An “inspiring and immersive” garden created by the Woodland Trust for this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show will expose the crisis facing the UK’s ancient woodlands.
The Forgotten Forests garden is the brainchild of award-winning designer Ashleigh Aylett, and leads visitors through a replica of a damaged ancient woodland’s restoration journey.
The garden highlights the Trust’s urgent work to revive rare, centuries-old ancient woods that were cleared for plantations of fast-growing, non-native trees to boost the nation’s timber supply after the Second World War.
Today, more than 900 square miles of the UK’s original broadleaf forests lie buried beneath timber plantations.
Image: Ben Lee / WTML
These plantations support far less wildlife than ancient woodland, and although the original soils and seeds of these ancient habitats are still lying dormant, they won’t survive another cycle of harvesting and replanting of commercial conifer crops.
Designer Aylett said the project is a chastening reminder of the plight so many of our ancient ecosystems are facing.
“It’s about amplifying an urgent regeneration story,” she said. “Designing at RHS Chelsea gives you the chance to influence domestic and commercial garden making and wider conversations about ecology and conservation.
“Partnering with the Woodland Trust for this RHS Chelsea garden felt especially meaningful. Trees and woodlands have shaped my design philosophy from the very beginning of my career, so when the opportunity arose to work with them again, I couldn’t refuse.”
The garden shows how a dark, densely planted conifer forest can gradually be transformed into a thriving, more diverse woodland full of flowers, fungi and wildlife. This reflects the Woodland Trust’s real restoration process: carefully thinning out non-native trees to let in sunlight, encouraging the natural return of species such as bluebells and wood anemones from the soil’s dormant seed bank.
A key feature of the design is a transitional zone where uniform conifers give way to a richer, naturally regenerating woodland full of life, colour and beauty, demonstrating that restoration is a long, evolving journey rather than an instant transformation.
The Forgotten Forests garden has been funded by Project Giving Back (PGB), a unique grant-making charity that provides funding for gardens for good causes at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, with additional support from Lloyds Banking Group and Hillier Nurseries – tree supplier to Forgotten Forests.
Woodland Trust ambassador Dame Judi Dench said: "The Woodland Trust’s inspiring and immersive garden is a vital reminder of what our irreplaceable ancient woodlands give us: peace, beauty and a thriving home for countless rare species.
“I’ve always felt there is profound wisdom in trees; an ageless wisdom that we must retain and let speak again. That’s why this garden matters so much to me. Bringing these forgotten forests back to life is a gift we have a responsibility to give to everyone – people, wildlife and the planet."
The government pledged to put damaged woods on the path to recovery by 2030. By now, that should have included restoring an area of privately owned ancient woodland of 15,000 hectares – a total three times the size of Oxford.
Instead, the government has reported delivering less than 1% of that.
Nick Phillips, principal forestry policy advocate at the Woodland Trust, said: “Failing to restore even a fraction of the ancient woodland we were promised is simply unacceptable.
“Ancient woods are irreplaceable, and every year of inaction pushes them closer to permanent loss. If we are serious about saving these precious habitats, we need urgent action – not just empty promises.
“We stand ready to work with governments and landowners to turn these commitments into real, on-the-ground recovery and hope our garden at RHS Chelsea 2026 will spark urgent and meaningful conversations with policy makers and gardeners alike.”
