Exhibitors
SHOW GARDENS | WATER GARDENS | SMALL GARDENS | CONCEPTUAL GARDENS
INSPIRING SPACES | WINDOWBOXES & HANGING BASKETS
PLANTS | GROWING & SHOWING MARQUEE | MARKET PLACE
Show gardens
Centrepoint
The Centrepoint Garden
Designer: Claire Whitehouse
Sponsor: Centrepoint
Contractor: The English Garden Company
Click on the image to view a hi-res version
The Centrepoint Garden encapsulates what the young people who live with Centrepoint would like to see in their ideal hostel garden. Eight hundred 16-25-year-olds live with Centrepoint at any one time. Many of these young people have escaped despotic regimes, have been victims of abuse, or fallen into the trap of addiction. Centrepoint provides them with a home, as well as training opportunities helping them to build firm foundations for the future.
This garden is a place where they can find peace and solace, provides a safe play area for the little children of the young mothers who live in the hostels and where they can grow fruit and vegetables and learn about healthy eating. It is also a showcase for an exciting new initiative that Centrepoint is launching - the Horticultural Apprentices Scheme, where young people are trained in the basics of gardening and horticulture by top horticultural college Capel Manor.
The garden, which can be walked through by the public, is divided into four main areas. At the front, there is a vegetable, fruit and cutting garden. Growing vegetables is something that the young people at the hostels generally would like to get involved in, and is important in demonstrating the value of healthy eating to young people. A sunken sitting and dining area, allows young people to meet and socialise in a beautiful environment, and a safe play area for the toddlers that live at one of the Centrepoint hostels with their young mothers. Outside the building at the back of the garden, which serves as an information area, there is a calm chill-out area, where the young people struggling with problems, frustration and anger can find a little solace.
After the show all the plants and features will be distributed to Centrepoint’s hostel gardens. This will form the basis of a much-needed makeover of the hostels, a long-term project which will take more than two years.
Claire Whitehouse has designed 10 show gardens at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show and three at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show since 1995, mainly for charities. Claire won the Tudor Rose for Best Show Garden at Hampton Court 2004 for Christian Aid, and an RHS Gold Medal, again for Christian Aid, at Hampton Court in 2006. Many of her other gardens have been awarded RHS Silver and Silver-Gilt Medals.