Designer Darren Hawkes is creating the Samaritans Listening Garden, sponsored by Project Giving Back, at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2023. It is one of 12 main show gardens this year, including gardens from Cleve West, Sarah Price and Harris Bugg Studio.
Don't miss our guide to everything you need to know about the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2023 and our list this year's main show gardens.
GARDEN PROFILE
Designer Darren Hawkes.
Sponsors Project Giving Back
for Samaritans.
Contractor Landform Consultants.
Plants Crûg Farm Plants, Kelways Plants.
Theme Reflecting the lived experience of people who call Samaritans.
After the show A remodelled version of the garden will be permanently relocated to a Samaritans branch in Truro, with some elements going to other branches.
Contact www.darrenhawkeslandscapes.co.uk
Here's what Darren told us about his garden.
“I wanted this garden to reflect the lived experience of the many people who call Samaritans. It couldn’t just be about hope and joy, it had to consider the pain, struggle, fear and distress that some people suffer.” Darren’s design for the Samaritans’ Listening Garden takes a conceptual approach to mimicking some of the feelings of the callers to this well-known, 70-year-old, volunteer-run ‘listening’ charity – from the sense of anxiety when picking up the phone, to having to confront and reveal uncomfortable emotions, to the relief of being listened to.
Plants at the front of the garden conjure a sense of oppression or nervousness, such as Aralia chapaensis (Crûg Farm Plants’ complete stock), Corokia (with its zigzagging branches), thistle- like Eryngium and thorny Rosa. A deeply fissured path of concrete slabs leads through the garden to a steel-frame piece hung with more huge, broken concrete pieces, before moving to a more positive space, complete with a series of large wooden seats created by German artist Thomas Rösler, inviting moments of pause, conversation and resolution.
Here the planting is lighter and brighter. As Darren explains: “The same spiky and spiny plants we use at the front of the garden still appear, but as part of a matrix rather than being dominant – being in that emotionally lighter space allows you to acknowledge obstacles but to see them from a different perspective.
“The garden will be really exciting and bold – more of an installation. It’s both a message about Samaritans and also a personal attempt to express what it feels like to be alive.”
What to look out for
1 Recycled concrete from a farmyard in Darren’s home county of Cornwall. The broken slabs have been used in different forms throughout the garden, as hung panels, walling and edging. “The wood and steel used are all repurposed from local farms, too”.
2 Ulmus x hollandica ‘Jacqueline Hillier’ Darren has used several of these small-leaved elms, all in different forms, including one huge arching specimen that envelopes the area at the centre of the garden. “I can’t imagine that anyone else has got any better trees at the show.”
3 A life-sized figure sits at the far end of the garden. It is based on a maquette by Cornwall- based artist Andrew Litten, known for his expressive figurative work.
4 Playing on the theme of repair, some of the broken concrete has been ‘mended’ with gold as in the Japanese art of kintsugi. “If your life is touched by sadness or pain that you overcome, it will always be there and it’s something that makes us stronger and more beautiful.”
More on the 2023 RHS Chelsea Flower Show:
Chelsea Flower Show 2023: tickets, information, dates and what's on