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Explore our Forgotten Forests Garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show

Ashleigh Aylett

Garden designer

Chelsea Flower Show opens on 19 May and we’re delighted to welcome visitors to our very special garden, made possible by our sponsor, Project Giving Back, with additional support from Lloyds Banking Group. I’m excited to take everyone on the journey I’ve taken myself – to help them discover the beauty and value of Britain’s ancient woods. Let’s explore the garden and the change it’s hoping to make. 

About the designer

I began my landscape design career following an award-winning background in interior design, before establishing Aylett Studio in 2025. My previous show gardens include:

  • RHS Tatton Park 2024: Gold Medal, Best Construction, and RHS Young Designer of the Year for the Woodland Trust: 49% Garden.
  • RHS Chelsea 2025: Gold Medal and Best Balcony & Container Garden for Navium Marine: Blue Mind Garden.

The garden at a glance

As sunlight dapples through the branches, the scent of wildflowers fills the air and water tinkles along a delicate stream, you’ll feel transported to a tranquil woodland, not a busy London event alongside thousands of other guests! 

But the garden has a darker side – literally. Before stepping into this ancient woodland oasis, visitors will pass through a shady group of conifers, where ancient woodland plants can’t survive since the light can’t penetrate the dense single-species plantation. These conifers will gradually transition to the immersive woodland glade, full of texture, diversity and life, drifting with the vibrant flowers, ferns and grasses typical of a healthy ancient wood.

This stark contrast brings to life the crisis facing many ancient woods, laying hidden beneath conifer plantations – and showcases the potential to rescue them.

The garden is a powerful demonstration of the need to return plantations on ancient woodland sites to their former glory.

Credit: Ashleigh Aylett / Aylett Studio

What inspired the garden?

The plight of our Forgotten Forests

Our ancient woodlands are rich and diverse, yet fragile. They’ve been around for centuries, but we have alarmingly few left. Since the 1950s, almost 40% of them have been chopped down and densely replanted with fast-growing, non-native trees for timber. But remnants of the thriving habitat these sites once were still clings on – these are our Forgotten Forests. 

We need timber plantations, but not in our rare and precious ancient woodlands. Many of these plantations are now ready to fell and harvest, giving us one last chance to save the valuable ancient woods beneath them.

I love my gardens to tell a story and the Forgotten Forests narrative is so urgent and powerful. Our garden is a huge opportunity to raise awareness and get people behind the cause, so we hope people leave feeling inspired to help. 

Elements of ancient woodland cling on amid the tall, dense plantation trees.

Credit: Anita Nicholson / WTML

Restoration in action at Penn Wood

In search of inspiration for the garden, I visited Penn Wood, near High Wycombe. It’s one of many ancient woods the Trust is restoring to its former glory and seeing this in action really helped me see the beauty and value of ancient woodland, and to understand how important the Forgotten Forests campaign is. 

These trips helped me to visualise what the Forgotten Forests Garden could look like and to capture the essence of a magical ancient woodland in the tiny space of an RHS Chelsea plot – our garden isn’t much bigger than a double garage! 

Watch the video

See one of our visits to Penn Wood to explore the work happening there and why it's so important.

Must-see features

Credit: Siobhan Doran Photography

Wishing tree

At the garden’s heart is a living wishing tree: a statuesque spindle hung with elegant ceramic tags that carry messages from supporters of the campaign. We’ll add more tags during the show to create an evolving, collaborative artwork which symbolises how combined voices can create meaningful change. Sarah Bryan Design made the tags from plant waste generated from ancient woodland restoration work.

Credit: Ashleigh Aylett / Aylett Studio

Ancient oak armchairs

Two special armchairs take pride of place in the garden. They’re carved from a 400-year-old ancient oak tree which was lost in a Trust woodland during a storm. The wood we’ve used had to be re-moved from the site, though most of the toppled trunk remains where it fell as valuable deadwood habitat. The seating gives visitors a tactile connection to the precious ancient woodland we want to see flourish.

Buy sustainable timber

We're encouraging all visitors to buy FSC®-certified timber and related products to support responsible management of the world's forests.

Did you know?

All our trees were sourced and grown in the UK and Ireland under the Trust’s UKISG scheme. The scheme assures trees have spent their entire lives here and prevents new plant pests and pathogens being imported. Every tree from the Trust’s shop meets UKISG standards.

The plants

Trees will be the focus of this garden and I’ve knitted it together with shrubs, ferns and ground-cover plants to echo the structure of natural woodland. The overall colour scheme is a gamut of greens, but with around 1,500 individual plants cloaking our woodland floor, we have plenty of bright highlights too, from plants like red campion and dog rose.

Over 70% of the plants are ancient woodland indicators – species that reveal a woodland’s long history and continuity and reflect the age and richness of these special habitats. Only one non-native species is included: western hemlock trees for the plantation zone which I dug up myself from Penn Wood, actively contributing to the wood's restoration.

