looked wonderful.”
When a veteran of Tom Stuart-Smith’s calibre can stumble into a bear pit of his own making, spare a thought for this year’s cohort of designers, as they gird their loins for the final push to the finish line. Maybe it isn’t so easy to go for Gold after all.
How to win Best in Show
The Best in Show award is given to the individual show garden which scores highest marks in the medal-judging process – it is that simple. On the very rare occasion when there is a points tie, says Paul Hervey-Brookes, two judges will be invited to advocate for each of the two candidates.
“I have never done this at Chelsea,” he says, “but I did once advocate at another show for a garden that wasn’t actually to my taste but was brilliantly executed. After the presentations, we have an anonymous vote to select the winner of the top prize, and I have always been satisfied with the fairness of the outcome.”