The competition starts at RHS Harlow Carr in Harrogate, where the designers are given four days, a 3x4m plot and a limited budget to create a show garden in the Cottage Garden style - a mini Chelsea. They are sent to a local wholesale nursery to source their plants and are helped and mentored throughout the process by Joe, who won a gold medal at Chelsea in 2012. The finished gardens are judged by RHS judge James Alexander Sinclair and Chelsea Gold Medal winning designer Ann-Marie Powell. The best designer and garden is awarded gold and one designer is sent home. In this episode the amateurs come to grips with the difference between show gardens, which have to look stunning on the day of judging, and domestic gardens, which they are more used to. Just who will judge the right amount of plants they need and the right combinations, and finish in time for the judges?
The competition for one amateur gardener to win the opportunity of a lifetime continues. The five remaining designers are sent to the impressive Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire, where they have to create formal gardens on a 4x4m plot. They have just four days to complete their garden and being a formal garden, they have to include a piece of topiary - a two metre-high yew hedge that they have shaped themselves. The designers have to master the rules of a formal garden while still creating great theatre and atmosphere in a garden that showcases their design skill and plant knowledge. The designers are mentored by Joe Swift and judged by RHS judge James Alexander Sinclair and Chelsea Gold Medal winning designer Ann-Marie Powell.
Only four designers remain and this time they have come to Painswick Rocco Gardens in the heart of the Cotswolds. This week they have to create conceptual gardens which will showcase their creativity and impress judges RHS judge James Alexander Sinclair and Chelsea gold winner Ann Marie Powell. Perhaps the most difficult of all garden styles, conceptual gardens are sometimes called the thinking man’s garden - they are like works of art based around a strong central idea. Which designer has a simple clear story to tell, and fantastic planting to secure a place in the final?
It’s the final and the pressure is on. The three finalists go to the RHS Headquarters in Wisley where they have five days and their biggest budget yet to create a show garden that will prove they are a worthy of winning the biggest prize in gardening - to design a garden on the Main Avenue at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show. All three designers are desperate to win and have ambitious plans for their final garden. Aided and advised by Joe Swift the designers need to create flawless designs - along with perfecting planting - if they want to win over judges James Alexander Sinclair and Ann Marie Powell and win this life-changing opportunity.