The Plant heritage garden to find a home at Chester Zoo

Following RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026, the Plant Heritage Missing Collector Garden will be moved to a permanent home at Chester Zoo. 

From late autumn, visitors will be able to visit the show garden at the zoo, a site which is not just home to animals from the around the world, but also holds five Plant Heritage National Plant Collections® including tropical pitcher plants (Nepenthes), rare cactus species (Copiapoa, Matucana, Turbinicarpus) and South American orchids (Pleurothallidinae). 

In August 2025, Chester Zoo became the first zoo in the UK to be officially recognised as an internationally important botanic garden by Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BCGI). 

The zoo has a strong commitment to education and outreach, including 120,000 school children visiting each year as part of their International Conservation Academy. It also has partnerships with botanical and conservation organisations around the world and is helping to return some of the rarest plants in its National Plant Collections to the wild.   

Plant Heritage’s partnership with Chester Zoo isn’t the only link to Cheshire. The Missing Collector Garden really is ‘made in Cheshire’: 

• The stone for the sculptures of books that make two pillars and for the museum style drawers that will be planted up with special plants is all being sourced from Blackham Reclamation in Tattenhall; 
• The wood for the garden, including the oak setts path, is coming from Grosvenor TimberWorks; 
• The designers have been supported by Cheshire based National Plant Collection Holders, Plantagogo.; 
• The hedges to frame the garden are being sourced from The Big Hedge Co, based in Chester; 
• And last but not least, one of the trio of garden designers grew up in the area. Sally-Anne Rees of The Planting Design Collective is proud to be from Bunbury and cites The Dysart Arms as the location for many of their team meetings. Handily for the designers, Sally-Anne's Mum hosts them all when they need to stay in the area. 

Gwen Hines, CEO of Plant Heritage, said: “It’s such a natural fit that the Plant Heritage Missing Collector Garden should find a home at Chester Zoo. We’re thrilled that it will have a life beyond Chelsea and will help to educate and inspire the zoo's millions of visitors about plant conservation and the amazing work being done by our volunteer National Plant Collection holders.” 

Phil Esseen, Head of Plants at Chester Zoo, said: “We are proud of our longstanding partnership with Plant Heritage and the five National Plant Collections we have (Nepenthes pitcher plants, rare cacti and orchids), so we believe Chester Zoo will be the perfect home for the Missing Collector Garden. For us, plant conservation and animal conservation go hand in hand. We are excited to share the Missing Collector Garden with all our visitors, who will get to enjoy this beautiful and peaceful green space. We hope they will also be inspired to step into the gap left by the missing collector and care for a National Plant Collection."