Hampton court palace flower show awarded to Garden Designs

Association of British Conifer Growers: Cedrus and Friends BRONZE AWARD

Designer: RJ Griffin, Amenity Trees

Contractor: Amenity Trees and Landscapes

Conifers demonstrated at their best. Green slate, plum coloured slate chippings and a water feature, complement the plants of every variety of conifer. A popular style of waterfall and small pool.

Boardman, Gelly and Co : The Urban Jungle SILVER FLORA AWARD

Designers and Contractors: Boardman and Gelly

 

 

An average sized garden in an urban development. It has a contemporary look consisting of three connecting ovals. A large bubble stone water feature is opposite a hammock, lending sound and movement to the garden. The plants make it feel jungly being predominantly bamboos, ferns, grasses and perennials with strong colours or foliage.

 

Christian Aid: Wish you were here? GOLD AWARD

Designer:Claire Whitehouse

 

Contractor: JED Powell and Helen Johnson.

(Pic 4.) (Pic5.)

Here we have a view of an idyllic Jamaican hotel through which we can step into the other side of Jamaica where poverty, illiteracy and unemployment prevails. A garden of contrasts, where we have the vibrant hotel planting set against the ramshackle buildings and the corrugated iron. Water in short supply, the hot weather at the show made it seem really realistic.

Croft Original: Croft Spot BRONZE AWARD

Designer: David Domoney

Contractor: Domoney Ltd

An English garden retreat in a tranquil setting with soothing golds and greens. No water water! Well this is a drought year I suppose and a lot of designers have taken that to heart.

Alex Gardener:Landart SILVER GILT FLORA

Alex Gardener created at the minute his garden from Gardeners World Live, Landart. three cones of sand that formed a pattern and balance with the planting of Catalpas.

 

Another inverted cone is set in turf. Interesting, but would you want live with it? Like a lot of modern art. Echoes of a Japanese influence.

The sand is piled up round a stake and using a template it is shaved to 30degree slope, which is the natural slope at which the pile will stay piled up- until weather, the elements begin to erode it . That according to Alex is the art in Landart.

Hadlow College: Kent CaCo3 SILVER FLORA

Designer: Fern Alder and Heidi Harvey

Contractor: Michael J. Collins

Graduates of Hadlow College have created a garden to be viewed from many directions. It is meant to look as though it is carved from chalk landscape.

Angular paths lead to a turquoise pool. Not so good in real life than on plan. And it made you wonder why they bothered with the water.

 

 

Hangzhou Blue-Sky Landscape Group: High Mountain and Flowing Stream - BRONZE

Designer: Lu Zhen-feng

Contractor: Hangzhou Blue-Sky Landscape Group

This is the Legend of the High Mountain and the Flowing Stream about friendship from classical Chinese literature.

Full of classical garden features such as brick carving, shallow pool, and the rockery and flowing stream of the legend. Also bamboo, stone pine and plum blossom. Less ambitious than last year, I am sure that one day they will grasp what makes a good garden for the RHS and then beat them at their own game.

Independent Age :The Well Garden - BRONZE

Designer: Anthony Challis

Contractor: Ginko Landscape Contractors

 

A sanctuary for Alzheimer, Demetia, Parkinsons, heart disease and Arthritis patients.

Planting for sensory stimulation with textures, colours and forms, movement and sound through water features and old artefacts to stimulate memory. The well is the focus of the design, sound sculptor Paul Marshall providing the reverberations.

The intentions were fine but didnt emerge in the final piece. It looked muddled, cluttered and hurried.

Mayor of Londons Office: The Sunshine Garden - BRONZE

Designer : Paul Stone

Contractor: Paul Stone Gardens

 

 

Designed to resemble a typical London back garden with lots of water saving ideas and drought tolerant plants. Made entirely from recycled materials it is also wildlife friendly. It had a friendly atmosphere too. No water apart from the practical application for watering vegetables. There was a sort of memorial to it in the rack of different taps and piping.

Pantiles Nurseries: The Blue Garden - BRONZE

Designer: Anthony Lockwood

 

 

 

A tranquil garden with a shaded seating area. Water surrounds the garden, and the noise of splashing water from stepped waterfalls calms the senses.

This garden had loads of water, but it was divided in two which I think is always a mistake at a show unless both halves are as good as each other and or complement each other.

 

 

Paul Martin Designs: Falling Waters SILVER GILT

Designer and contractor: Paul Martin

 

 

Another place for quiet relaxation with water falls cascading into a central reflective pool.   The pool spills over a sandstone cascade. The upper terrace is limestone with soft elegant planting.

 

 

A beautiful useable garden that was sold even before the show was officially opened, and I thought deserved a better accolade. A lot of hidden engineering created what was effectively a self skimming pool. A feature that was presented at Chelsea this year.

 

Philip Osman Garden Design: The Homebase Living Room SILVER GILT

Designer: Philip Osman

Contractor: Scotscape Ltd

A unique outdoor room viewed through oval moon gates in a lime-rendered wall. It has a mix of contemporary design with traditional materials. There is living furniture in the form of bamboo wallpaper, a thyme rug and chamomile sofa with a summer bedding cushion. A sunken terrace is a place to sit and reflect. Fish in the kitchen, with the tanks supporting the work top. The tanks were doubling as a cooler for wine. Lost the plot I fear fish go in pools. Humans in kitchens.

The two dont mix. One lady got very irate about the fish being overexposed to sunlight and wanted the tanks covered up. There was no-one on the stand that would take that responsibility, especially as at that very moment in time the judges were doing their preamble. Yep, it was the judges she was haranguing to get the fish covered up. That might have made the difference between his getting a Silver-gilt rather than a Gold, because apart from that it was a superbly crafted garden.

Southend-on-Sea Borough Council: The Cocklers Garden GOLD and TUDOR ROSE AWARD FOR BEST SHOW GARDEN

Designers: Staff of Leisure, Culture and Amenity Services Department.

There are two themes of drought tolerant seaside planting and the cockling industry of Essex in the 1900s. A sunken fishing smack on the beach is a focal point around which the planting abounds. A cockleshell path winds through the plants out to the beach.

A routine stage set garden I thought. Sometimes I fel a garden gets the best in show award because there is no-one judging that particularly objects to it- but then again if really really pressed, or if you could measure their overall feelings about a garden, none of them are particularly enamoured with it either.

Trevor Tooth Garden Practice Ltd: Love, Life and Regeneration SILVER GILT

Designer : Trevor Tooth

The garden was inspired by Trevor Tooths one year old baby, how life changes when a new baby arrives and life revolves around it. Thre is a ripple effect even to people outside the family. Here paths take you along different directions where there are obstacles (timber walls), and trees under-planted with lilies represent regeneration and continuing generations. A steel sphere, the story den, is the ultimate destination and a haven surrounded by lush planting. In fact the planting was too lush and it was difficult to see what was going on in the centre of the garden.

Volvo Car UK Ltd: Volvo:The Artists Garden GOLD AWARD

Designer : Thomas Hoblyn

Designed for artist Simon Carter, a studio for painting in and a garden for experimentation. Here is the relationship between nature and the manmade. Car, sunlight, flowing planted beds, swathes of colour. The links to the car are tenuous. Nice garden, shame about the car.

A common sight nowadays are these black reflective pools; useful at shows because you can keep them shallow; useful because they not only disguise green water, they inhibit it. But hey look horrible really, like ugly polluted black coal pit ponds.