Missing Collector Garden Part 1
This is the Plant Heritage Missing Collector garden - in May we will see it for real.
The Missing Collector Garden for the RHS Chelsea Flower show 2026
Where did the idea come from?
You will find out if you listen to this episode which I think I could have renamed ‘seize the moment’. Sometimes a combination of ideas and opportunities come together at the same time but everyone still has to be brave enough to grasp them.
Followers of Our Plant Stories are going to have a front row seat. We’ll follow the progress of the Plant Heritage Missing Collector garden over the next few months and find out not just about the garden but the people who are part of it, growing the plants, growing the chair. (Yes I did say growing the chair!)
Introductions
In this first Offshoot episode I would like you to meet the people at the heart of this project. One of the joys of the horticultural world is that people find so many different routes in. They may have gardened as a child, moved away from it and been drawn back to it. They may have been inspired to retrain as a gardener by a chance meeting.
At the end of this first episode you will have met Gwen - CEO of Plant Heritage and Sally, Kate and Will who together form the Planting Design Collective. You will get to know them much better over the next few months. They are pictured below at the first site visit in January, to the show ground. You can read more about that visit here.
Heading off to the site visit
The Show site
Plant Heritage have had a stand in the marquee at Chelsea for many years but this will be the first time they have built a garden, though they will also be in the marquee again. The monument you can see below will be in the centre of what is called the Great Pavilion. It was once, one giant marquee, listed as the world’s biggest tent in the Guiness Book of Records but it is apparently now built of 3 structures joined together! The designers for the All About Plants gardens gathered around plans and paced out plots. You can read about the other gardens in this category here.
Who funds the gardens?
Since 2022, Project Giving Back, has been building gardens at this prestigious show. It was the vision of two private individuals who wanted to enable charities to raise awareness and support for their work. Between 2022 and 2026 Project Giving Back has funded 63 charity gardens. They give so much support to the charities which are selected and not just in terms of funding but in advice and expertise. The journey with Project Giving Back goes back to Chelsea last year, when successful charities and their design teams met up for a day, hearing and learning from those who had just built gardens (who confessed they were a little tired) and visiting the show to speak to other charities standing in those gardens.
So this is the start of our Offshoot mini-series. I hope you enjoy it and will want to come with us on the journey to Chelsea 2026.