06-04-2025
Outdoor Easter garden returns to Salisbury Cathedral for third year
An Easter garden created by a Chelsea Flower Show winner has returned to Salisbury Cathedral.
The garden at the cathedral is said to be inspired by the "landscape and story of Jesus."
It is the third year of the garden display and is a collaboration between the cathedral's Works Yard and horticultural designer Andy McIndoe.
The garden is based on the native plants of the Holy Land, including drought-resistant aromatic trees and shrubs that flourish when there is sufficient rainfall.
Andy McIndoe and assistant Billy Moss (Image: Finnbarr Webster/Salisbury Cathedral) Other Mediterranean plants such as rosemary, laurel, olive and santolina have been added to the garden.
The display also includes three crosses mounted behind a symbolic tomb made of Chilmark stone, the same stone used to build the cathedral.
The crosses and tomb were made by the cathedral's Works Department.
Horticultural designer Andy McIndoe has won 25 consecutive Gold Medals at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
In 2017, he also received the Veitch Memorial Medal, one of the Royal Horticultural Society's highest accolades.
The Revd Dr Kenneth Padley, Canon Treasurer, who has oversight of the Easter Garden, said: "Our team have been receiving enthusiastic compliments and encouragement from passers-by as they have constructed the garden this week.
"Like a crib at Christmas, the Easter Garden is a simple way of visualising what God does for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus, overcoming our faults and guilt with the hope and joy of eternal life.
"We offer this garden to worshippers and visitors as a sign of this holy and happy season."
On Easter Day, the sealed tomb will be opened to represent Jesus being raised from the dead, three days after he was buried.
The Easter Garden will stay in place until Pentecost on June 8, the day when Christians recall how God's Holy Spirit was given to the disciples after Jesus' Ascension.
