Stitched together bricks, houseplant nostalgia and beautiful plants, there’s plenty to see at the RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2026 and I had two long days there. Here are some of my highlights.
There are fewer show gardens at the show this year – a sign of how difficult it is to get sponsorship. The six are varied ranging from a bird haven full of habitat friendly planting to an evocation of the Welsh landscape.
Designer Ian McBain has returned for the third year in a row and finally got a gold having won silver-gilt with his previous two gardens. He also got Best in Show.
Like his previous designs, it’s full of sustainable elements. The most striking are the bricks made from crushed construction waste and coloured using pigments from printer toner cartridges. To avoid using cement, Ian has ‘stitched together’ the bricks to form walls and low seating. Broken bricks are used as a base in the raised pool.
Entitled ‘One’, the garden is designed for one of the eight million people in the UK who live alone.
“It’s very much a garden that’s designed to be shared with plants and nature rather than with people,” explained Ian.
I also loved the soft planting shot through with orange on Lora Peneva’s ‘Pressed in Time: Nature’s Memory’ and the quirky bird and insect water features were a great contrast.
Blooming Borders at RHS Malvern Spring
New this year is the Blooming Borders contest – something RHS Malvern has long needed. Not only does it give a more manageable entry point for designers both in terms of size and budget, it also provides some really good small scale inspiration for visitors. It’s certainly proved popular with 10 designers taking on the challenge.
The muted shades and colour combinations on Megan Dodd’s ‘Finding Balance’ border really appealed. The soft blue and peach worked really well with the colour of the boulder.
A complete contrast was the vibrant planting on Adam Marshall’s ‘Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder’, It’s inspired by how we perceive colour with the border shaped like an eye complete with bamboo eyelashes!
Nikki Hollier, who runs Border in a Box, is celebrating 10 years since her first show garden at the RHS Malvern Spring Festival. ‘Reminders of Home’ is a nostalgic journey back to her childhood gardens.
The award for the Best Blooming Border went to ‘After the Rain’ by Tomas Olesen. Designed to show how practical drainage can be worked into a design, it’s divided into wet and dry zones with shallow water between them. Set among the planting are bronze pieces cast from real plants by sculptors Yunus & Eliza.
This year’s feature garden has been designed by Martyn Wilson and aims to dispel the myth that clay soil is difficult. It’s packed with ideas for planting and the hard landscaping showcases how clay can be used from tiles to bricks and pots.
The Indoor Plant Gardens return though with just four designs this year. My favourite – and the Best in Show winner – is a nostalgic trip back to the 1970s with retro furniture and lots of ideas for displaying houseplants.
The Nurseries at RHS Malvern Spring
As ever, the floral marquee showcases some of the best independent nurseries with plenty of temptation.
Naturally, some plants followed me home including this centaurea from Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants, which I’ve been wanting for a while.
I’m always amazed at the skill of growers who manage to get plants into peak performance no matter what the season has thrown at them. Among the most impressive are the bulb exhibits with narcissi, tulips and lilies all on show.
Then there are the way the plants are put together. Hare Spring Cottage Plants may be known for its camassia – and there are some beauties on the stand – but it was this colour combination that caught my eye.
For some reason, I’d never thought of putting trailing rosemary in a pot but Kitchen Garden Plant Centre have and very effective it is too. I also spotted a variegated winter cress that was almost too beautiful to eat.
Growing Crazy, making their RHS Malvern debut, had ideas for displaying pelargoniums, including putting a species pellie in a hanging basket. Nursery owner Steven Monks described it as his ‘chandelier’.
Another newcomer to the Floral Marquee is The Tetbury Flower Co. with an educational display showing everything you need to know to grow beautiful dahlias.
Meanwhile, Pershore College are educating visitors about the contribution to horticulture from three of our great women designers and gardeners – Gertrude Jekyll, Ellen Willmott and Beth Chatto.
Dan Stearne of Dan’s Plants followed up last year’s silver-gilt at his first RHS Malvern with a gold medal for a display inspired by a watercolour by his old school art teacher.
The colours in the painting pick out the tones of a vintage champagne crate and are then echoed in the planting.
“From a distance, the display’s meant to look like a watercolour painting,” said Dan, who explained that art was his favourite subject at school.
This stood out on the Plantagogo stand. Heuchera ‘Eternal Flame’ has beautifully marked leaves that change colour as the season goes on.
As ever, I saw something new to me at RHS Malvern Spring. The Rosemeade Nurseries’ stand had these two beauties, which I’d not come across before.
This year’s Master Grower is W&S Lockyer, a regular and popular exhibitor at RHS shows. Started by Simon Lockyer and his father, William, the family firm is now run by Simon and his wife, Louise.
Their display shows off what they do best – auriculas, succulents and perennials – and that’s why shows like RHS Malvern are so important. Without independent nurseries growing interesting plants and providing advice, our gardens will be diminished.
The RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2026 is at the Three Counties Showground until Sunday May 10. Details here.
Enjoyed this? You can read more of my gardening show reports here.
Make sure you don’t miss future posts by adding your name to my mailing list.