Chelsea flower show is looking for new charity sponsors after the mystery philanthropic couple who have spent more than £23m on show gardens end their support.
Project Giving Back was set up by two anonymous donors in 2022, and since then it has paid for 63 gardens at the most prestigious horticultural event in the world, held each summer at the Royal Hospital gardens in south-west London.
This year will be its last funding the show, and the charity is putting on a farewell garden to celebrate its work and say goodbye to Chelsea.
In years past, corporate sponsors would spend up to £1m on a garden. The Daily Telegraph, for example, paid handsomely for a Chelsea garden every year until 2016. However, the number of corporate sponsors has dwindled since the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid pandemic.
Supported by Project Giving Back’s grants, 63 charities have stepped in to fill the gap, using show gardens to celebrate their causes. This year’s include Asthma & Lung UK, the Children’s Society, the Eden Project and Parkinson’s UK.
The event has in recent years become more focused on eco-friendly gardening, with bee- and butterfly-friendly flowers taking centre stage and a focus on growing native plants.
Much of this has been driven by Project Giving Back, whose rewilding garden, which caused some controversy in the gardening world over its purposefully unkempt look, won best in show in 2022, an accolade the charity’s sponsored gardens have won three times.
A Rewilding Britain landscape by Lulu Urquhart and Adam Hunt, which won best in show at Chelsea in 2022. Photograph: Jim Powell/The Guardian
The flower show, run by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), for a long time enjoyed the largesse of the investment firm M&G, who was the headline sponsor for 11 years until 2020. This year, Range Rover takes over lead sponsorship from the Somerset hotel The Newt.
But to fill the void left by Project Giving Back, the RHS is looking for new charitable funding for 2027.
A spokesperson said: “Over its 100-year history, RHS Chelsea flower show has always attracted sponsors and charities to benefit from the international platform and high-profile stage of the world’s most famous gardening event. Over the last five years, and in the aftermath of the pandemic, Project Giving Back played a significant role in supporting small and large charities and demonstrating the power of gardens to make a real difference.
“RHS Chelsea has always and continues to attract show gardens associated with charitable work and it remains the Royal Horticultural Society’s biggest fundraiser enabling us to engage millions of people across the UK with gardening.”
Hattie Ghaui, the CEO of Project Giving Back, said: “This is our final year of funding gardens for good causes through application for the RHS Chelsea flower show. We were initially set up as a three-year project and extended for a further two years based on the positive impact and feedback we had.”
She added that the charity would be wound down after the show, but would share its experiences with others: “We believe we have created an inspiring blueprint that other sponsors can follow.”
The charity’s final garden will be designed by James Basson of the Provence-based Scape Design. It will feature towering red sandstone cliffs, coloured by natural ochre pigment and gently weathered over time, which sit among pine woodland.
James Basson’s 2017 garden, inspired by a Maltese quarry, won best in show. This year Basson is being sponsored by Project Giving Back – its final garden. Photograph: Jim Powell/The Guardian
It will be a striking sight, and will feature planting suited to the warm climes of southern France, which may be what is grown in the future in summer gardens in the UK as climate breakdown takes hold.
Basson’s last Chelsea garden was for M&G Investments in 2017. Inspired by a desolate Maltese quarry, the garden featured stark limestone pillars covered in wild shrubbery. It won best in show, which may be what Project Giving Back is aiming for as it bows out from Chelsea.
The charity said this work will show that gardens, “when thoughtfully designed and generously supported, can continue to inspire, heal and give back long after the show has ended”.