There was something rather peculiar about this year's Chelsea Flower Show. While the event delivered its usual blend of horticultural excellence and British eccentricity, a strange absence haunted the show gardens: roses, Britain's most beloved flower, had seemingly vanished from the designers' palettes.
This year's Chelsea was undeniably enjoyable, with innovations that pushed boundaries and challenged conventions. Yet walking through the show gardens felt like attending a symphony where the violins had gone silent. The rose, that quintessential English bloom that has graced British gardens for centuries, was conspicuously rare among the 2025 displays.
A Shift in Garden Philosophy
What emerged instead was a fascinating study in contemporary garden design priorities. Designers appeared captivated by drought-resistant landscapes, wild meadow aesthetics, and minimalist concrete installations. The Hospitalfield Arts Garden by Nigel Dunnett exemplified this trend with its stark composition of sand, weathered metal, and hardy perennials—a deliberate nod to climate adaptation that resembled more a sculptural installation than a traditional garden.
Several gardens abandoned flowers entirely. The King's Trust Garden by Joe Perkins chose stones and native wildflowers over cultivated blooms, while the British Red Cross garden embraced concrete minimalism that would not have looked out of place in a contemporary art gallery.
The Flowers That Conquered Chelsea
While roses retreated, other blooms surged forward. Foxgloves dominated the landscape with dramatic spikes in every shade imaginable—from the elegant peach varieties in the Killik & Co Futureproof Garden to pristine white specimens in the Children With Cancer UK garden. These towering beauties brought vertical interest and cottage garden charm without roses' perceived fussiness.
Irises, too, commanded attention, particularly in Kazuyuki Ishihara's stunning Japanese Tea Garden, where their sword-like foliage and delicate blooms created perfect harmony with the traditional aesthetic. Deep wine-colored poppies added drama and movement, their papery petals catching light in ways that solid rose blooms simply cannot match.
The Few, The Proud, The Roses
Jo Thompson's Glasshouse Garden stood as a noble exception, showcasing how roses could still shine in contemporary design. Her masterful use of pink and red varieties in various forms proved that roses, when thoughtfully integrated, retain their power to elevate garden schemes. The climbing Rosa Veilchenblau that graced the Viking-sponsored balcony garden—apparently a last-minute addition—demonstrated how a single well-placed rose could transform an entire space.
The Hospice UK garden offered a more naturalistic approach with dog roses and climbing white varieties, proving that roses need not be formal to be effective. These choices suggested that perhaps the issue was not with roses themselves, but with how designers perceived their role in modern gardens.
A Reflection on Garden Culture
This rose exodus raises intriguing questions about contemporary British garden culture. Are we witnessing a fundamental shift away from traditional plantings in favor of climate-conscious design? Or is this merely a fashionable moment that will pass like so many garden trends before it?
The abundance of roses in the main pavilion and trade stands suggests the flower remains commercially viable and publicly cherished. Perhaps the problem lies not with roses themselves, but with designers' reluctance to engage with plants they perceive as old-fashioned or climatically unsuitable.
Looking Forward
Climate change certainly demands thoughtful plant choices, but creating desert-like gardens in temperate England seems an extreme response. Modern roses offer excellent disease resistance and water efficiency, while their breeding continues to produce varieties suited to changing conditions.
The Japanese garden's success this year demonstrates that traditional aesthetics can thrive alongside contemporary concerns. There seems no reason why roses—carefully chosen and thoughtfully placed—cannot find their place in climate-conscious design.
As we look toward next year's show, one hopes designers will rediscover the rose's potential. After all, what is an English garden without its most iconic flower? The 2025 Chelsea Flower Show was thoroughly enjoyable, but it left many of us longing for the return of the rose to its rightful place in British garden design.
