Exhibitors
SHOW GARDENS | WATER GARDENS | SMALL GARDENS | CONCEPTUAL GARDENS
INSPIRING SPACES | WINDOWBOXES & HANGING BASKETS
PLANTS | GROWING & SHOWING MARQUEE | MARKET PLACE
Small gardens
M&M’s Gardens By Design and Associates
The ‘Chase’ Secret Garden
Designer: Maxine Sims
Sponsor: Wyevale East Nurseries, DEKSMART, Ibstock Bricks, A J Tracy & Sons, Jewson, Rookery Barnes, Silverland Stone, Hardy's Cottage Garden Plants, Cooper Brothers of Hindhead, Danny Aldred of J C Aldred Ground Services, Sparsholt College Hampshire
Contractor: Leonard Lyons-Davis
Click on the images to view a hi-res version
The classic children’s story The Secret Garden is the inspiration behind this garden. In the story, parallels are drawn between the neglected garden and the ill-health of the children. In the restitution of the garden, the children find their own health and well-being restored. This small garden illustrates the potential beauty of a traditional English garden within the walls of the secret garden and contrasts it with the manicured display on the same grand estate.
Outside the walls of the garden is a herbaceous border planted with delphiniums, verbascum and geraniums. Topiary is used to provide a strong contrast in form but also to give the garden some coherence with the period of the book. The secret garden has a tree with climbing roses, clematis, shrub roses and herbaceous plants including hollyhocks, echinops and centaurea which have self-sown and appeared in the paths with some of the weeds and wild flowers. The addition of annuals refers to when the children of the story grow antirrhinum and nigella from seed. Occasionally viewers will glimpse a red flower to represent the robin which is key to the story and symbolic of the sick child’s late mother.
The Chase Hospice, a charity, cares for time-limited children. The hospice needs £3 million a year to keep going. The designers hope to raise awareness and funds for the hospice with this garden.
Maxine Sims studied horticulture and garden design at Sparsholt College, Hampshire. In 2006, Maxine decided to design a garden for the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show with the help of a mature student from Sparsholt College, Leonard Lyons-Davis, which was such a success that they decided to give it another go this year.