RHS Macmillan cancer garden is 'deeply personal' design for Pandora Ryan

An award-winning garden designer from Huddersfield who lost three of her grandparents to cancer has been chosen by Macmillan Cancer Support to create the charity’s show garden at the first-ever RHS Flower Show Wentworth Woodhouse in Rotherham between 16 – 20 July.

Pandora Ryan, founder of Pandora Ryan Garden and Landscape Design Studio, has designed a 99 square metre scheme – named ‘The Macmillan Legacy of a Lifetime Garden’ – that will encourage visitors to the five-day show to consider leaving a gift in their will to the national cancer charity.

Inspired by the tranquil beauty, healing qualities and lifecycles of nature, Pandora’s garden design features elegant trees that cast a soft, dappled light through a delicate canopy. Beneath them, Macmillan Cancer Support’s brand colours are echoed through lush shade-loving perennials, ferns and grasses that form a serene green and white palette.

She explained: “I lost three of my grandparents to cancer and each of them was profoundly supported by Macmillan nurses, so the work Macmillan Cancer Support does holds deep personal meaning for me.

“My late grandad called the Macmillan nurses ‘angels’ – a reflection of what their compassion and unwavering support meant to him and the family when it was needed the most.”

Pandora explained that her design invites visitors to consider “the impact of a lifetime and how each generation can support the next”, and how leaving a gift in a will to the cancer charity “can be a person’s lasting legacy to help people living with the disease in the future.”

The garden will showcase more than 1,200 individual plants and features a reflective water pool at its centre, alongside a sculptural centrepiece designed and created by Pandora entitled ‘The Pillars of Strength’, representing the support offered by Macmillan.

She explained: “I wanted to include a reflective water pool approached via three chequerboard paths, symbolising our shared journey through life as humans and the challenges of navigating a cancer diagnosis.

“Once at the pool, visitors are invited to place seed-infused ‘fallen leaves’ made from sugar paper into the water to create a moment of appreciation for the cycles of life and to mirror how a gift in a will can nurture future generations.

“The Pillars of Strength sculptural centre piece stands as a quiet monument to resilience, support and enduring impact. Its reflective surfaces mirror the water and surrounding landscape, while its engraved illustration reinforces the role of Macmillan and the far-reaching effects of legacy giving.”

This year sees the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) bring its Flower Show – usually held at Tatton Park in Cheshire – to South Yorkshire for the first time, as it trials new locations in a bid to promote gardening to as many people as possible.

Pandora said: “I am delighted and proud to have had my design chosen by Macmillan Cancer Support – especially as the RHS comes to my home county for the first time.

“As a garden designer, having a scheme sponsored by a charity of Macmillan’s size and on display at a RHS show is a real career milestone, which comes with much industry kudos. For me though, it’s the deeply personal experiences of cancer that connect me to Macmillan and encouraged me to submit my design.

“Gifts in wills are Macmillan’s largest income stream, and if this garden encourages even one more person to leave a donation so that more people living with cancer can receive the care and support they need, then I’ll be very happy indeed.”