Leading estate agent, Hamptons, will return to RHS Chelsea Flower Show in May 2025. Collaborating for the third time with Garden Club London, and showcasing the enchanting Komorebi Garden, designed by the talented Masa Taniguchi – an RHS first timer.
The Komorebi Garden, named after the Japanese word for sunlight filtering through the trees, will enter the Container Garden category at this year’s show. This innovative garden aims to create a pocket forest that offers visitors a personal and immersive experience, allowing them to connect with nature and find moments of peace in their busy life. This year, Hamptons has chosen to enter the container garden category – where small space gardens take on big ideas to show how it’s possible to maximise underutilised spaces. The Komorebi Garden will illustrate how even the most limited outdoor areas can be reimagined as personal sanctuaries.
Masa Taniguchi, brings a wealth of experience and his unique lived experience to this project. Born in Nagoya, and having faced challenges in Japan’s conformist education system, Masa’s passion for learning was reignited by Hiroko Miwa’s book ‘Midori iro no yasumi jikan’ (Respite in the Greenery), set in North Wales. This literary inspiration led him to Bangor at the age of 18, where he began his UK education, pursuing garden design and horticulture. Today, Masa is a Lead Horticulturalist at Garden Club London, and whilst he has supported on other projects at Chelsea Flower Show, this is his first entry at the show. Key features of The Komorebi Garden include a viewing platform amidst a grove of birch trees, naturalistic log water feature, unique portable lighting, charcoal feature walls & lush green underplanting.
Masa Taniguchi, Lead Horticulturalist at Garden Club London: “Chelsea Flower Show presents an exciting opportunity for me to showcase my experience and inspire visitors of the show to create a beautiful and creative oasis in otherwise unused small space, with the backing of Garden Club London and Hamptons.
From a young age I loved to be in nature and care for plants, some of my earliest memories are going to the nursery with my father - the array of shapes and colours of the leaves dazzled me as a boy and today the soil falling through my fingers are memories of pure happiness. My inspiration for The Komorebi Garden is to help people to focus on the present, through telling the story of my past.
Taking snapshots of my past, the design takes notes from Japan; from the use of charcoal, stepping stones and a wooden platform, to the white trunked forests. From the moment someone steps onto the stepping stones, and climbs up upon the platform, they will have traversed a journey from the everyday mundane life to a space of tranquillity and self-reflection, beneath the swaying grove of birches, dancing lights and shadows, the smell of damp forest undergrowth and trickling water will engage the senses and calm the mind.”
In line with Garden Club London and Hamptons’ commitment to sustainability, The Komorebi Garden will be repurposed after the show and given a second life. The hard landscape components will be relocated to a school wildlife project in Kent, with any remaining items auctioned for charity. The garden incorporates many eco-friendly elements, such as the use of charcoal for air purification, 100% recycled tiles, self-collected green waste.
Lesley Cairns, Managing Director at Hamptons: “Masa is a genius horticulturalist and we’re both thrilled and humbled to be working with such a talent. This marks our third collaboration with Garden Club London, and with each of their talented designers we’ve been taken on a journey of pure horticultural wonder.
This year we made the conscious decision to step away from the larger ‘sanctuary garden’. Instead, working with Masa we’re showcasing a garden on a smaller scale – a garden we feel could be replicated in a compact space, and in an urban environment. The focus is to demonstrate how any outdoor space, regardless of size, can be transformed into a personal haven – a space that enhances daily life and gives a sense of peace and tranquillity”
RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2025 is from Monday 19th - Friday 24th May and held at Royal Hospital Chelsea. Awards and medals are announced on Tuesday 20th May 2025. For more information about The Komorebi Garden, visit here.
ENDS
For further information please contact:
Camilla Nash
Head of Residential PR
T: 07789 266 277
