Our RHS Chelsea Journey 2026: Focus on the Kings Foundation 'Curious Garden'

While Rosy and the Hardy's Cottage Garden plants team stopped exhibiting at RHS Chelsea in their own right a few years ago, the team here continues to grow for and supply garden designers with plants for their Chelsea exhibits. 

This year, was a bit of a bumper supply year. We started working with designers last Autumn and Winter to work out their requirements and start the growing process.  With other designers asking for help closer to the time of the show. 

This year our plants were featured in:

The Best in Show and RHS Gold Medal Winning 'Beyond the Edge' designed by Sarah Eberle for the Council for the Protection of Rural England.

The RHS Gold Medal Winning The Children's Society Garden designed by Patrick Clarke.

The RHS Gold Medal Winning Clore Duffield Tate Britain Garden designed by Tom Stuart -Smith

The RHS Gold Medal Winning Hedgerow in the Sky balcony garden by Sarah Mayfield and Monika Greenhough for Tech Mahindra

The Peoples Choice Award winning garden designed by Arit Anderson for Parkinson's UK. 

The RHS Science exhibit in the Pavilion designed by Dave Green. 

We'll write a bit more about each garden, but in this blog, we focus on The Kings Foundation  'The Curious Garden' designed by Frances Tophill, King Charles III, Sir David Beckham and Alan Titchmarsh CBE. 

Rosy and Frances had talked lots about her and the design and the teams vision for the 'Curious Garden' late last year.  The result was a classic cottage garden, combining flowers, fruit and vegetables and a curiosity space, crafted from wood using traditional carpentry techniques. The curiosity cabin focused on plant based heritage crafts such as natural dyeing, flower pressing and weaving among others. 

Here's a few of the 600+ plants just before they were packed on to trollies to take to the show ground.

The load included:  Alchemilla mollis; Anchusa azurea 'Loddon Royalist'; Artemisia 'Powis Castle';  Briza media;  Centaura montana Purple; Luzula nivea; Nepeta grandiflora 'Summer Magic' (PBR);  Sanguisorba menziesii;  Tanacetum niveum 'Jackpot'

Out of all the plants supplied, our especially grown for the show Vicia faba rubra, with it's vibrant crimson flowers definitely caught the eye. The RHS noted it as one of the 8 plants you weren't expecting to see at RHS Chelsea.  As Frances Tophill explained “Everyone’s been asking, what is that flower?!,” “Well, it’s a broad bean.”

Here's a bee enjoying the Vicia faba rubra

If you want to see more photos of the garden and are on Instagram, search for the #hardysplantsrhschelsea26