Commissioned by Project Giving Back for the 2022 RHS Chelsea Flower Show, the St Mungo’s Putting Down Roots Garden was designed by Cityscapes in collaboration with the homelessness charity St Mungo’s. The garden celebrates the transformative role of horticulture in supporting recovery, wellbeing and community, while exploring how a temporary show garden can become a lasting public space within the city.
St Mungo’s Putting Down Roots (PDR) is a horticultural therapy and training programme that uses gardening to support people experiencing homelessness in developing skills, confidence and pathways towards recovery. Cityscapes had worked closely with the organisation since its foundation, collaborating on planting and aftercare across projects including the Gibbon’s Rent and Greenwood Theatre pocket parks in London Bridge. The Chelsea garden was conceived as a tribute to this ongoing partnership and the contribution of horticulture to urban communities.
Planting was developed collaboratively, with small wildflower plants and perennial stock sourced from nurseries and grown on by the Putting Down Roots team and clients in their Clapham polytunnel. The resulting garden was conceived as a colourful, naturalistic pocket park, combining shade and semi-shade planting with reclaimed materials and robust construction designed for public use.
Sustainability and low-impact construction were central to the design. The garden was built using modular components that could be dismantled and relocated with minimal waste. Materials included reclaimed clay bricks from Arit Anderson’s 2021 Chelsea garden, paving offcuts from London Stone and recycled glass Crystalpave. Reused scaffold boards from the COP26 garden and timber from an old fence formed the fencing, while steel planters and pavilion hoops incorporated recycled content. The concrete bench used a low-carbon cement replacement, reducing embodied CO₂ by 80%.
Designed as a genuine public space, the garden prioritised accessibility, including wheelchair and mobility vehicle access, which is unusual for a Chelsea show garden. Following the show, Cityscapes worked with Team London Bridge to give the installation a permanent life across two public locations.
At Guy’s Hospital, King's College London, planters were replanted with trees and perennials, bringing colour and greenery to the campus. At Southwark Crown Court, the remainder of the garden was reassembled into three connected spaces with seating, lighting, trees and thousands of plants. Completed in November following a challenging summer, both installations continue to provide accessible public spaces for people to enjoy, cared for by Darryl and the Cityscapes team.
