RHS Chelsea Flower Show
2021 marked our first ever show garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and we loved it! Creating an organic garden for Chelsea was a ‘dream come true’ for Yeo Valley’s own Sarah Mead who worked with garden designer Tom Massey on our gold award winning garden.
The Yeo Valley Organic Garden brought a slice of our valley to the show and also encouraged show visitors to dig into organic gardening and to put nature first.
The finished gold medal winning garden
We couldn’t be happier to be a gold medal winner at the 2021 RHS Chelsea Flower Show!
Take a look at this video for some close-ups of our organic show garden and the moment our gold medal was revealed…
Building our garden from start to finish
It took 2 and a half weeks to build our garden at the 2021 RHS Chelsea Flower Show. This is very quick to build an entire garden when you think about it, but it might be a bit too long to watch!
So we’ve condensed the build into this 1 minute time-lapse video.
Give this quick film a watch and see our show garden appear from the ground up!
Our Garden Gallery
We were very snap-happy at our 2021 RHS Chelsea Flower Show garden and we’ve collected all of our pictures in one place for you to gaze at to your heart’s content!
Get the full story
We created the first organic show garden approved by the Soil Association for the 2021 RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
We sat down with designer Tom Massey and our own Sarah Mead to delve in to what that means and how it impacted our show garden design.
Our organic plant list
All the plants in our organic show garden at the 2021 RHS Chelsea Flower Show were grown organically by Hortus Loci, with advice and support from Marina Christopher, or by Sarah Mead and the team in our Organic Garden here in Somerset.
If you’d like to see the list of all the plants featured in our 2021 RHS Chelsea Flower Show Garden then you’re in luck!
Click the link below and have a read.
What happened when we broke ground at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show!
Garden Designer Tom Massey talks us through the beginning of our 2021 RHS Chelsea Flower Show garden build.
After a long wait, it felt great to have boots on the ground getting the initial foundations in place. In just 2 and a half weeks, we had a fully formed garden ready for the visitors to the 2021 RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
Sarah Mead's Top Gardening Tips
Our very own Sarah Mead sat down with Sarah Raven to discuss our organic show garden for the 2021 RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
Hear about how we encourage wildlife in the Yeo Valley Organic Garden in Somerset, our passion for organic living, and our tips for gardening organically.
“If our desire is to encourage more people to give organic a go to some degree, then it’s very important that people don’t feel diminished by the fact that maybe they do want a perfect lawn, but they’re quite willing not to spray their roses. It doesn’t have to be absolutely everything.” – Sarah Mead
Our Journey to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show
Give these short videos a watch to find out a little more about our journey from the Valley to The RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2021.
Organic Gardening
The Yeo Valley Organic Garden is one of the few certified organic gardens in the UK so we knew we wanted our very first show garden to be following the same principles.
In this video Head Gardener Sarah Mead and garden designer Tom Massey discuss the connections between our organic garden in the valley and our 2021 RHS Chelsea Flower Show garden.
Our 2020 plants
Sarah Mead and Tom Massey talk about what happened to the plants grown for the 2020 show, (some were redistributed to hospital gardens) and how we pulled some of them into our 2021 show garden.
We knew we couldn’t throw them all into the compost and start again so we had to be smart!
Yeo Valley gardener Zelah talks plants
We looked after many of the plants that were bound for the 2020 RHS Chelsea Flower Show ourselves in our Organic Garden. In this video Yeo Valley gardener Zelah discusses the steps we took to keep them looking lovely, ready to be brought into our show garden in 2021!
Building up to the show with Tom and Sarah
Head Gardener Sarah Mead shows us around the Yeo Valley Organic Garden in Somerset before catching up with garden designer Tom Massey over a video call.
They discuss the plants that were left from our 2020 RHS Chelsea Flower show garden design, and how our 2021 garden was so different from our 2020 plans!
Planting Dahlias for our show garden
Take a short tour around our Organic Garden in Somerset and watch Sarah plant dahlia’s to grow over the summer, ready to take their place at the 2021 RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
We're Supporting 'How to Grow' Courses
Yeo Valley is partnering with the community gardening charity, Incredible Edible Bristol, to offer free spots on their ‘How To Grow’ course. The course helps build the confidence of people who are just starting on their gardening journey, by teaching them how to grow using organic principles.
Our Organic Show Garden
The design for our show garden at the 2021 RHS Chelsea Flower Show took a lot of inspiration from our Organic Garden here in the Valley.
Award winning garden designer Tom Massey, designed our show garden, supported by Sarah Mead, our Head Gardener.
The garden featured a steam bent oak ‘egg’ hide designed and handcrafted in Cornwall by Tom Raffield. The shape represents the very thing that has inspired the garden – Nature! And the circular systems we see within it.
After the 2021 RHS Chelsea Flower show, we brought the egg to Somerset and its new home in the Yeo Valley Organic Garden.
The plans come together
Garden Designer Tom Massey had a final update before 2021 The RHS Chelsea Flower show began.
Watch our video to hear Tom talk about installing the steam bent wooden egg, using biochar from Somerset to aid nutrient retention for our autumnal show garden plants and finally getting to the 2021 RHS Chelsea Flower Show!
Art inspired by our show garden
Artist in residence Natasha Clutterbuck created a piece inspired by our 2021 RHS Chelsea Flower Show garden.
She sources organic matter from our Organic Garden and farm in Somerset to use in her artwork.
This piece is now on display here in Somerset!
Our organic garden in the valley
If you can’t make it to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show this year, why not plan a trip to see our Organic Garden in Blagdon, Somerset?
Open Wednesdays and Fridays during the open season, it’s well worth a visit for garden enthusiasts and amateurs alike!
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