Navan-born designer to create show garden at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Show

Following on from their gold medal winning success at the Chelsea Flower Show last year, Navan-born architect Mike McMahon and wife Jewlsy Mathews have been chosen to create a show garden at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Show which takes place from 1st to 6th July.

Last year, the couple impressed judges at Chelsea with their jungle themed balcony garden inspired by the balconies at their Kings Cross home and this year they will create a larger show garden for another prestigious RHS show this time the Hampton Court Palace Show.

Their 'Cocoon' garden, sponsored by Subaru, will be displayed on the main avenue at the event and like their design at Chelsea last year, sustainbility and using recycled materials is very much at the heart of their design.

"We are delighted to have been selected to take part at Hampton Court Palace Show and are doing a much larger show garden this time. We have around 1,500 plants being grown in a nursery for the show and the garden will take just under three weeks to build," said Mike.

He explained the inspiration for their garden: "The Irish and British temperate rainforest is a landscape that's both ecologically rich and tragically overlooked – something we wanted to highlight with the Subaru Cocoon Garden. This type of installation has never been created at Hampton Court Palace before; it felt like the right moment to highlight the fragile epiphytes and micro-ecosystems that thrive in these endangered environments."

Mike told how the garden is enveloped by a circular brick jali wall that frames the plants and plays with light and shadow. "It invites you to look through and around, like you're glimpsing through trees. Sustainability isn't an add-on, it's embedded in every decision we've made, from using zero concrete, to ensuring all elements are reusable or relocatable once the show ends."

The sculptural walled garden reimagines the UK and Ireland’s vanishing temperate rainforests. Once covering up to 20 per cent of Britain and Ireland, these rare ecosystems—rich in mosses, lichens, and epiphytes—have now dwindled to less than one per cent due to deforestation, air pollution, and invasive species.

Now among the most threatened habitats in the UK, their decline has gone largely unnoticed and with the Subaru Cocoon, Mike and Jewlsy wanted to bring this quiet crisis into view, offering a space of ecological memory and hopeful renewal.

Set within a curved brick jali wall—crafted from 4,500 Kenoteq K-Briqs, the world’s most sustainable brick—the garden honours co-designer Jewlsy Mathews’ South Indian

heritage and invites native flora to spill through its perforated lattice.

This screen filters light, frames glimpses inward, and doubles as an insect habitat, enhancing biodiversity. In lieu of a traditional walled garden door, a reflective water threshold—a symbolic cleansing—leads into a cool, immersive landscape of ferns, mosses, Silver Birch, and Scots Pine.

Cantilevered fallen tree trunks planted with epiphytes echo the “chop-and-drop” cycle of forest regeneration, while seemingly floating brick platforms offer moments of stillness, suspended in a layered canopy of native species.

Rooted in sustainability, the garden avoids concrete entirely and exclusively features native UK and Irish plants. By using Kenoteq K Briq, it diverts 9.45 tonnes of construction waste while saving nearly two tonnes of CO₂ emissions.

Furniture made from Richlite’s recycled paper further underscores the project’s commitment to post-consumer innovation.

“With The Subaru Cocoon, we wanted to highlight Britain’s overlooked temperate rainforests. It’s a garden built from our weekend wanderings—mossy trunks, tangled roots, and quiet moments. Jewlsy’s heritage inspired the jali wall, which filters light like forest canopies do. And the materials we chose—from bricks made from recycled construction

waste to native plants—are all part of that same story: living better with less impact,” said Mike.

Mike is a son of Mary and Michael McMahon from Athlumney and has been living in London since 2007. He opened his own architect's practice 'Mike McMahon Studio' with his wife Jewlsy in 2022. With a broad scope spanning architecture, interiors, landscapes, and furniture, the studio undertakes projects ranging from large-scale office developments to intimate garden spaces.

Mike has always had a keen interest in nature and horticulture and having visited Chelsea many times over the years, the couple decided to apply for the prestigious flower show last year and were thrilled to be accepted on their first attempt. Their garden won a gold medal and received a lot of media attention during the show. It was also one of three gardens King Charles chose to visit when he attended Chelsea last year.

Now they are gearing up for their second major event and while last time they did all the work themselves, with a bigger garden to build this year, this time they will use a contractor.