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Plants from The Project Giving Back Garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show will take root at the Wonky Garden in Widnes.
May 7, 2026
The Wonky Garden, an award-winning community garden in Widnes, is set to receive more than 5,000 plants from this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show, helping to complete its final phase of development and further expand its impact on the local community.
The plants from the Project Giving Back Garden will be transported directly from RHS Chelsea in May to The Wonky Garden, a thriving volunteer-led green space based at Ditton Community Centre in Widnes in Halton, Cheshire.
Project Giving Back (PGB) was set up to fund gardens for charities at RHS Chelsea that all go on to be permanently homed around the UK. For the first time this year PGB has its own feature garden, created by landscape designer James Basson, marking the project’s final year and celebrating its impact in amplifying the work of charitable causes across the UK.
Over the past five years, PGB has funded 64 gardens - investing more than £23 million - helping bring charitable causes to the heart of RHS Chelsea by offering them a platform to raise awareness and connect with new audiences. PGB has not only championed the power of gardens, but also the communities and individuals who use and benefit from them. Every garden supported by PGB is relocated to a permanent home after the show, ensuring a meaningful and lasting legacy for communities like those that use The Wonky Garden.
The Wonky Garden was founded in 2018 by Angela Hayler following her own experience of gardening helping her recovery from cancer. It began as a modest idea among a group of like-minded volunteers. Today, it spans around an acre and includes an orchard, flower garden, children’s garden, allotment and friendship hub. It has become a powerful example of how gardens can bring communities together, support wellbeing and create lasting social impact — the same ethos that has always been at the heart of Project Giving Back.
Angela Hayler, Chair of The Wonky Garden, said: “The Wonky Garden has grown into something truly special - a place where friendships grow, knowledge is shared and people come together and have fun. Receiving this generous donation of plants from the Project Giving Back Garden is a fantastic opportunity to complete our garden and continue supporting many people from different parts of our wider community. The range of plants will be a wonderful addition to the space, bringing a different style of planting, which we look forward to sharing with our visitors.”
The Project Giving Back Garden itself is inspired by the landscape of Provence in the South of France, where its designer James Basson lives and works. It recreates the striking red sandstone cliffs near Roussillon, once mined for their rich ochre pigments, set among pine trees and planted with a mix of Mediterranean plants such as thyme, lavender and cistus. These climate-resilient plants are suited to drier summers and offer a glimpse of how UK gardens could look in the future.
The plants donated by Project Giving Back, which have been grown by leading nursery Kelways, will be used to transform a 13m by 8m area of scrubland into a new ornamental gravel garden beside the Men’s Shed shelter. This will complete the final part of the Wonky Garden, which has gone from strength to strength over the past eight years.
Hattie Ghaui, CEO of Project Giving Back, commented: “The Wonky Garden is a brilliant example of how a garden can bring a community together, which is a common thread that has run through all of the gardens that Project Giving Back has supported. We are thrilled that the plants from the Project Giving Back Garden will live on here in this fabulous setting where they will continue to grow and be enjoyed.”
Run entirely by volunteers aged between 5 and 88, the Wonky Garden supports a wide network of individuals and groups across the Borough of Halton. Its work includes promoting physical and mental wellbeing, delivering outdoor learning for schools and colleges, and providing spaces for community groups ranging from young carers and Brownies to dementia and cancer patients and bereaved families. Around 5,900 people have benefitted from its work, with many more enjoying the garden throughout the year including via open days to raise money for the National Garden Scheme. The garden also grows food for the Widnes Foodbank, donating 80% of its produce to this cause.
In recognition of its exceptional community impact, The Wonky Garden was awarded the King’s Award for Voluntary Service in 2025 — the highest honour for volunteer groups in the UK — with the team set to attend Buckingham Palace this summer to receive the award.
Grant-making charity Project Giving Back (PGB) has announced seven of its final collection of gardens for good causes at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026. The remaining four gardens, all in the All About Plants category, will be announced in January 2026. From 2022 to 2026 PGB will have sponsored a total of 63 gardens for different charitable causes, all of which will be relocated or repurposed at sites around the UK.
The annual Gardens for Good Causes Exhibition at the Garden Museum in London will be open to visitors from 12 to 28 September, showcasing the ten charity gardens supported by Project Giving Back at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
Project Giving Back has announced that it will fund five more gardens to raise awareness of UK-based causes at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2025, bringing the total number of gardens it is supporting this year to ten. These include all four gardens in the All About Plants category, as well as one additional show garden designed by Nigel Dunnett.
Grant-making charity Project Giving Back (PGB) will fund a further cohort of gardens for UK charities at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2025, all of which will be permanently relocated after the show to continue to benefit the good causes that have inspired them.
Project Giving Back supports gardens for good causes at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, and while the deadline (Friday 4th October 2024) for the 2026 Show Garden funding applications has now passed, we’re pleased to announce that we will be extending the deadline for the 2026 All About Plants funding category to Monday 4th November 2024.
Project Giving Back supports gardens for good causes at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, and we are excited to announce that we are open to applications for funding for all categories listed on our website for 2026.
The annual Gardens for Good Causes Exhibition will be on display at the Garden Museum in London from 13 - 29 September
Since Project Giving Back (PGB) started funding gardens for good causes at RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2022, our unique grant-making charity has had a significant impact - not only on the world-famous flower show and the charities who have used the opportunity to raise funds and awareness, but also on the communities where the gardens find permanent homes after the show has closed. All 60 gardens PGB will fund between 2022 and 2026 will have a life after RHS Chelsea in permanent locations around the UK.
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Project Giving Back exists to amplify the work of charitable causes in the UK. We fulfil our purpose by funding gardens for good causes at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. The gardens are first a catalyst for engagement at the world-renowned Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show, before being relocated or repurposed to permanent sites across the UK creating an ongoing legacy and benefit to the causes and their communities.
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Project Giving Back (PGB) intends to continue its support of gardens for good causes at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2025 and 2026. Expressions of interest for 2025 funding can be submitted via the Project Giving Back website from Friday 22 September to Friday 3 November 2023. All gardens supported by PGB are repurposed in permanent locations around the UK after the show as ongoing legacies for the causes that inspired them.
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Following a hugely successful inaugural year in 2022, we will support more gardens for good causes in 2023. They will be presented at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, before being repurposed and relocated to their permanent homes across the UK. These include seven Show Gardens announced by the RHS. All gardens we support are inspired by UK charities and will live on after the show as a lasting legacy for their individual good causes - as teaching gardens, community spaces and other beneficial green spaces.
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We're so pleased to be able to announce a new and unique organisation that will provide funding for gardens inspired by UK charities and not-for-profit organisations at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
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