Time to get show on the road
Designers are giving prestige projects a new lease of life up and down the country, says LOUISE MIDGLEY
THEWORK that goes into a show garden at a major garden or flower show is colossal.with plants to grow, components to source, designs to finalise and help to enlist, planning often starts years before all the blood, sweat and tears are shed during the build.
So rather than simply deconstructing a garden after its brief appearance at a show, more and more garden designers are recycling their works of art at venues around the country for others to enjoy.
The organisers of the biggest, high-profile flower and garden shows,the Royal Horticultural Society, encourage exhibitors to ensure their gardens are reutilised after the show, whether that means the garden is relocated in its entirety or broken down and reused in different projects.
Designers and sponsors have also become more aware of the importance of sustainability and the environment and, in addition to ensuring their gardens have a new life after the shows, are building their gardens using recyclable materials.
For those who don’t have plans to relocate their garden after the show, the RHS works with The House of Wayward Plants who rehome thousands of plants and materials to community groups and schools. Multi-gold medal award winner, Chris Beardshaw, has been an inspirational ambassador for ensuring his Morgan Stanley Gardens have a new lease of life after the Chelsea Flower Show.
SINCE the inaugural show in 2015, the five Morgan Stanley and Chris Beardshaw gardens have all been reused, benefitting communities across London where 15,000 plants and 23 trees have been replanted and 125 square metres of paving has been repurposed.
This autumn the Eden Project in Cornwall, home to the UK’S largest indoor rainforest, gave The Campaign for Female Education (Camfed) African Garden, winner of a gold medal at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show, a permanent home in its Mediterranean biome.
Camfed supports the most excluded young girls and women in rural Africa to go to school, succeed and become leaders in their communities, within climate-smart agricultural businesses through its See Growth campaign.
Garden designer Jilayne Rickards created the innovative, climate-conscious garden following a trip to Zimbabwe to meet with CAMFED alumna (numbering almost 140,000 women).
Around 1,000 of the garden’s tropical plants were grown at the Eden Project before being transported to Chelsea.the relocated garden will now be enjoyed by more than a million visitors each year.
● For more details visit: edenproject.com