This year at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, we’ve created something truly special - a garden that feels like a quiet retreat. Inspired by the idea of a hidden sanctuary, our Secret Garden is calm, immersive, and filled with roses that each tell part of the story. At 16m x 16m, it’s our most ambitious stand yet, but also our most personal.

At the heart of the garden is a circular space - peaceful and enclosed - with a simple fountain at its centre. Around it, we’ve planted our newest variety The King’s Rose™ and Desdemona^®, side by side. The King’s Rose™, with its soft stripes of fuchsia and white, brings strength and a sense of history. Desdemona softens the edges with her delicate blush tones and gentle fragrance. Together, they create a quiet moment in the middle of the show.

This central bed is encircled by a pathway and a low hedge of The King’s Rose™, bringing structure and rhythm, and enclosed by a neat yew hedge. The effect is almost like an inner sanctum - a space set apart, still and thoughtful.

Set within the edges of this circle are three bronze sculptures, created by the late Pat Austin, wife of our founder David C. H. Austin and mother of chairman David J. C. Austin. These pieces bring something deeply personal to the garden. Pat was a gifted sculptor, and her work captures a quiet humanity that feels completely at home among the roses.

From this calm centre, the garden opens into a bed filled with some of our favourite English Roses. Tottering-by-Gently^®, with her sunny yellow single blooms, adds a sense of joy and informality. Alongside her, Gertrude Jekyll^® makes a bolder statement, with rich pink petals and a powerful, unmistakable scent. Dannahue^® brings something more sculptural and poised - his warm apricot cups are beautifully formed and unfurl slowly, creating moments of quiet drama within the planting. Olivia Rose Austin^® offers balance, with her graceful form and consistent flowering providing a steady rhythm. Together, these roses create a conversation in colour and character, each one distinctive yet naturally in tune with the others.

This generous planting is followed by a curved path that guides visitors beneath a series of rose-covered archways. Each arch is home to a different rambler, chosen as much for personality as for appearance. Paul’s Himalayan Musk spills in clouds of blush-pink, lightly perfumed and beautifully abundant. Rambling Rector adds a wilder touch, with sprays of creamy white flowers. Francis E. Lester brings a lighter, airier feeling with his star-like blooms, while Ghislaine de Féligonde drapes softly in tones of apricot and cream, offering something a little more romantic and shifting as the days pass.

These arches gently draw you through the garden, adding height and movement, and creating shifting moments of light and shadow as you walk beneath them.

Just beyond the arches, a tidy hedge of Queen of Sweden^® encircles the whole garden. With her upright habit and blush-pink blooms, she brings a sense of quiet enclosure - a final soft frame that holds everything together.

This garden isn’t just about what’s beautiful. It’s about how each rose plays a part. The planting tells a story through contrast, rhythm and feeling. Some roses ground the garden with strong shapes and dependable flowering. Others bring movement, lightness or a surprise moment of colour.

Within the borders, Mary Delaney^® and Strawberry Hill^® climb gently over obelisks, adding vertical interest and a sense of gentle lift. Our standard roses, Emily Brontë^® and James L. Austin^®, stand taller among the planting, giving structure and a little formality. Emily Brontë^®’s dusky pink blooms offer something poetic and thoughtful, while James L. Austin^® adds richness and vibrancy with his deep magenta tones.

Each variety has been chosen not just for how it looks on its own, but for what it adds to the garden as a whole. It’s a space that evolves as you move through it, where every view offers something a little different - a change in scent, a shift in shape, a new combination of colours.

A Garden That Invites You In

While the planting is abundant and generous, the feeling we wanted to create is one of peace. The soft musk of The King’s Rose™, the light freshness of Desdemona^®, and the scent from the ramblers above all work together to encourage you to pause. To look a little closer. To breathe more deeply.

It’s not a garden that asks to be rushed. It’s one that rewards attention - the kind of place where time slows down, even in the middle of the busy Chelsea showground.

A Garden to Take Home

Though this garden was created for Chelsea, many of the ideas behind it can be brought into your own space. Layering different rose types - shrubs, climbers, ramblers and standards - adds richness and depth. Mixing bold colours with soft ones, upright growth with tumbling forms, brings a sense of movement and story. Adding structure, like hedging or vertical elements, helps shape that story and guide the eye.
To help you recreate some of that feeling at home, we’ve curated a special Chelsea Collection featuring the roses planted in this garden.

More than anything, we hope this year’s stand shows how a garden, even a small one, can become something meaningful. A place of calm and beauty. A place that feels like yours.