AI-assisted garden that can say how it is feeling set for Chelsea Flower Show

A garden which can say how it is “feeling” will form part of next year’s Chelsea Flower Show, as experts said artificial intelligence (AI) could improve the sustainability of gardening.

Chelsea gold medal winner Tom Massey is bringing an AI-assisted garden, developed in collaboration with Microsoft and sponsored by technology company Avanade, to the world-famous flower show, which will use the tech to help the gardeners looking after it.

It will analyse data from sensors throughout the garden to optimise watering, feeding, and other gardening requirements to ensure the plants thrive in their environment, even in the face of climate change.

Mr Massey said the garden, which will live on as a community space in London after the show, will still look very green and organic, adding: “AI hasn’t designed the garden, AI is assisting the gardeners looking after it.

“There will be an array of sensors and monitors doing a range of things like soil moisture, soil pH and nutrient levels, that will empower the gardeners to ask the garden questions like how are you feeling, what do you need.

“The garden can give a conversational response… like I need a bit more water, or I could do with a haircut.”

He also said there would be a digital version of the garden which would be able to look at things such as what would happen in the future climate for the survival of trees, moisture of the soil, carbon performance.

He said the technology could address issues such as wasting water.

“AI could be a tool that empowers people, not replacing people, empowering people to grow, to work together, more sustainably,” he suggested.

Annette Giardina, from Avanade, said AI had driven up energy consumption, but the more the models were trained, the less power they used, and that it could be made more sustainable, for example by siting data centres in communities where excess heat could be used for heating in buildings.

“Part of what we’re doing in the garden will be designing it so they can track water condition of the soil, they can track whether the plant needs to be fed, they can make sure it’s not overwatered because the sprinkler just pops up and swirls around, so it can tie into weather forecasts.

“More importantly, as we take that a little bit further, it can do things like help us figure out biodiversity in the garden, help us figure out what we should be planting in the area we’re in, the soil.

“So it does have some detriments, but it does have a lot of benefits.”

The Royal Horticultural Society, which runs the Chelsea Flower Show, has also announced it will use AI to help build a knowledge bank of cultivated plants for specific uses, such as supporting pollinators and other wildlife, capturing pollution and carbon and helping manage water.

It already has a ChatBotanist tool, which is available to members and RHS Grow app users to give advice to gardeners, while freeing up its advisers to conduct research that will help inform planting choices and techniques in UK gardens, it said.