RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024

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Our charity's garden, themed around autism and masking, was created by co-designers Sophie Parmenter and Dido Milne (CSK Architects) and sponsored by Project Giving Back, a charity that provides funding for ‘gardens for good causes’ at Chelsea. The garden was a Silver Gilt medal winner at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, 21-25 May 2024.

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show is one of the most famous gardening events in the world, having run for over 100 years. Following the show, the garden will be relocated to the site of our charity’s supported living service at Catrine Bank alongside the River Ayr in Scotland.

About the garden

Our garden aimed to represent autistic masking and how autistic people experience this in different parts of their lives. Walls or ‘masks’ of timber and cork created a series of spaces dedicated to different types of social interaction including a large, covered space for family or friends, an intimate corner for a quiet conversation with a partner or for sitting by yourself and a more formal space for colleagues. A mesmerising kinetic sculpture alluded to the mind’s beauty and complexity. These three outer spaces surrounded the heart of the garden, a sheltered and mossy dell that embodied the space of the inner mind.

Video: Grey Moth

The theme: masking

The central space was separated from the outer spaces by cork screens, which represented an aspect of the autistic experience known as masking. Masking is a strategy used by some autistic people, consciously or unconsciously, to appear non-autistic in order to fit in and be accepted in society. However, masking can come at a great cost for autistic people because it relies on suppressing natural behaviours and instincts, needs, preferences and coping mechanisms, which can result in exhaustion, mental health difficulties, a loss of sense of self and low self-esteem. It is important for society to become more accepting of autistic ways of being so that the pressure to mask is reduced.

Video: Project Giving Back/Matt Greenwell

Read more about masking

Plants and materials used in our garden

Pictures: Tammy Marlar Photography

Meet the designers

: Sophie runs Staffordshire based Sophie Parmenter Studio, a landscape practice focussed on public space planting and garden design projects throughout the UK. The studio pursues a sustainable and regenerative approach to design that seeks to improve upon the existing biodiversity of a site, crafting a habitat-rich landscape where an imaginative, artistic approach to fulfilling a client’s needs also allows local wildlife to flourish.

Sophie’s approach is inspired by a lifelong love of wild places and natural landscapes, and she works, often in collaboration with architects and designers, to create gardens or planted landscapes respectful of their unique location and history. Certain themes run through her work - generous and naturalistic planting, married with an innovative approach to traditional crafts and natural materials.

Sophie has recently taken on the stewardship of a small farm in Staffordshire. This will function as a ‘living lab’ where the studio’s work in both public space and private garden design will be complemented and informed by an experimental approach to regenerative land management and horticulture.

Dido Milne is a Director of CSK Architects, an architectural studio relaunched in 2016 in Eton with a focus on a holistic approach to environmental design. Together with Matthew Barnett Howland (Director of R&D) they lead on innovative projects that express the complex relationship between architecture and natural ecosystems.

They designed and built Cork House, a radical and widely acclaimed project that explores sustainability across the whole life of the building, from its origins in biodiverse cork forests through to its return to the earth in the far future. In 2019 Cork House was the winner of The Manser Medal - AJ House of the Year, the American Institute of Architects’ Sustainable Future Award and the RIBA Stephen Lawrence Prize, and was shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize.

Currently at CSK Architects they are working on a new ‘live/work/grow’ typology for an exemplar bio-dynamic farm and two circular economy stone re-use projects. This kind of work depends on forging really strong collaborations, not just with exceptional clients but also with other designers, consultants, makers and builders.

Legacy

After the show the garden will go to a National Autistic Society supported living site at Catrine Bank – alongside the River Ayr in Scotland. People we support will be able to enjoy the space along with staff using the garden to rest in during breaks, it will be a space to socialise with visiting friends, family, and the wider local community.

Read more about Catrine Bank

Has the National Autistic Society Garden inspired you to raise funds?

Even if you don't have your own garden, there are lots of ways you can use plants, flowers or growing food to fundraise for us.

Garden-themed fundraising ideas include:

Flower arranging class - are you a florist in the making? Share your skills with friends and family in return for a donation to the National Autistic Society.
Grow vegetables in a window box - sell your homegrown goods and donate the sales to us.
Sunflower growing sweepstake - challenge your friends, colleagues or classmates to grow the tallest flower. Award the winner half the entry takings and donate the rest.
Mow for autism - mow your neighbours' lawns or trim their hedges for a donation.
Hold a garden party - gather your friends and family for a garden get-together in aid of the National Autistic Society. You could ask for a donation to attend, hold a raffle, sell your homegrown jam, or hold a scavenger hunt for the children.

Tell us about your fundraising

With thanks to our sponsor

: Project Giving Back (PGB) is a unique grant-making charity that provides funding for gardens for good causes at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. PGB was launched in May 2021 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and its devastating effects on UK charitable fundraising - effects that have since been exacerbated by the cost of living crisis. It will fund gardens inspired by a range of good causes at RHS Chelsea Flower Show from 2022-2026. PGB will fund a total of 15 gardens at RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2024 and intends to fund up to 60 gardens at the show from 2022-2026.

Project Giving Back was established with funding from two private philanthropists who are RHS Life Members and keen gardeners. They wish to remain anonymous. PGB will help UK-based good causes recover from the unprecedented effects of the global pandemic by giving them an opportunity to raise awareness of their work for people, plants and the planet at the high-profile RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

With special thanks

: EY kindly supported our After Hours networking event which took place on the National Autistic Society Garden as part of the 2024 RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

Find out more about EY’s work to support autistic and neurodiverse talent.

Built by: Landform Consultants Ltd; Studio Ikram.

Plants provided by: Kelway Plants; Creepers Nursery; Deepdale Trees; Majestic Trees; Hare Spring Cottage Plants; Highland Moss; Kevock Garden Plants; Van Arnhem Nursery

Timber supplier

Cork supplier

Kinetic sculpture

Fabrication of accoya board walk

Aluminium canopies and rain chains

Structural engineering of cork screens

Charred timber posts and bench

Bark cloth table mats and bark cloth rope

Dark skies lighting

Andrew Try for mossy rocks and stone benches

Planting team

Perimeter fencing

Kate Slater for illustration

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