Boutique in Bloom 2026 Results Revealed

Chartwell House by Boutique Care Homes, situated in Broadstairs, Kent, has won Boutique in Bloom 2026, the group’s annual garden competition, for the second year running, taking home a £200 gardening voucher for the team.

This year’s theme asked every Boutique Care Homes home to turn its garden into something “Wonderful and Wild,” tracked over an eight-month journey running from October through to June. Homes kept a Garden Journal along the way, recording the changes each season brought and the part the community played in them. Boutique Care Homes’ Head Office team carried out official judging in June, assessing each garden against five pillars: adherence to Boutique values, sustainability and biodiversity, resident involvement, community and intergenerational connection, accessibility and use of the space, presentation and pride, and creativity and uniqueness. A critical criterion throughout was how well each garden supported the Life Enrichment Programme’s six wellbeing principles: Move, Grow, Reflect, Connect, Feel and Contribute. An innovation bonus was also on offer for ideas that went beyond the brief.

Chartwell House’s journal told the story of a garden shaped as much by its residents as by its gardeners. Several residents brought statues from their own family gardens to place around the space, so the finished result carried pieces of their own histories rather than something simply handed to them. An under-used summer house was reimagined as a small café and shop, named “The Chartwellion,” giving residents a reason to linger outside rather than pass through. Elsewhere, homemade bird boxes and bug hotels had drawn insects through the summer, and swallows had settled in to nest there, undeterred by a season that brought little rain and long stretches of heat.

“Biodiversity isn’t just a nice-to-have in a care setting, it changes what a garden can offer residents,” said Carl Roberts, Director of Sales & Marketing at Boutique Care Homes. “Birdsong, insects, something nesting outside your window, that gives people a reason to look outside and a reason to go out. It’s stimulation and calm at the same time, and it’s part of why we take it so seriously across every home.”

Brampton Manor in Newmarket, Suffolk, was named runner-up. Its allotment, the best in the group, has matured over several years of steady work, and this year a new greenhouse and a fresh partnership with Newmarket Community Nature Reserve to establish an orchard extended what residents can grow and where. At The Burlington in Shepperton, Surrey, a new greenhouse will pay off for seasons to come, while the “Boutique B” planter remains a favourite feature of the grounds. Keymer Hall in Burgess Hill, West Sussex, had been open only six months by the time judges visited, yet residents had already added a mini planting area along with new shrubs and flowers of their own choosing.

Director of Operations Martin Murphy said none of it works if a garden is done to residents rather than with them. “The homes that stand out are the ones where residents have a real say: what gets planted, what gets built, what the space is for. That’s co-production, not consultation, and it’s the difference between a garden people live near and one they actually shape.”

Judging may have finished in July, but the celebration runs on through the rest of the year, much like the gardens themselves.