Urban garden design inspiration

Urban garden design inspiration from RHS Shows

See some of the designs for small urban spaces created by garden designers at RHS Chelsea Flower Show and RHS Flower Show Tatton Park

Browse the many designs from the RHS Shows for ideas to use in your own garden. Featuring the size and styles of spaces found in towns and cities from front gardens, terrace gardens and back-to-back – to balcony and container gardens for those with less space.

Front gardens

With space often at a premium in towns and cities, many front gardens are paved over to make parking spaces, with a negative knock-on effect on flooding and biodiversity. These designs demonstrate how you can create a beautiful and functional space your neighbours will covet.
See our guide to front gardens

Could Car Less

The Cotton Traders Greener Future Garden

Petrus Community: Journey Home

Paradise Retained

Unpave the Way

Balcony gardens

Many urban gardeners live in flats where their only outside space is a balcony or terrace. See these ideas from RHS Chelsea Flower Show on how clever design tricks can transform it into a space for relaxing and growing.
See our guide to roof gardens and balconies

Children With Cancer UK ‘Raines Repurposed’

Tomie’s Cuisine the Nobonsai

La Mia Venezia

The Addleshaw Goddard Junglette Garden

The Folio Society’s Reading Room Garden

The Restorative Balcony Garden sponsored by Viking

The St George ‘Alright Here’ Balcony Garden

Arcadia

Sky Sanctuary

The Landform Balcony Garden

Green Sky Pocket Garden

Balcony of Blooms

Container gardens

Around one in five households in England and Wales rent their homes and this proportion rises in urban areas. Not owning your property doesn’t need to be a barrier to gardening. Container gardening opens up many possibilities on how to make the space your own, even if you don’t own it.
See our guide to gardening when you rent

Sanctum

The Anywhere Courtyard

The Ecotherapy Garden

The Water Saving Garden, sponsored by Affinity Water

mgr Changing Tides Garden

Feels Like Home

The Hampden Stargardt Garden

The Mary Anning Space to Learn Garden

The Platform Garden

The Shifting Garden by the Chelsea Gardener

Terraced gardens

Terraced houses are properties sharing party walls in a row. Appearing in the UK since the 17th century, by the 19th century they became commonly used as working-class housing in towns and cities.

Typically terraced gardens are small square spaces tall boundary walls or fences. Owing to these dimensions, they can suffer from being overlooked and lack light. However, they can also benefit by providing a sheltered microclimate and absorbing the heat from surrounding buildings.

These designs from RHS Tatton Park’s Terraced Garden Category showcases how designers have creatively arranged the space to serve several purposes, with appropriate planting schemes.

Petrus: Full Circle

United Utilities Garden of Resilience

Crescendo

Re-inventing the Wheel

Nacro: Connect

Equilibrium

Trail of Thoughts

Cyber Crime

Petrus’ Paradise

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

The Art and Nature of a Port Sunlight Garden

The Start in Salford Garden

Every Cloud has a Silver Lining

The Perfumer’s Garden

Let’s Go Fly A Kite!

Glean

Big Picture Garden

The Corten Garden

The Orchid Garden

The Secret Garden: For Us, By Us

Brickyard

Terrace Garden Retreat

The Apothecary

The Balanced Garden

Elements

The Empowerment Garden

Get involved

The Royal Horticultural Society is the UK’s leading gardening charity. We aim to enrich everyone’s life through plants, and make the UK a greener and more beautiful place.