The Glasshouse Garden — a healing garden that empowers women in prison — was showcased at the 2025 RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
Landscape design by Jo Thompson Landscape & Garden Design.
Jo Thompson was the only female designer of the show gardens at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show, bringing forward the inspiring Glasshouse Garden — a space that celebrates the transformative effect of second chances through horticulture.
This immersive space celebrates feminine strength, second chances and the healing power of nature — offering a powerful reminder of what gardens can represent beyond beauty.
Jo Thompson’s vision for the garden
The garden was inspired by the women of The Glasshouse — a pioneering social enterprise that supports women leaving prison through horticultural training, resettlement support and employment. With a 0% reoffending rate, The Glasshouse programme is proof of how purposeful, plant-based work can transform lives, not just for the women involved but also for their families and wider communities.
Jo Thompson approached the design with a clear intention: to create a space that goes beyond aesthetics. “This garden is not just about beauty,” she says. “It’s about legacy. It’s about hope and real change for women rebuilding their lives.”
The Glasshouse garden design
Sustainability runs through every decision made in the design of The Glasshouse Garden.
The planting scheme is rich and considered, and wraps around a translucent elliptical pavilion formed from recycled acrylic in a soft, four-coloured botanical tint. While the structure offers a quiet space for reflection and connection, it’s the layered garden that truly carries the story and offers a safe space for reflection, connection and support.
The planting colour scheme in the garden draws on the idea of “strong beauty,” blending deep reds, pinks and crimsons with soft peach and apricot tones. The majority of the planting scheme is filled with fragrant roses and perennial flowers plus a canopy of Betula nigra (river birch) and Zelkova serrata (Japanese elm) making up over 75% of the garden space.
This garden is a living symbol of hope, growth and possibility.
Designed with sensitivity and intention, it captures the strength and potential of women rebuilding their lives through nature. Its bold planting, thoughtful palette and focus on sustainability bring together beauty and purpose in a way that feels both grounded and uplifting.
As one woman from The Glasshouse programme shared, “The Glasshouse found me at my lowest point. They helped me to see there was hope and that I am a person capable of amazing things.”
Key plant list
Roses
- Rosa ‘Alfred Colomb’
- Rosa ‘Wild Rover’
- Rosa ’Tuscany Superb’
- Rosa ‘Nuits de Young’
- Rosa ‘Emma Bridgewater’
Flowers
- Allium uniflorum ‘Eros’
- Astrantia major ‘Burgundy Manor’
- Astrantia major ‘Hadspen Blood’
- Astrantia major ‘Pink Pride’
- Astrantia major ‘Star of Beauty’PBR
- Baptisia ‘Burgundy Blast’
- Daucus carota ‘Black Knight’
- Daucus carota ‘Dara’
- Daucus carota ‘Purple Kisses’
- Digitalis purpurea ‘Sutton’s Apricot’
- Geranium ‘Dreamland’ (‘Bremdream’ PBR)
- Geranium phaeum ‘Joseph Green’
- Geranium phaeum ‘Lily Lovell’
- Geranium phaeum var. phaeum ‘Samobor’
- Geum ‘Bell Bank’
- Geum ‘Mai Tai’ PBR (Cocktails Series)
- Geum ‘Pink Frills’
- Geum rivale
- Geum rivale ‘Barbra Lawton’
- Iris ‘Constant Wattez’ (IB)
- Iris ‘Paprikash’ (Sib)
- Iris ‘Sultan’s Palace’
- Nectaroscordum siculum
- Nicotiana x hybrida ‘Tinkerbell’
- Papaver dubium subsp. lecoqii ‘Albiflorum’
- Papaver orientale ‘Patty’s Plum’
- Phlox drummondii ‘Cherry Caramel’
- Deutzia x hybrida ’Strawberry Fields’
Trees
- Betula nigra (River birch)
- Zelkova serrata (Japanese elm)
Topiaries
- Fagus sylvatica Atropurpurea (copper beech)
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After being showcased at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show the garden will be relocated to HMP Downview — a women’s closed prison in Surrey — where it will provide inspiration and hope for women in custody and live on as a lasting place for training, planning and imagining second chances
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