RHS Flower Show Tatton Park

RHS Tatton’s beautiful Long Borders fill the senses

Long Borders offer an exciting opportunity for designers, gardeners and horticultural students to showcase their creativity, inspire visitors and earn a prestigious RHS medal

A Pocket of Peace

Gold medal and winner of Best Long Border
Designed by Daniel March, Hallie Abbott Trangmar & Adam Rowley

Modern tech inhibits our interaction with nature, portrayed in this border with its three large wooden screens, representing the dominance of technology. Planting is serene, with shrubs, bamboo and perennials such as Senecio candidans and Colocasia esculenta ‘Black Magic’ chosen for their contrasting foliage shapes and textures.

The Garden of Vivacity

Gold medal

Designed by Caitlin Lewis, Una Nolan & Annie Watson

Meandering through the border, a dynamic ribbon-like instalment of steel posts creates a sculptural statement. This structure provides a backdrop to the vibrant hot tones of the planting palette, ensuring a strong contrast.

Picture Perfect

Gold medal
Designed by Callum Corrie
Sponsors: Pownall Plant, Elnecot, Francomes

The key features of this border are two large oak window frames which once formed part of Knutsford train station. Upcycled as climbing plant supports, they demonstrate the breadth of recycling creativity that can be employed in a garden.

Seeing Through the Senses

Gold medal

Designed by Natasha Lloyd and Emma-Jayne Blair
Sponsor: Royal National Institute of Blind

A garden designed for those who are visually impaired with a contrasting purple and yellow colour theme, featuring lavender, salvia, Achillea and Pennisetum and contrasting silvery-white Stachys, Artemisia and Oenothera lindheimeri, which bring a twilight ‘glow’ as daylight fades. A water feature and wavy grasses for subtle sound. 

Rhubarb By Candlelight – A Visual Experience

Gold medal

Designed by Jordan Lister

Inspired by the West Yorkshire Rhubarb Triangle, this border celebrates the magical and mysterious interiors of rhubarb forcing sheds, where candlelight creates an otherworldly glow and an intense sensory experience.

Plants You Want to Touch and Some That You Really Shouldn’t

Silver-Gilt medal

Designed by Clare Eaden

This border encourages visitors to focus on the tactile nature of plants as well as their colour and scent. Designed for an open, well-drained site, it features a mixture of plants that offer a unique textural experience, from spiky to soft and everything in between.

Staying in Touch with the Garden

Silver-Gilt medal
Designed by Shereen Khatoon-Jaan Din, Imogen Reeves & Sarah Marsh

An abacus trail weaving between tactile, edible and scented edging plants provides an activity for youngsters and inspires all generations to explore the border together – nurturing family relationships, and helping children’s cognitive development.

Grow Together

Silver-Gilt medal

Designed by Helena Bills & Nea Weston
Sponsor: University of Sheffield

Both sensory and sensitive, this border displays colourful edible planting alongside ecologically sensitive growing. At its heart are the principles of companion planting: the designers have created a vibrant vegetable border with plants such as brassicas and herbs supporting each other to grow.

Escape the T Rex!

Silver-Gilt medal
Designed by Alison Johnston

This space is all about play. Thick, lush, jungle-like leaves that hide hunting dinosaurs introduce kids to nature’s different textures, colours and shapes. Child- and animal-safe plants are chosen for their resilience and toughness, as well as texture and fragrance.

Coastal Whisper

Silver-Gilt medal

Designed by Mia Thompstone, Joseph Parker & Henry Monnington

The border captures the sensory experience of a trip to the seaside: the soft touch of grasses through fingers; the whispering of sea breeze through dunes; the sight of coastal favourites; sea thrift, sanguisorba and marram grass (Ammophila arenaria).

Forager’s Haven

Silver-Gilt medal
Designed by David Cockburn & James Hill
Sponsors: K Hill & Partners, Cotswold Landscape Construction, Wyevale Nurseries, Lewie’s Fabrication & Creation

The border contains wildflowers that attract bees and birds; fragrant herbs; soft grasses; and plenty of edibles, such as mushrooms and raspberries to forage. It also offers striking laser-cut corten steel panels and sculptures for contrast.

Sensing Time

Silver-Gilt medal

Designed by Pandora Ryan
Sponsor: The Yorkshire School of Garden Design

An infinity loop willow sculpture representing nature’s cyclical and infinite time patterns is surrounded by planting chosen to represent the look and feel of each of our four seasons through colour, form and scent.

Viva Magenta

Silver-Gilt medal
Designed by Sophie Knittel & Lois Moxon-Holt

Named colour of the year by Pantone, Viva Magenta is the inspiration for this full sun border designed to stimulate the senses. Beautiful, bold and fierce, it is full of much-needed optimism in the post-pandemic era.

Bubbling Box

Silver medal
Designed by Melissa Gün, Elena Jarmalavičiūtė & Pinru Chen
Sponsor: Univeristy of Sheffield

Colourful perennials and shrubs, chosen for their mound-forming habit or globular flowers, fill this border. Edibles offer leaves to be picked and scents to be inhaled, while tactile foliage brings a further sensory element.

A Calming Effect

Silver medal
Designed by Marie Hoye & Friends of Walton Park

Relaxation is the key theme in this tranquil border that aims to create a calming, harmonious space. Soft textures come from plants such as Sanguisorba hakusanensis ‘Lilac Squirrel’, with a palette of cool purples, white and pinks adding to the laid-back feel.

Plants That Sense Us

Bronze medal

Designed by Sarah Rose Collings
Sponsors: University of Sheffield, Yorkshire Gardens Trust, Burgon & Ball

This border brings to life the living laboratory of an amateur botanist investigating how plants sense the world. Planting includes Oenothera fruticosa ‘Fyrverkeri’ (which senses the vibration of pollinators’ wings) and touch-sensitive squirting cucumber (that ejects seeds when ripe).

Heart of Eden – A Slice of Earth

Bronze medal
Designed by Kiya-Ellen Rose
Sponsor: AHS Ltd - Heart of Eden

Surrounding the ‘cake’, a gentle planting scheme of purple and white includes Verbena bonariensis, Echinacea purpurea ‘White Swan’ and salvias. Gardeners look for ideal soil ‘crumb’ structure and the border highlights the importance of soil – as well as afternoon tea with a piece of cake.

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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.