Breakthrough performers, innovative styles, cameo scenes full of theatre and colour.

‘Always Like Never Before’ is the theme of this year’s Wimbledon, and it’s not just new chapters of tennis history that are written so spectacularly every year.

Just look at the horticultural game that is perennially on show at The Championships, with its own parallel world of winners, era-defining icons and storylines aplenty.

The standout star of 2023 already has the demeanour of a true champion. 

‘The Serving Ace Meeting Tree on the northwestern corner of No.1 Court is a really nice new feature,’ says head gardener Martyn Falconer.

‘I had the idea back in 2016 to replace the small tree that people use as a rendezvous by Gate 5, and my idea grew a bit!’

Weighing 1.4 tonnes, the sculpture captures in arboreal form a tennis player frozen in time, poised, mid-serve.

The work took artist Mark Reed more than 6,000 hours to design, cast and assemble.

As with the on-court artistry of top players, its form in sculpted bronze rewards study. You’ll notice tiny touches in its branches, like caterpillars holding tennis rackets, which prompt gasps of ‘Oh I say!’ 

The tree is set romantically amid ferns, daisies, variegated ivy and moss, as it might be in the corner of a well-established English country garden.

Some of the signature plants of Wimbledon’s bucolic landscape have a status akin to the legendary players whose names are immortalised in the sport’s Hall of Fame.

For evidence, look no further than the new hospitality spaces in No. 1 Court, which are named the Agapanthus Suites, Rose Suites, Petunia and Hydrangea Suites.

Talking of hydrangeas, who can forget the dynamic debut of the Magical Amethyst Blue in 2015? Their mop-head blooms, which open in pale lime green and turn blue before fading back into green, are now a star fixture around the courts of SW19.

Or the unveiling of the innovative living wall on No. 1 Court’s facade in 2019, packed with 14,000 flowering plant species to encourage pollinators?

And the pops of red blooms introduced into the traditional green, purple and white colour palette in the southern end of the Grounds nine years ago in tribute to the centenary of the First World War?

It’s groundbreaking stuff, every year.

Wimbledon’s historic horticultural timeline starts with the Boston Ivy (parthenocissus tricuspidata veitchii) that was cultivated on the original 1923 clubhouse building.

For decades, these creeper-clad walls are a key visual symbol, projecting the long-established traditions of Wimbledon worldwide.

More influential on the current state of play were the 200 Groundbreaking Hydrangeas of the 1950s.

Their call-up has been described as being on a par, horticulturally speaking, with the trailblazing players that formed the Original Nine of the women’s game and the Handsome Eight of the men’s.

‘Hydrangeas give you a lot of flowers for your buck,’ says Martyn, and these first ones became the mainstay of the planting scheme, initiating the development of the flourishing English garden setting that showcases the tennis action today.

Next up, on a par perhaps with the mass advent of double-handed backhands in the late 1970s, would be the arrival of the petunias.

'For as long as I’ve been involved, it’s been petunias all the way,’ says Martyn. ‘Upright, creeping, trailing, in hanging baskets, pots, troughs, window boxes, they’ve always been used in abundance.’

Packed with flowers in purple and white, they run in boxes around the exterior of Centre Court, No.1 Court and the Indoor Tennis Centre across the road.

This style of floral display is called ‘catwalking’ and those petunias certainly strut their stuff.

In 1997, the Rose Arbour created with creamy white Madame Alfred Carriere and pale pink New Dawn climbing roses, established its place in the hearts of Wimbledon visitors.

More revolutionary was the drought-resistant planting plan that was implemented in 2012, an early starter in sustainability measures that are at the heart of the cultivation and maintenance programme in 2023.

In 2014, Martyn became head gardener and introduced more pink and yellow nuances, plus variations on purple with salvias, hostas, French lavender and Scotch Thistle, as well as visual puns on tennis balls with plenty of round-headed agapanthus and alliums, and topiary shapes.

Last year was the year of the new beehive-shaped yew hedges by Courts 8, 9, 10 and 11 and the extension of the wildflower bank on the Aorangi practice courts to the environs of the Indoor Tennis Centre.

Conditioning is an aspect of the players’ armoury that keeps evolving, and the same can be said in the gardens.

Just as players like Margaret Court, Bjorn Borg, Martina Navratilova and Novak Djokovic represent pioneers in implementing improved diet, training and exercise regimes in their eras, so, perhaps, will 2023’s great Petunia Peat-free Plant-out be hailed.

‘We’re widening our trials of peat-free compost to enable us to go from peat-reduced to peat-free in future,’ Martyn says.

‘We’ve increased the number of model peat-free planters and hanging baskets around Centre Court, to see how they react to our watering regime. We’ve discovered we have to feed more often and use wetting agents for water retention, but so far so good.’

Also, like never before, the indoor spaces at the All England Club are now adorned with a good mix of plants and trailing foliage.

‘We have introduced peace lilies, calatheas and living walls to brighten the spaces and provide their proven mental health benefits.’ Truly, no stone has been left unturned.

New this year:

See the draw like never before, with interactive Path to the Final view of the draw by clicking a player’s name on the draws page

See the projected Path to the Final of every player in the Gentlemen’s and Ladies’ singles draws with IBM Likely to Play

View how favourable or difficult a player's draw is, with IBM AI Draw Analysis