2050

At a glance

Show: BBC Gardeners' World Live
Year: 2025
Category: APL Avenue

Large Show Garden

Photo: GardensDB

About this garden

The story

The Watershed Garden offers a glimpse into the corner of a not-so-distant future of a family garden. The garden is set in a future where water resources are limited, showcasing resilient planting and adaptive design elements.

At its heart is an outdoor home cinema set-up, with a projector casting lush, water-rich planting onto the wall of a shed. The David Attenborough style video is paired with the sound of trickling water from speakers nestled in the planting. This transports visitors to a time when water was in abundance and the well wasn’t dry, creating a nostalgic audio-visual experience.

The plants in Watershed Garden have been carefully selected for their resilience in future climates, with drought-tolerant species like grasses, and native wildflowers. These plants thrive with minimal water, offering a hopeful yet realistic vision for gardening in the years to come.

Watershed Garden is a garden that invites visitors to consider the importance of water, appreciating what we have and understanding that gardening will change. Through nostalgia, Watershed Garden reminds us: we don’t miss the water until the well runs dry – but we can create something beautiful as we adapt to the changing climate.

Award