Award-Winning Chelsea Garden to Find Its Permanent Home in E16
A garden created for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in support of young people’s mental health is coming to Custom House this summer — and it will belong to the community.
The YoungMinds Garden, designed by Charlie Chase of Chase Gardens and sponsored by grant-making charity Project Giving Back, features in the ‘All About Plants’ category at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show, running 19–23 May. Its biodiverse, plant-rich design highlights the pressures affecting young people’s mental health and the importance of community in helping them thrive.
Bold yellow flowers — the only colour in the planting — echo the light and hope at the heart of the YoungMinds brand, bursting forth from cracked four-tonne boulders that symbolise the weight of challenges young people face, and their strength in growing around them. Towering conifers create a sense of safety and enclosure, their unique growth patterns mirroring the non-linear nature of recovery.
Once the show closes, the garden will make the journey east. It will be relocated to Newham, where it will become a community space for all — and it is E16 CLT’s community garden on Fords Park Road that will be its new home. The garden will be fully accessible to buggies, wheelchair users and people with physical mobility needs.
Working with E16 CLT and PEACH, Chase Gardens plan to use the space to host gardening sessions for young people, covering growing plants for both beauty and practical uses, garden design basics and rare plant identification. All young people taking part will be paid for their time and involvement.
E16 CLT is a community-owned organisation committed to providing affordable homes, community spaces and facilities for residents of Custom House, Canning Town and the Royal Docks, currently working in partnership with PEACH to deliver a brand new community garden on Fords Park Road. The arrival of the YoungMinds Garden represents a significant moment for that project — bringing a nationally celebrated design directly into the heart of the neighbourhood.
With one in five young people aged 8–25 experiencing a probable mental health condition, the garden offers a hopeful vision: that in community, there is power.