The Wildlife Trusts, sponsored by Project Giving Back (PGB) and supported by the UK’s leading insurer Aviva, are celebrating the award of a Silver Gilt Medal win at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2025.
This is the first time The Wildlife Trusts have exhibited at RHS Chelsea; the garden is a lush, mossy tribute to one of the UK’s most mysterious and forgotten habitats: the temperate rainforest that once swathed the western coasts of the British Isles.
Alex Jones enjoys the British Rainforest Garden at RHS Chelsea © Eleanor Church
Liz Bonnin, Maddie Moate and David Oakes with garden designer Zoe Claymore at The British Rainforest Garden at RHS Chelsea © Eleanor Church
Celtic singer Mari Mathias at the British Rainforest Garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show © Eleanor Church
British Rainforest Garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show © Clive Nichols
Amanda Holden, garden designer Zoe Claymore, Bruno Toniolo and The Wildlife Trusts' CEO Craig Bennett in the British Rainforest Garden © Eleanor Church
Sweeping path in RHS Chelsea British Rainforest Garden © Clive Nichols
Credit Eleanor Church
Zoe Claymore, designer of the British Rainforest Garden, says:
“I’m proud and delighted to have won a Silver Gilt medal at the Chelsea Flower Show. We have challenged convention of what a garden is and we’re celebrating the perfect-imperfect of nature. It was such an honour to show His Majesty, The King around our creation – he told me it was his kind of garden.”
Craig Bennett, chief executive of The Wildlife Trusts, says:
“We’re absolutely delighted to have won such a prestigious medal at Chelsea. But more than that, we’re thrilled to see these magical, moss-laden rainforests finally getting the recognition they deserve. These are places of wonder – habitats that feel pulled from myth or folklore. Yet they’re real, rare, and right here in Britain. This garden is a love letter to them – and a call to help bring them back.”
Claudine Blamey, Chief Sustainability Officer at Aviva, says:
“Aviva is so proud to have supported this award-winning garden. Our heartfelt congratulations to Zoe and the team at the Wildlife Trusts. Restoring temperate rainforest forms part of the solution to the impacts of climate change but can inspire a love of nature too.”
Alex Denman, trustee of Project Giving Back, says:
“It’s wonderful to see British temperate rainforests take centre stage at RHS Chelsea this year and that Zoe’s garden for The Wildlife Trusts has been so richly rewarded. PGB has proudly supported the garden since its inception, and we’re thrilled that so many people now have a deeper understanding and appreciation of the wonderfully diverse rainforests that we must all help rejuvenate and preserve along our western coastline.”
The British Rainforest Garden, designed by Zoe Claymore, casts a spell over visitors. They step into a dappled green world, where the air is cool and earthy beneath a canopy of rowan, oak and birch. The path snakes between boulders cloaked in moss and fringed with ferns and lichens, revealing a landscape brimming with texture and life. This is a garden that invites you to slow down, look closer, and lose yourself in the layered wildness of rainforest ecology.
Zoe Claymore
Once the show ends, the garden’s magic will not vanish. Instead, it will be carefully rehomed at the Bristol Zoo Project, where it will become a permanent, immersive feature in a landscape dedicated to rewilding and education. There, its spell will continue – captivating school groups, families and future conservationists for years to come.
Visitors are invited to see the garden at site number 340 throughout Chelsea week from Tuesday 20th May to the final day on Saturday 24th of May 2025.
Zoe Claymore
Zoe Claymore is a garden and landscape designer based in southwest London. From her studio, she crafts bespoke outdoor places that resonate emotionally with her clients - while staying mindful of environmental responsibility. Named RHS Horticultural Hero 2023 and a triple award-winner at RHS Hampton Court, she draws on personal, cultural, environmental, and artistic inspirations to shape her designs. A regular media contributor and public speaker, Zoe advocates for innovative, sustainable, and deeply personal landscaping solutions that stand the test of time. www.zoeclaymore.com
RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2025: the the world’s greatest flower show will run from 20th - 24th May 2025 at London Gate, Royal, Hospital Road, Royal Hospital Chelsea, London, SW3 4SR. Find out more and book tickets here: www.rhs.org.uk/shows-events/rhs-chelsea-flower-show
The Wildlife Trusts’ British Rainforest Garden will be built by award-winning landscaping company Frogheath Landscapes. The plants are being grown by specialist nurseries and two Plant Heritage national collections are collaborating on the project, including members of the British Fern Society, and Stone Lane Gardens which is home to the national collections of birch and alder.
Project Giving Back
Project Giving Back (PGB) is a unique grant-making charity that provides funding for gardens for good causes at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. PGB was launched in May 2021 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and its devastating effects on UK charitable fundraising - effects that have since been exacerbated by the cost-of-living crisis.
PGB will fund 10 gardens at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2025 and intends to fund a total of 60 gardens inspired by a range of good causes from 2022 to 2026.
PGB aims to boost UK-based good causes by giving them an opportunity to raise awareness of their work at the high-profile RHS Chelsea Flower Show, as well as supporting the relocation of the gardens to permanent homes after the show where they can continue to benefit the charities and their communities. Find out more at www.givingback.org.uk.
Aviva is the UK's leading diversified insurer, operating in the UK, Ireland and Canada. They also have international investments in India and China. They help their 20.5 million customers make the most out of life, plan for the future, and have the confidence that if things go wrong, they'll be there to put it right. They have been taking care of people for more than 325 years, in line with their purpose of being 'with you today, for a better tomorrow'. In 2024, they paid £29.3 billion in claims and benefits to their customers. In 2021, they announced their ambition to become Net Zero by 2040, the first major insurance company in the world to do so. www.aviva.co.uk/
The Wildlife Trusts
The Wildlife Trusts are making the world wilder and helping to ensure that nature is part of everyone’s lives. We are a grassroots movement of 46 charities with more than 940,000 members and 39,000 volunteers. No matter where you are in Britain, there is a Wildlife Trust inspiring people and saving, protecting and standing up for the natural world. With the support of our members, we care for and restore special places for nature on land and run marine conservation projects and collect vital data on the state of our seas. Every Wildlife Trust works within its local community to inspire people to create a wilder future – from advising thousands of landowners on how to manage their land to benefit wildlife, to connecting hundreds of thousands of school children with nature every year. www.wildlifetrusts.org
Royal fern © Brian Eversham
© Ben Porter
Learn how, in partnership with Aviva, we're restoring temperate rainforests
Sweeping path in RHS Chelsea British Rainforest Garden © Clive Nichols
We're on a 100-year mission to bring back rainforests that once thrived across Britain. Help us by voting for The British Rainforest Garden in the ‘All About Plants’ category at RHS Chelsea.
