Wheelchair-accessible garden for spinal injury patients wins top prize at Chelsea Flower Show
RHS Chelsea Flower Show has awarded Best in Show to Harris Bugg Studio for Horatio’s Garden, a wheelchair accessible garden for patients recovering from spinal injury.
Horatio’s Garden is the first fully accessible garden to win ‘Best in Show’ with wheelchair access being fundamental to the whole design process and is the second time the design duo has won the coveted award for a garden at the world famous flower show.
The winning display has a non-slip surface on one level, made out of recycled building site waste. There is also a shelter with a hospital bed for a spinal patient to rest.
On receiving Best in Show, Charlotte Harris and Hugo Bugg said: “It’s unbelievable and still sinking in. It’s a really special garden for us because of the nature of the charity.
“Horatio’s is a charity about gardens and how they help on journeys of healing and so it feels absolutely right that it should win Best in Show.
“We are delighted for the charity, and we hope it helps to raise the profile of the incredible work they do and are delighted it will live on to form the heart of Horatio’s Garden Sheffield after the show.”
On selecting this year’s winner, RHS Chair of Show Garden Judges Marie-Louise Agius said: “The standard of the Show Gardens this year was extremely high. 
“What particularly stood out about The Horatio’s Garden was how the design had been driven by the end user, to be experienced by spinal injury patients from a bed or wheelchair.
“The garden is uplifting, beautiful, and considered and for someone who has had a life altering spinal injury it will provide them with a wonderful sanctuary. The brief and the garden was delivered at an exceptional level.”
The garden will be relocated for the enjoyment of patients at the Princess Royal Spinal Injuries Centre in Sheffield at the end of the annual gardening showcase. The Horatio’s Garden charity has garden projects at several other NHS spinal injury centres across the UK.
Olivia Chapple founded the Horatio’s Garden charity to create beautiful gardens at spinal injury centres around Britain in memory of her son.
Eton schoolboy Horatio, 17, was killed by a polar bear during a school trip to the Arctic in 2011 – and he was a volunteer at a spinal injuries unit in his home town of Salisbury.
Dr Chapple hopes that every spinal injuries centre in the UK will eventually have their own Horatio’s Garden, to help patients with spinal injuries recover surrounded by nature.
