Prize-winning landscapers chosen for a second prestigious display
WHEN landscapers Lee and Lewis Nuttall were called in to create a garden at the RHS Flower Show in Wentworth, their skills were clear to see.
The Rotherham pair run CGM Landscapes Yorkshire and their work so impressive they have been called back to create another RHS display.
Last year’s show was the first at Wentworth Woodhouse and the Thorpe Hesley-based company created a South Korean entry, a hugely challenging Hyundai E&C and Sungkyunkwan University gardenbuild, which earned a Silver-Gilt medal.
Their talents were noticed by renowned gardener and regular RHS Flower Show judge Dan Flynn who was so impressed, he offered a second big break - building a garden for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026.
The show at Royal Hospital Chelsea runs from May 19-23 and Lee and Lewis are now on site, working with Dan on the Asthma + Lung UK Breathing Space Garden, one of only 13 on the show’s Main Avenue.
Sponsored by grant-giving charity Project Giving Back, the garden is inspired by the work of Asthma + Lung UK and the lived experiences of people living with lung conditions.
The garden will have a permanent home at Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust’s Breathing Space lung rehabilitation centre on Badsley Moor Lane. Lee, aged 63, and Lewis, 35, will be involved in its creation and volunteers will be trained to maintain it.
“When the RHS Wentworth Woodhouse request came in we thought that was our one opportunity of a lifetime,” said Lee. “But incredibly, it led to an even bigger opportunity, thanks to Dan.
“We are thanking our lucky stars. We are just normal blokes; things like this don’t usually happen to us.
"RHS Chelsea is the pinnacle of garden design and construction and what makes this even more brilliant is the fact that the garden we are building will come to the Rotherham Breathing Space centre which helped my dad Ken, who developed COPD-related breathing problems before he died aged 68.”
The Asthma + Lung UK Breathing Space Garden has been designed by landscape gardener Angus Thompson to raise awareness of the invisible impact of breathlessness.
In Rotherham, the garden will be scaled up in size to replace an overgrown garden at the Breathing Space rehabilitation centre.
Rotherham is one of the UK’s worst-affected areas for lung-related hospital admissions and many of the asthma, COPD and asbestosis sufferers it supports worked in the pits and heavy industry.
Dan Flynn grew up in Stocksbridge and Everton, Doncaster, and is the son of a former editor of the Sheffield Star.
“I really wanted to find a South Yorkshire company to work with me on the Breathing Space Garden for the RHS Chelsea Show,” he said.
“There is a north-south divide in top-level landscape gardening. Few northern companies get to work at the Chelsea Show and I wanted to change that, particularly as this garden is going to have a permanent home in Rotherham.
Bob Kirton, Managing Director at The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Breathing Space is all about creating a calm, supportive environment for people with respiratory conditions. The Chelsea Flower Show garden will enhance that vision and be a truly uplifting space for our patients and community when it comes to Rotherham.”