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It's much more than just a block of ice...

The clock is ticking for the Arctic and even quicker for this garden at the 2022 Chelsea Flower Show.

Award-winning landscape designer, John Warland, has designed The Plantman's Ice Garden, sponsored by The Plantman & Co, at this year's world-famous RHS Chelsea. As its name suggests, a block of ice – 15 tonnes to be precise – sits at the centre, within which is a botanical treasure chest of seeds that will be released, as the block melts, over the duration of the show.

'The central planting in the middle, that hint of green, ideally by Friday and Saturday this ice block will melt down to reveal these botanical treasures, that's the thought realistically,' John tells House Beautiful UK.

The garden seeks to highlight the alarming rate at which Arctic ice is disappearing. 'Since 1994 over 28 trillion tonnes of ice has disappeared from the Earth's surface, an amount equivalent to covering it with a 100m thick ice sheet. There is three times as much carbon in the permafrost than in all the forests on the planet so it is vital that we halt this disappearance,' says Darren Stobbart, Founder of The Plantman & Co.

As John points out, 'in the middle of this ice block is the variety of plant that inspired the entire garden'. The core of the ice block contains Silene tatarica plants, inspired by the discovery and subsequent germination of a cache of 32,000-year-old Silene seeds back in 2012.

'We wanted to create a meaningful garden that highlights key issues but also celebrates the miracle of botany and the vital work of seed banks, and their potential for discovering nature-based solutions to our current global climate crisis,' Darren adds.

This conceptual garden is aesthetically calming and visitors are challenged to engage with this ice sculpture on multiple levels. 'It's very calming and mesmerising,' John agrees. 'The light changes and you can hear it cracking a little bit. You can see that the stress is coming into the corners and that obviously fragments.'

Walk around the back and you get a different perspective. 'You can see the stream running off the ice, it shows you what the melt rate is at, and where there's the wind, you can see the different shape at the back, so it's undercutting it as the breeze is coming,' John continues. 'It's so organic and natural. To place something like that within a garden and plants, it's quite reassuring.'

The planting taps into a big trend at Chelsea this year: the wild, natural look.

'There's little references to a birch woodland and Siberian planting that you can put anywhere in the UK if you've got a bit of light shade and the right soil,' John says. 'Shuttlecock ferns, (Matteuccia struthiopteris), Brunnera macrophylla, Asplenium scolopendrium everywhere, Cornus albus 'Sibirica' and Betula pendula (silver birch), it's a very simple, muted palette for people and calming too, with just a touch of colour in a corner.

'You've got some foxgloves (Digitalis lutea) round the back as well, and little ice blocks within it. Even the log stacked walls are great for birds, bees and insects – if you’ve got any wood in your garden and you don’t want to make it too Chelsea, it shows how you can really make a habitat really easily. Don't over cultivate it.'

It provides great ideas for small city gardens too. 'Even in the smallest space don't over cultivate it and even if there's just a little bit of dead wood, the wildlife doesn't need a lot to make its own habitat,' John advises. 'Here we've left the grass long, so don't mow too regularly, and we'll have the seeds and buttercups, and maybe some daisies. This is woodland; curated woodland. And if you have a wall in an urban space, you can easily do something similar like the log wall and it'll add a nice rustic feel.'

Surrounding the central block of ice is a 'drunken forest' of Betula pendula. These trees imitate the behaviour of their natural counterparts that develop an irregular leaning habit, as the melting permafrost undermines their roots, leading to their 'inebriated' appearance.

This garden certainly provides a stop and stare moment. 'The rest of the show is about flowers and this is kind of understated,' says John. 'You just want to stand here and chill. It's all about the chill. That's what it's all about.'

• The Plantman's Ice Garden, in the Sanctuary Gardens category, has been awarded a Silver-Gilt medal. Take a look at all 39 gardens (and winners) from this year's Chelsea Flower Show.

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