Top designer encourages new landscapers

Andy Sturgeon brings the RHS Watch this Space Garden to life using materials from past and present show gardens

International award-winning garden designer Andy Sturgeon created the RHS Watch This Space Garden with the theme of ‘reuse and recycle'. Andy used iconic elements from past and present Chelsea Flower Show gardens including the bronze fins, to symbolise mountain ranges, which were popular in his Best in Show Garden at RHS Chelsea in 2016.

The hard landscaping elements added definition and combined together with a secluded seating area, water and colour contrasted planting to create an intimate feel to the garden. 

The garden was built by landscaping apprentices and students, giving them their first taste of building a show garden for a world-renowned designer to promote and encourage more people to consider a career in the landscaping industry. Their work was supported by the RHS, the Association of Professional Landscapers (APL) and the British Association of Landscape Industries (BALI) initiative, Go Landscape. 

Recycling at its best

Andy searched storage sheds, barns and even the gardens of his fellow designers to locate the iconic elements that made up this garden, which included the textured concrete and terracotta columns from Cleve West’s Best in Show Daily Telegraph Garden from 2011. Seating from one of Adam Frost's award-winning gardens and Sam Ovens’ 2016, Cloudy Bay Garden. Hard landscaping materials were also sourced from this year’s RHS Chelsea, with paving and dry stone walling sourced from both Andrew Wilson and Gavin McWilliam’s Breaking Ground Garden and The Jeremy Vine Texture Garden