Today marks the launch of the 2025 RHS Show season across the UK, with the much-anticipated start of RHS Malvern Spring Festival at Three Counties Showground in Malvern, Worcestershire, running from Thursday 8th – Sunday 11th May.Boasting eight outdoor show gardens, alongside two brand-new feature gardens, plus the introduction of the very first RHS-judged indoor plant gardens at RHS Malvern, this year’s festival is a spectacular horticultural showcase.
The focus of this year’s RHS Malvern Spring Festival is ‘Plants and People’ and visitors will find plenty of inspiration for gardening both inside and outside to bring beauty and a greater sense of wellbeing to our lives, and make a positive contribution towards combating the effects of climate change.
RHS Malvern Spring Festival has a long-standing reputation as the trailblazer of the RHS Floral Show season, leading the way in cutting-edge horticultural design, the latest gardening developments and trends, showcasing both creative and practical ways to incorporate the many benefits of horticulture into our lives. The results of this year’s award-winners are:
Awards at RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2025
Best Outdoor Show Garden:
‘Biosis: Mode of Life’ designed by Frantisek Zika, Jenny Rafferty and Jim Goodman of Shropshire-based Humble-Bee Gardeners.
A water-wise, rural garden making the most of captured rainfall filtered through a blackthorn tower into a wildlife pond. This garden blurs the wild and tamed, with a mix of medicinal and edible plants and recycled materials, to increase biodiversity.
RHS Environmental Innovation Award:
‘Biosis: Mode of Life’ designed by Frantisek Zika, Jenny Rafferty and Jim Goodman of Shropshire-based Humble-Bee Gardeners.
Designer Frantisek Zika said: “The idea of the garden is to showcase to the public how you can reuse materials and make them look pretty. Around 90 to 95% of what’s in the garden is re-used scrap and leftovers. Gardens account for five per cent of the land mass and if we can rebuild half a per cent we can make enormous corridors for the wildlife and, by using re-used materials, there’s no CO2 impact. We hope this garden will be an inspiration to others.”
Best Construction Award for an Outdoor Show Garden:
‘Biosis: Mode of Life’ designed by Frantisek Zika, Jenny Rafferty and Jim Goodman of Shropshire-based Humble-bee Gardeners.
Outdoor Show Garden Medals
Gold:
The Rain Garden by John Howlett.
This garden offers a peaceful retreat from the hustle and bustle of city life, drawing inspiration from the tranquillity and beauty of traditional Japanese gardens, featuring a monochromatic colour palette, the calming sounds of water and the soft, rustling of grasses and birch trees. After the festival, the garden will be relocated to Coppermill School in Walthamstow, where it will provide a much-needed solution to the school’s flooding issues and shade for the children, while helping to connect local biodiversity with the surrounding landscape and the nearby Walthamstow wetlands.
Garden of the Wind by Yun Sumni & Lu Wenjuan.
This garden offer visitors the opportunity to experience the wind from various perspectives; they can listen to the rustling of leaves, observe the dynamic movements of plants and enjoy artistic drawing that capture the movement of the wind.
Biosis: Mode of Life by Humble-Bee Gardeners
Silver Gilt:
The Sleep in Beauty Garden by Ian McBain.
This garden features a bed beneath a glorious overhead structure with a living roof and stargazing panel, along with trees providing dappled shade. The garden is cement-free and makes use of recycled and repurposed materials.
The Hierarchy of Plants by Kate Mason
A tiered, tropical-style space featuring cottage garden favourites interspersed with lush foliage and textural plants. At its core is Mazlow’s ‘Hierarchy of Needs’, which includes the basic need for individuals to realise their full potential, and it will perform an educational role showing how to overwinter tender and tropical species.
Silver:
Maindee Unlimited: Greening Maindee Gateway Garden by Emily Crowley-Wroe
This garden shows how even the most unlikely spaces can be revitalised to become greener and more welcoming to both people and wildlife. Drawing inspiration from two of the area’s iconic Art Deco buildings, and featuring a striking trompe l’oeil mural wall created by local artist Andy O’Rourke.
Bronze:
The Diamond Way: Cotswold Estates and Gardens 60th anniversary Garden by Luke Gunner
This garden features a ford-style ‘splash pool’ and plants such as lamb’s ears, Stachys byzantina, that reference the contribution of the wool trade, drawing inspiration from the Cotswold landscape.
