The Garden as a Dye House — Chelsea Flower Show 2026
The garden was, for much of human history, also a dye house — the madder root, the weld stem, the woad leaf giving fabric its colour long before a chemist ever entered the picture. It is worth remembering that the garden was the first step in getting dressed. So it feels apt that this issue, themed Flower, landed at the same time as a particularly textile-rich edition of RHS Chelsea. If you have been looking for a reason to go, this year there is a particularly good one.
Running from 19–23 May 2026, this year's Chelsea Flower Show features gardens that blur the boundary between horticulture and craft. For anyone curious about natural dye, plant pigment or the living origins of the colours we weave and wear, there is much to discover.
Illustration of The RHS and The King's Foundation Curious Garden. Photo: Royal Horticultural Society
The RHS and The King's Foundation Curious Garden
The standout garden for textile minds this year is the collaboration between the RHS and The King's Foundation, designed by horticulturalist and television presenter Frances Tophill. At its heart sits a beautiful oak-framed building — a 'museum of curiosities' — filled entirely with the plant world's extraordinary contribution to everyday life: fabrics woven from plant fibres, cordage, dyes, pigments, dried flower displays, ferments, balms and infusions. It is, in the very best sense, a garden that thinks like a maker...
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Image Credits:
Lead: Dried dahlia flowerheads, The Botanical Dyer.
All further images as credited in captions.