Trees and shrubs

  • Dog rose (Rosa canina)
  • Elder (Sambucus nigra)
  • Field maple (Acer campestre)
  • Alder (Alnus glutinosa)
  • Silver birch (Betula pendula)
  • Common beech (Fagus sylvatica)
  • Downy birch (Betula pubescens)
  • Hazel (Corylus avellana)
  • Spindle (Euonymus europaeus)
  • Wayfaring tree (Viburnum lantana)
  • Guelder rose (Viburnum opulus)
  • Common honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum)  

Ferns

  • Hart's-tongue fern (Asplenium scolopendrium)
  • Hard fern (Blechnum spicant)
  • Male fern (Dryopteris affinis)
  • Royal fern (Osmunda regalis)
  • Bracken (Pteridium aquilinum)

Dry stone wall plants

  • Common polypody (Polypodium vulgare) 
  • Maidenhair spleenwort (Asplenium trichomanes)
  • Navelwort (Umbilicus rupestris)
  • Common dog violet (Viola riviniana)
  • Herb-robert (Geranium robertianum)

Grasses, sedges, rushes

  • Wood melick (Melica uniflora f. albida)
  • Grey sedge (Carex divulsa)
  • Pendulous sedge (Carex pendula)
  • Remote sedge (Carex remota)
  • Quaking grass (Briza media)
  • Wood spurge (Euphorbia amygdaloides)

Perennials

  • Ragged robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi)
  • Wild garlic (Allium ursinum)
  • Cuckoo flower (Cardamine pratensis)
  • Cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris)
  • Pignut (Conopodium majus)
  • Water avens (Geum rivale)
  • Meadow buttercup (Ranunculus acris)
  • Red campion (Silene dioica)
  • Common valerian (Valeriana officinalis)
  • Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria)
  • Common comfrey (Symphytum officinale)
  • Sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum)
  • Yellow archangel (Lamium galeobdolon)
  • Spurge laurel (Daphne laureola)
  • False lily-of-the-valley (Maianthemum bifolium)
  • Herb paris (Paris quadrifolia)

Please note the final plant species in our garden may vary slightly from those above.

Our showstoppers

Our key plants, as you might expect, are ancient woodland indicators. If you’re creating a woodland garden at home, you can buy them from nurseries and the Trust’s tree shop.

Credit: Fran Hitchinson / WTML

Herb-paris (Paris quadrifolia)

Herb-paris looks really striking, with its elegant yellow-green flowerhead atop four large leaves. Each plant has a single flower, but its unusual shape gives it a strong visual impact.

Credit: Rolf Nussbaumer / naturepl.com

Spindle (Euonymus europaeus)

Spindle is native, though you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s an exotic species! Flaming orange-red foliage and pink seed capsules that open to reveal bright orange berries make it quite the spectacle, and it’s valuable for wildlife too.

Credit: Jonathan Need / WTML

Guelder rose (Viburnum opulus)

Guelder rose naturally favours damp soils on woodland edges, scrub and hedgerows. It’s a stunner with creamy-white flowers, brilliant red autumn foliage and heavy clusters of bright berries that birds love.

Credit: John Bridges / WTML

Red campion (Silene dioica)

Red campion thrives in regenerating woodland edges and clearings, bringing vibrant pink flowers and soft texture over a long season. I chose it to represent natural resilience.

Credit: Laurie Campbell / WTML

Common polypody fern (Polypodium vulgare)

The common polypody fern is one of several native ferns bringing structure and drama to our garden and showing the scale, texture and richness of the diverse habitats that develop in restored woodlands.

With thanks

Our garden is sponsored by Project Giving Back with support from Lloyds Banking Group, Hillier Nurseries, Whitkirk and Niwaki. Our thanks to our suppliers, C J Landscapes, Paul Clarke, Sarah Bryan Design, Inspired Earth Design, Landscape Plus, and Natural by Design, and also to our plant nurseries, Hortus Loci, Moss Clerks, Botanica Plant Nursery, and Wetland Plants.

What happens to the garden after the show?

Our garden will live on at Hawthorn Primary School in Newcastle. This school was chosen for its dedication to connecting pupils with nature - they’ve already reached platinum status on our popular Green Tree Schools Award – and its location in a neighbourhood where canopy cover is low. Giving our garden a permanent home will boost community access to trees and inspire future generations to care about the woods, trees and wildlife we need to thrive. 

You can help save our Forgotten Forests

The Forgotten Forests Garden is the most ambitious project I’ve been involved with and I’m so proud of what we’ve created. We hope it inspires as many people as possible to learn about and love our ancient woods, and to play their part in persuading policymakers to help them before it’s too late.

Sunlight between dark tree trunks in a lush green woodland

Tell your government to save our Forgotten Forests

Voice your support for an urgent rescue plan for our vanishing ancient woods.

Contact your minister