How to Enter

Your design must follow these principles, elements and practical guidance.

1) Five principles

2) Three elements. Your design must be inspired by the 2026 theme of Fresh water, be good for wildlife, and include food for people.

Here are some thoughts and questions about this year’s theme to get you started:

Fresh water is part of our environment, our daily lives and even our bodies. Your garden can focus on any aspect of fresh water from different freshwater habitats to technology and how people have found, stored, and used water for things like energy, transport, and recreation.

Most life on land needs fresh water to survive but it is a very precious resource. There is only so much water on earth. You can’t make more water.  Think about all the plants and animals that have ever lived, including the dinosaurs. They drank and used the same water that keeps us alive today! The water cycle is a fantastic natural system that ‘recycles’ water, replenishes, redistributes and cleans it.

People use water for lots of things: cooking, personal hygiene, to drink, for transport, for recreation, in agriculture to irrigate crops and give to livestock, in industry for manufacturing goods and cooling machinery, to generate electricity and to fight fires. What have you used water for today?

Some products and services use water to make them although the final product has no water in it. There is a lot of this ‘invisible water’ in items such as paper, jeans, cars, leather shoes and even your smartphone. Have you used any of those so far today?

Most people in Scotland get water from a tap, but how does the water arrive at the tap? From ancient times, in dry places around the world, people have invented and built amazing structures to get fresh water. Have a look at the amazing stepwells in Rajasthan and Delhi in India. Explore the irrigation systems called Qanats built 3000 years ago in Iran that worked by using gravity and that are still used today! In Scotland we have bridges to cross over water. Could your design be inspired by one of these structures?

When we use water for example to wash our clothes, the water gets dirty. Remember, there is only so much water on earth, so we must clean it to make it safe to drink again. How is water cleaned in Scotland? Could your garden show that process? There are places in the world where people don’t have water that is safe to drink and it can make them very unwell. Perhaps your garden could be about this inequality.

Fresh water can bring relief and risk. After a long time without rain, it is a relief when it arrives, to soften the ground, to fill up the reservoirs and to allow crops to grow. Climate change means that the pattern of rainfall is changing. We are experiencing longer periods of drought as well as more intense rainfall and the flooding that comes with it. Perhaps your garden design could be a drought tolerant garden or a garden that helps to catch hold of the rain and hold onto it to reduce the risk of flooding.

How will your Pocket Garden design be inspired by wonderful fresh water?

3) Your design should follow this practical guidance.

Food for people: There are lots of edible plants that grow very well in Scotland. Growing your own food is a great way to get local, seasonal produce. You could grow herbs, salad leaves, fruit or vegetables and some flowers are edible too! What would you like to grow and eat?

Wildlife Gardening: We rely on plants and animals to help maintain healthy, fertile soils, to filter and clean freshwater, to eat the pests that eat our crops, to remove carbon from the air and provide oxygen.  Choose plants that are good for wildlife e.g. provide lots of nectar. Look at the Garden for Life plant lists for inspiration.

Size: Pocket Gardens must fit within a rectangular footprint of: 120cm x 100cm but can be any shape you want. You can re-use any material to create the garden. You can introduce some height through construction or plants but no higher than two metres is allowed.

Scale: Your design should be to the scale of the plants used. This will help you think about how your plants and structures will fit together.

Plant choice: Choose plants that you would find growing together, for example do not put pond plants next to plants that prefer somewhere drier. Choose plants that thrive in Scotland and play with colour, leaf size, shape and plant heights.

Anchoring: Even in May and early June it can be wet and windy so all elements must be secure. Your design should show how you have thought about making it secure.

Construction: It may be easiest to assemble your garden from component parts. Think about all the elements you will need and how they will fit together, and how you can disguise or cover the framework (base, pots or containers etc.) of your garden.