This Chelsea Flower Show will be my last, says Andy Sturgeon

Award-winning gardener Andy Sturgeon has revealed this year will be his last Chelsea Flower Show as he called for fresh blood to “take over”.

The three-time winner of the coveted “Best Garden in Show” award has told The Telegraph that his time at Chelsea “is done” as he urged young gardeners with no track record to be given a chance of glory.

Before opening his last Chelsea garden next week, he said: “It’s a funny one. In many ways I owe my career to this but I think my time is probably done. I don’t know what more I can get out of it.”

The veteran garden designer has made his final garden for the mental health charity Mind, saying he only agreed to be in the show again because he could choose the charity himself.

He told The Telegraph that Mind was an obvious choice because his late partner, Sarah Didinal, who died of sudden heart failure in 2009, had been a supporter.

His garden this year has been described as “a sanctuary, a place to sit, share and listen”, and it will include birch trees and meadow-like spaces.

Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, was chosen as the site for the eventual permanent home for his Mind garden, which he has designed under the sponsor Project Giving Back.

“That legacy is really important to me. To put all this effort in and not chuck the design in the bin. To actually use it for the benefit of many,” Sturgeon said.

“The charity will use it for therapy and functions, and these trees will be seen by the wider neighbourhood.”

Sturgeon has designed 10 gardens in total for Chelsea, winning eight RHS Gold medals since his first show in 2001 - as well as “Best Show Garden” in 2010 and 2016 for The Telegraph and again in 2019.

Win another medal

He said he hopes to win another medal this year, adding: “There’s no point in doing this if you’re going to be happy with silver, that literally means you’ve not done it as well as you should have done.”

Fellow “Best Garden in Show” champion Sarah Eberle will also be competing, but Sturgeon said he and his contemporaries feel they have “been there and done that” now.

He thinks the time has come for fresh blood to take over at the show, adding: “There are young people coming through.

“There’s been a problem in the past that sponsors haven’t wanted to take a risk with a designer who doesn’t have a proven track record.”

He continued: “It’s not necessarily about age but new designers with fresh ideas. They’re out there, they just need a chance.”

Sturgeon hopes that next year he can just watch the flowers bloom in spring rather than worry about designing his next showpiece

“It sucks quite a bit of time out of your being. Even now I’m worried about minutiae in a way you wouldn’t if it was a real project,” he said.

Sturgeon was named by House & Garden magazine as one of the top ten landscape designers in Britain. He also won three of the top awards from the UK’s Society of Garden Designers in 2014.

His Mind garden may be on display for the Queen at the show’s opening next week as Buckingham Palace announced she hopes to attend.