Publications

The Garden
August 2003

Innovative and yet traditional

Gardens at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, the horticultural world’s largest annual event, continued to mix the best in contemporary design with more traditional elements and themes

Images: Jane Sebire

Visitors to this year’s Hampton Court Palace Flower Show were once again treated to a broad spectrum of garden design, from ultramodern garden rooms intended for use as stylish, low-maintenance outdoor living spaces to traditionally lush, cottage-garden designs as well as the strongly naturalistic plantings that were such a feature at the Chelsea Flower Show in May.

Innovative, unusual and downright quirky boundary materials were much in evidence, from adobe walls, metal grilles and even straw bales to reclaimed timber, ‘fedges’ (a cross between a fence and a hedge) and gabions (stout wire cages filled with rocks).

It was also heartening to see a wealth of genuinely new design talent emerging from horticultural colleges and BBC Local Radio’s Design a Garden Competition.

	‘Private Entertainer’ scooped a gold medal and the award for most innovative and original show garden. A stylish contemporary garden of two halves, it was constructed by Paul Stacey and staff and students from Writtle College, Essex. One side married tall grasses with a tubular steel pergola and galvanised grid flooring...
	...while the more open side was bounded by a low, curved wall and airy planting. (design: Mark Ashmead; sponsors: Potter Soar, Howard’s Nurseries, Central Marble, Writtle College, BALI).

‘An Archaeologist’s Urban Retreat’

‘An Archaeologist’s Urban Retreat’, constructed by Askham Bryan College, York and designed by student Sarah Lloyd, featured standing stones and a rusty central ‘cairn’ inspired by Bronze Age landscapes.
(design: Sarah Lloyd; sponsors Askham Bryan College, Johnsons of Whixley, Yorkshire Sheet Supplies, Marshalls; silver flora).

A similar dome-shaped structure, constructed from woven wood, formed the shelter in ‘Essential Elements’ by Suzanne Nichols, who was winner of BBC Radio Humberside’s Design a Garden Competition (silver flora).

Naturalistic gardening is a trend that shows no signs of waning.

‘Harmony’ (above) mixed native and exotic bog and water plants to great effect around two pools, one still with waterlilies and the other fed by a stream (design: Peter Simms; sponsor: OASE UK; silver flora).

Hillier Landscapes’ ‘Woodland Garden’, part of the Daily Mail Pavilion, took gold and the Tudor Rose Award for best garden.

A masterpiece of naturalistic planting using more native plant species than exotic, in places it appeared to be a slice of natural woodland, picked up and transported whole to the show (design Sarah Eberle, contractor, Hiller Landscapes).

‘Beyond the Babbling Brook’ was the appropriate name for another garden of two halves.

The stream, constructed and planted with great skill, separated the more cultivated front portion of the garden from a perfect picnic spot in the ‘countryside’ behind, complete with hamper and submerged bottle of cooling champagne (design: Susan Slater; sponsor: Hagthorne Cottage Nurseries, silver flora).

The Tudor Rose Award for best water garden (and the only gold in the category) went to ‘Huckleberry’s Hideout’, inspired by the classic Mark Twain novel (design: Janet Grant and Julian Tatlock; sponsor: Anglo Aquarium Plant Co).

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