Thursday of show week brought some very special visitors to our garden. We hosted an after hours event as an opportunity to thank all the people involved in the Breathing space garden. From metal workers to biochar producers; structural engineers to concrete producers; contractors to plant helpers, family and friends the list goes on.

Thursday of show week brought some very special visitors to our garden. We hosted an after hours event as an opportunity to thank all the people involved in the Breathing space garden. From metal workers to biochar producers; structural engineers to concrete producers; contractors to plant helpers, family and friends the list goes on.

You can’t keep a good Binnie down!
Kate in her element meeting Shirley Ballas from Strictly and dancing with her pupil Giuseppe Nonnis.

Our planting team are nearing completion of the Breathing Space garden ahead of assessment and judging over the weekend … and what a team! Working with great specialists has been a theme running through this whole project, and the planting is no different.

Using the same material in different ways has always appealed to me. Be it different unit sizes or textured finishes, it can help create a unified whole, whilst adding interest and detail to a design. 

This was a new one on me. An artist who works - in amongst other things - in restoring stone boulders to their rightful beauty. 

You lose all sense of time when you're immersed in the mad dash that is Chelsea. Barely six days in and most of the major hard landscaping is already in place — no small feat given the scale of what's here.

Our first task on site was to construct  our boundary. Made from sustainably sourced charred timber, this will be re-used at our relocation site at Rotherham Breathing Space to form a new potting shed/tea hut.

Leaving the Belgian nursery ‘Solitair’, our two Pine trees, affectionately nicknamed “The Brothers”—are now en route to Chelsea.

To Getjar, the fabricators of our carbon-neutral concrete. Developed in collaboration with our sustainable engineers and Tarmac, this innovative mix combines oyster shells, ACLA biochar aggregate, and calcined clay to create a world-first solution designed for mass use

As a garden inspired by living with breathlessness, our material choices have been guided accordingly.

One of the joys of a project like the Chelsea Flower Show is the chance to collaborate with a true mix of specialists, each bringing their craft to a wider team that turns a garden from idea into built reality.

And so to Cadeby quarry in Yorkshire; a quarry close to our final Rotherham garden rebuild with a view to sourcing 3 or 4 feature sandstones to embody the gnarled ‘existing landscape’ narrative of our Chelsea garden. Measuring over 2m in some cases, these pieces have an aged patina to them. In their raw state they exhibit strong red/ lilac hints which soften with age.

We had the pleasure in late January of visiting the Royal Hospital Chelsea with the RHS to see our plot ahead of the May build.

Behind our Breathing Space garden for Asthma + Lung UK sits a body of scientific research and clinical practice showing that for many people with lung conditions, “just breathing” is anything but simple. From childhood asthma to later-life lung and heart disease, breathlessness can bring tension, anxiety and isolation, constricting people’s ability to thrive.

We are delighted to be working with Kent-based sculptor Oliver Barratt who is creating an ‘abstracted lung’ piece for our Asthma + Lung UK Breathing Space garden.

Almost a year ago, in January 2024, we were delighted to be invited to present our shortlisted design to the inspiring team at Project Giving Back—the charitable body sponsoring a select number of gardens at RHS Chelsea for its fifth and final year.

November marked our second visit to the Belgian tree nursery ‘Solitair’—and the smiles on Dan’s face and mine said it all.

Kate and I attended the RHS Media launch for Chelsea ‘26. This made public all the main Show Gardens and launched the RHS State of Gardening Report 2025.

This tranquil woodland-edge garden reflects the voices of people living with lung conditions, offering a calm, supportive ‘breathing space’ in which to recover and reconnect with nature.