St Mungo’s Putting Down Roots Garden

Darryl Moore & Adolfo Harrison

RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2022

24 - 28 May 2022

This urban pocket park embodies the ethos of St Mungo’s Putting Down Roots programme, which has helped people recovering from homelessness to grow their confidence and skills, and to rebuild their lives through horticulture and gardening.

It is designed as an inclusive place bringing people and plants together, highlighting the ways in which planted spaces provide personal and social, health and wellbeing benefits.

It celebrates 10 years of St Mungo’s Putting Down Roots and Cityscapes working collaboratively to transform lives, communities and places, as exemplified by their ongoing collaborations on projects such as Gibbon's Rent and Greenwood Theatre. The garden was funded by Project Giving Back, to give St Mungo's the opportunity to showcase their work at RHS Chelsea Flower Show in order to raise their profile and fundraise.

The park reflects Cityscapes’ creative approach to shaping spaces, reusing materials and promoting more sustainabile ways of making parks and gardens. It has a shady aspect and is bestowed with a sense of tranquillity created by the planting. Informed by the ecology of natural plant communities, it features textural foliage punctuated with floral accents of colour, with a large percentage on native wildflowers. The planting for shade and semi-shade aspects and is based on a matrix layout with ferns and grasses as key plants.

The hard landscaping incorporates materials reused from RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2021, paving offcuts and reclaimed wood. A pavilion structure with a low carbon concrete bench, provides opportunities for dwelling and respite from the pressures of city life, and for people to engage with each other. Large colourful planters made with recylced steel content, add a sense of height and enclosure, creating an immersive and safe experience for park users.

The pocket park will continue to provide social and environmental benefits when it is relocated in a permanent location in London Bridge after the show.