Following two weeks of hard slog in the rain at the RHS Tatton Flower Show, we have been awarded  a silver medal for our show garden ‘A Year in the Life of the DreamScheme’.  The culmination of 12 months of work and preparation, the garden shows the young peoples’ journey through Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter using colour, texture, planting and artwork to recreate the seasons.

Myself and Peter Castle worked with young people from New Charter estates to interpret their ideas and designs and turn them into a show garden.  Using a circular format as the starting point, we designed each section to represent one season looking at overall effect, impact, the relationship between the seasons and plant associations.  Our final plant list included over 100 different types of plants totalling almost 1000 individual specimens.

Once on site, the hard physicial work began, with the hard landscaping and building happening first, followed by laying out and lots (trust me – lots) of digging, then planting.  The finishing touches included placing all the artwork made by the young people (mosaic slabs, withy sculptures, Colin the mosaic corgi etc), checking over plants and trees and dressing the garden.

Achieving a silver medal for a first attempt at a show garden is a massive achievement, so we are all incredibly pleased.  New Charter received a bronze medal for their first show garden in 2010, so the pressure was on to gain an equivalent or better rating!

Next year, we thought we’d give the silver gilt medal a miss and just go straight for gold..!