St Godwald’s Retreat by Marc Harbourne-Bessant
A space for reflection and mindful retreat, this garden will be moving to Primrose Hospice & Family Support Centre in Bromsgrove after the festival. Ancient crafting techniques and recycled materials have been used to reduce the carbon footprint of the garden, which seeks to transport us to a space removed from modern life. The Japanese concept of a ‘wind telephone’ offers the opportunity to speak with a loved one that has passed, carrying words across the wind, while a memory tree from the Hospice carries names and stories of loved ones.
Indoor Plant Garden Medals
Best Indoor Plant Garden:
‘A Reflection of Nature’ by GrowTropicals, Claire Lowrie of The Jungle Haven and Ben Newell of Worcester Terrariums.
This indoor plant garden brings together rare and unusual plants, terrariums and indoor plant care in a design which displays a reflection between an outdoor tropical space and indoor living area, where the various growth habits of plants are mirrored. This indoor plant garden will show visitors how to take inspiration from nature and understand the needs of different plants, creating visually dynamic and easy-to-care-for plant displays at home.
Founder of Grow Tropicals Jacob James said: “The installation was inspired by conversations with customers about the best places to position house plants. Understanding how plants grow in nature can inform us how they grow in your house. We’re doing this using a split screen showing how plants grow in nature and how to grow them in the house.”
Gold:
Neo Flora by Forest Interior & Outdoor Living Gardens
This indoor garden seeks to highlight the rising levels of anxiety and depression amongst teenagers by creating an urban space that reflects this mental state.
Contemporary Living: A Modern Retreat by Botanical Interior Design
Inspired by a post-pandemic need for mental health sanctuaries, the design encourages visitors to slow down, breathe deeply and immerse themselves in the restorative power of indoor nature, fostering a sense of calm and well-being in the midst of an often-chaotic urban life.
A reflection of Nature by GrowTropicals, Worcester Terrariums and Jungle Haven
Silver Gilt:
Dibley’s Modern Garden Room by Dibley’s Nurseries
This creative indoor plant garden aims to demonstrate that, with the right mix of colour and texture, a plain room can be transformed into a vibrant, energized environment.
Beneath the Canopy by Sprouts of Bristol x Fearne Creative
This indoor plant garden will take visitors on a whimsical journey through a slice of the Amazon Rainforest, demonstrating how to provide the right care for tropical houseplants and celebrating the complex beauty of this richly diverse, but highly threatened part of our planet.
Silver:
The Sensory Sanctuary by The Botanical Archive and The Bearded Plantaholic
An immersive, indoor oasis designed to reconnect visitors with nature. Visitors can explore a misty swamp pond surrounded by cascading vines and vibrant plants, while natural soundscapes and fragrant flowers enhance the experience.
Houseplants: A Long View by Midrib Plants Ltd
Demonstrates the history of houseplants in the home set against the backdrop of a typical living room of a Victorian terraced house, juxtaposing modern, vintage and Victorian influences representing a ‘magpie’ approach to curating a home.
Further awards at RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2025
Best Exhibit in the Plant Village:
Harts Nursery
The Lyn Downes Award for Best in the Floral Marquee:
Plantagogo for an exhibit of Heuchera, x Heucherella and Tiarella
Best National Plant Society Exhibit:
West and Midlands Iris Group
Best School Garden:
Pershore College
Bransford Webbs Award for Sustainability:
Bankside School and College
Best Use of Recycling in a School Garden:
The Downs Malvern
Best Use of Colour in a School Garden:
Stourport High School and Sixth Form College
Best Wildlife School Garden:
Norton Juxta Kempsey
Jane Edwards, Head of Shows at Three Counties Showground, said: “RHS Malvern Spring Festival is the start of the annual RHS show garden season and this year is a sheer joy, with an array of both outdoor show gardens and for the first time ever at Malvern, RHS judged indoor plant gardens, creatively demonstrating how horticulture can be incorporated into even the smallest and most urban of spaces, and the myriad of benefits to having plants in our lives.”
 | For more information about this year’s RHS Malvern Spring Festival, see https://www.rhsmalvern.co.uk/ |
