Welcome to the Garden!

Thank you so much for stopping by The Chestnut Group Garden for The Gurkha Welfare Trust at the RHS Sandringham Flower Show. Whether you stood beneath our pergola, followed the rain chain, or chatted with our team, we are so glad you are here to look a little deeper.

This garden is a celebration of two things: the breathtaking, rugged natural landscape of Nepal, and the enduring bond between the British public and the fearless Gurkha veterans who have served the Crown for over 200 years.

About the Garden Design

Designed by award-winning Norfolk designer Jane Scott Moncrieff and proudly sponsored by The Chestnut Group, this space is built in the RHS Grow Forward category. It is a direct response to the climate and environmental challenges faced by modern gardeners.

The design demonstrates how we can use plant families native to the high-altitude, variable climates of the Himalayas to create a beautiful, forward-thinking, and climate-resilient space at home. The garden is split into three intelligent zones:

– The Woodland Garden: A peaceful, shaded area featuring modern cultivars derived directly from indigenous Himalayan plant genera. Keep an eye out for our key structural plants, including the delicate Cercidiphyllum japonicum (Katsura tree), Rhododendron rubiginosum, and the architectural Selinum wallichianum.

– The Rain Garden: A clever, concave zone designed to manage excess water. Rainwater is captured from the roof of the pergola, travels visibly down a beautiful rain chain, and runs through a subterranean pipe to irrigate water-loving plants that thrive in moist soils, like Euphorbia schillingii.

– The Gravel Garden: A slightly convex, drought-tolerant space protected by local gravel mulch. This zone showcases how the same garden can handle intense, dry summers by utilising hardy, low-water plants.

Look Closer: The recycled steel pergola structure at the heart of the garden isn’t just functional—its unique shape is a direct nod to the traditional metal water bottles carried by people trekking through the mountains of Nepal. The garden also features cutting-edge ‘Alive Labs’ Terranite panels, a carbon-negative material that grows mosses and bryophytes directly onto the architectural surfaces.

With special thanks to our generous supporters

About The Gurkha Welfare Trust

For over two centuries, Gurkha soldiers from the hills of Nepal have fought loyally alongside British forces in conflicts across the globe.

The Gurkha Welfare Trust is the leading charity dedicated to ensuring these brave veterans, their widows, and their wider communities are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve. We operate directly on the ground in Nepal to deliver life-changing support:

– Financial Aid: Providing essential Welfare Pensions to thousands of impoverished veterans and widows who do not qualify for a standard army pension.

– Medical Care: Delivering free, international-standard healthcare through our network of clinics, mobile camps, and home-visit doctors across difficult mountain terrain.

– Community Projects: Building clean, reliable water systems and constructing Earthquake-Resilient homes for our veterans and schools in remote villages.

Please complete this form to be kept up to date with our work at The Gurkha Welfare Trust

Thank you for visiting us, and enjoy the rest of your day at the RHS Sandringham Flower Show!