At a glance: Tom Stuart-Smith returns to RHS Chelsea Flower Show with a public garden with exotic woodland planting and a focal-point sculpture
Tom Stuart-Smith’s 2024 National Garden Scheme garden was pegged as possibly the last he would do at the show, but after just one year off, the designer is back with The Tate Britain Garden. It’s a preview for the forthcoming Clore Garden at Tate Britain, which will transform the landscape in front of the London art museum, and is scheduled to open this autumn. “It is very different from any Chelsea I’ve done before,” says Tom, “with bold textures and much more exotic planting.”
The latest news from Chelsea 2026
- RHS Chelsea Flower Show to be sponsored by Range Rover in 2026
- Big changes for RHS Flower Shows in 2026: here's what's different
- The RHS has lifted its gnome ban for Chelsea Flower Show 2026 - for one important reason
The woodland-style garden is focused heavily on sustainability in its materials and climate-resilient, biodiversity-boosting planting. The design is simple, with a curving path snaking through planting to a seating area towards the end.
The path is laid with stone reclaimed from the site of the new garden at Tate Britain, and is intersected by skinny, winding, looping water rills that flow to and from several bronze ‘dishes’, inspired by the forms of microscopic fungi. “This water feature will subsequently be moved to Tate and enlarged,” explains Tom. “It’s a work of immense precision and fine engineering, built by Factum Arte in Madrid to millimetre tolerances.” The circular area towards the back of the garden features seats formed from low-carbon concrete and existing hard materials lifted from the Tate site and crushed into aggregate.
Tom’s planting contains many Asian woodland species, with multi-stem and small trees and a textural palette featuring pops of pale colour.
You may also like
- Chelsea Flower Show 2026: where to get tickets, dates and what's on - everything you need to know
- 10 essentials for visiting the Chelsea Flower Show
He is most excited about the central sculpture, which acts as a focal point in the garden; the identity of which was a closely guarded secret until a few weeks ago – Bicentric Form by Barbara Hepworth. “It’s pretty rare in show gardens to see works of any kind of quality, and this is by one of the greatest sculptors of the past century,” says Tom.
After the show, this sculpture will join other works from the Tate collection in the new Clore Garden, which is being created to display how museum gardens can be valuable and accessible urban green spaces.
Designer Tom Stuart-Smith Sponsor Project Giving Back and Clore Duffield Foundation supporting the Tate Contractor Crocus Suppliers Desert to Jungle, Kelways Plants, Margheriti Piante Relocating to The garden will become part of the new Clore Garden at Tate Britain in London
Editor's note: updated on 18 May to add garden photography from Chelsea Flower Show.
