RHS Chelsea gold medal winner Joe Perkins has designed The Wimbledon Garden: Nature in Play. The garden marks 150 years of The Championships by celebrating a love for tennis, its history and explores how gardens can adapt to the changing climate.

Designed for both an avid tennis fan and keen gardener, the space interprets the All England Club’s long-standing horticultural ethos, ‘tennis in an English garden’, by featuring richly textured, climate-adaptive planting and striking trees. 

At the heart of the garden visitors will find an open pavilion that acts as a rain-capture feature. Drawing on how technology has influenced the evolving sport, the pavilion’s construction will use laminated timber, which was first used in aviation and later adopted in early tennis rackets.

Rills and pools will invite visitors to acknowledge Wimbledon’s enduring relationship with the elements and showcase how water can be managed effectively and sustainably in gardens. In addition, the use of a weather monitoring system, drought tolerant planting and shallow gravel mulch considers the impact water scarcity will have on gardens.

Planting / Colour Scheme

Purples, greens and pale apricot will feature in the design. The purple Iris ‘Bishop’s Robe’ acts as a nod to Wimbledon’s classic colour and provides an important nectar source for pollinating insects. The garden will also feature six Liquidambar, representing a team of six ball boys and girls. In addition, their straight stems reflect the galleries of a monastic cloister, where many believe the very first game of tennis was played in medieval France.

Statement trees such as Acer tataricum subsp. ginnala and Crataegus × lavalleei ‘Carrierei’ will also feature.