YoungMinds to Create First-Ever Garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026
By Mental Health Correspondent
YoungMinds is working with Chase Gardens to create the charity’s first-ever garden for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026.
The garden will feature a biodiverse, plant-rich design that reflects the pressures affecting young people’s mental health, while highlighting the importance of community in helping them thrive.
Sponsored by Project Giving Back, the grant-making charity that funds gardens for good causes at RHS Chelsea, the garden will appear in the All About Plants category.
The design is influenced by garden designer Charlie Chase’s personal experience of navigating his mental health following the death of his mother.
Inspired by her love of gardening, he turned to horticulture to help find a way through grief.
With one in five young people aged 8 to 25 experiencing a probable mental health condition, the garden reflects the challenges young people face today. Pressures including poverty, inequality, academic stress and the online world are represented by two four-tonne boulders, with yellow flowers breaking through and two giant conifers emerging from the top, symbolising both the weight of these pressures and young people’s resilience.
The garden is designed as a welcoming space where young people can come together, reinforcing the message that no one should face mental health challenges alone.
This sense of connection is echoed in a habitat wall that will attract insects and wildlife, creating its own community.
Young people will help shape the YoungMinds Garden during the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and beyond. After the show, it will be relocated to Newham as a community space for all. Chase Gardens will also run gardening sessions there, opening up horticulture and related career opportunities to young people who may not otherwise have access.
The garden has received additional support from the Bupa Foundation.
