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Midlands Air Ambulance Charity
Emotional visitor reactions and national interest follow the debut of Midlands Air Ambulance Charity’s first-ever show garden at BBC Gardeners’ World Live 2025.
A trauma response isn’t something you expect to see interpreted through plants, yet that’s exactly what drew thousands of people to Midlands Air Ambulance Charity’s powerful Medicinal Garden at BBC Gardeners’ World Live 2025.
Over four days, between 12th and 15th June, the garden became one of the show’s most talked-about features, not just for its striking landforms and colour palette, but for its emotional impact. Inspired by the journey of medical emergency through to recovery, the space offered visitors a rare opportunity to reflect on the quiet resilience of both patients and the crews who save them.
Emma Gray, chief operating officer for Midlands Air Ambulance Charity, said: “People didn’t just walk through it, they stopped, they paused, and many shared their own stories. The garden opened up conversations around trauma, recovery and the hidden emotional journey that follows a medical emergency. It resonated in a way we couldn’t have predicted.”
Created by emerging design talents Lucy Chapman and Helen Swan, and built by Rupert Keys and the team at TASK Academy, the Medicinal Garden avoided traditional garden show tropes in favour of something more visceral. Twin mounds of land rose on either side of a winding path, symbolising the peaks and valleys of crisis and healing. Throughout, ribbons of vibrant planting, chosen for their association with healing, rippled across the space.
“We weren’t interested in creating something purely pretty,” said co-designer Lucy Chapman. “We wanted to make people feel something, to show that gardens can be places of deep emotional processing, not just aesthetic appreciation.”
The garden also took a strong stance on sustainability, using permeable materials, drought-resilient planting, and reclaimed elements to promote eco-conscious gardening that still delivers emotional depth and visual impact.
Now, the Medicinal Garden is set to live on beyond the show. Key elements will be relocated to Midlands Air Ambulance Charity’s new airbase and headquarters in Shifnal, Shropshire, where the space will become a permanent place for reflection, for patients, their families, and the crews who have experienced emergency situations first-hand.
Lucy, added: “This garden was built to move, not just physically, but emotionally. Its next chapter will allow people who have lived through trauma to reconnect with nature, and with themselves. We’re incredibly proud to have played a part in that.”
Midlands Air Ambulance Charity provides critical care across six Midlands counties and is one of the UK’s busiest air ambulance operators. Its appearance at BBC Gardeners’ World Live marked a bold new direction for the charity, one that blends art, health, and the natural world to raise awareness of the unseen emotional aftermath of trauma.
To find out more or support the charity’s vital work, visit midlandsairambulance.com.