Over 2026 the RHS will be calling on the nation to join the charity in ‘Bringing Nature Home’, an initiative that will highlight how plants are the foundation for all biodiversity and how our nation of gardeners is at the frontline in protecting biodiversity and fighting climate change.
The RHS believes that the domestic garden is the unsung biodiversity powerhouse, hosting thousands of species, some still unknown to science, and that gardens urgently need to be recognised as a nationally important habitat to conserve, protect and support life to maintain a healthy planet and people.
Gardeners directly experience the impact of drought, flooding, extreme weather, and by cultivating plants are at the forefront of biodiversity, environmental protection and climate change resilience, with their garden spaces supporting over 50% of the nation’s butterflies, amphibians and reptiles, and more than 40% of bird and mammal species.*
Despite this, whilst gardens have some recognition in Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) metrics under urban habitat classifications, these spaces are excluded from post-development gains due to concerns around securing future management. The RHS believes this undervalues their ecological role and is calling on government to recognise gardens as discrete, measurable habitats within BNG frameworks to reflect their true value and contribution to biodiversity.
The 2025 RHS State of Gardening Report highlights that ‘cultivated plant diversity’, is an area three times bigger than all of UKs National Nature Reserves combined and is a critical, yet undervalued, resource that supports human health, biodiversity and climate resilience.
Professor Alistair Griffiths, Director of Science and Collections at the RHS says: “When people talk about the biodiversity crisis or nature loss they [generally] think about loss of wild plants or wildlife, they rarely think how cultivated plants and trees are also at risk and make a significant positive impact to our lives and our damaged planet. There are over 50 million trees growing in UK gardens forming a vital infrastructure that cools cities, stories carbon and supports wildlife.
“We urgently need people of all ages to appreciate the UK’s gardens and garden plants not only for their beauty, but also how we can use them to help mend our fragile planet for future generations”.
“With over 2,670 species of plants and animals being found in one typical UK garden** – there couldn’t be a more appropriate place to ‘Bring Nature Home’ than your own outside space, be it your balcony, doorstep, your community, school, work garden, or your own private garden.”
A key element of Bringing Nature Home will be to celebrate the RHS Wildlife Wonders ‘Plant of the Month’*** showing how each of the plants support wildlife, as well as raising awareness that cultivated plants are a fundamental way to fight the biodiversity and climate crises and nature deficit disorder.
“There is growing recognition of plant blindness – people see and care about the fauna but less about the flora. And the flora is crucial for all life on earth.”
The RHS Cultivated Plant database contains more than 308,000 entries. The Plant Heritage Threatened Plants Project has assessed over 133,000 cultivated plants, of these around one in three (48,000) plants in cultivation are threatened and around one in six (21,000) plants in cultivation are endangered.
“Without urgent action” Continues Alistair, “We risk losing irreplaceable plants, which are not just ornamental; they’re vital for climate resilience, biodiversity, and human wellbeing. Through Bringing Nature Home, we will be championing how future-proofing our gardens by identifying climate-resilient species, preserving propagation knowledge, and embedding cultivated plants and their conservation into government biodiversity and climate strategies is essential to ensure this diversity survives and thrives in a changing world.”
Another key activity in 2026 will be an RHS Bringing Nature Home Biodiversity themed display at RHS Chelsea Flower Show and wider RHS Shows, which will engage visitors and celebrate how the diversity of plants and features in gardens support an important abundance of other life.
At RHS Gardens over summer there will be family activities and Flower Shows promoting ways to Bring Nature Home and much more planned to encourage hundreds and thousands of visitors and millions more to better appreciate that plant biodiversity is the foundation for all biodiversity, from root systems and fungi to trees and shrubs, plants will safeguard the future.
