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Courtyard Gardens
A Child's Eye View
(Best Courtyard, Gold) As part of the design process for this garden children's poems their own garden were a key source. The result - flowers and vegetables from seed, a cabin for play, a 'wilderness' (represented by tangled old stumps) for adventure, adventure, mystery and wildlife. A pond was incorporated (the garden is for 8-9 year olds) because of the fun and the wildlife it introduces.
The garden emphasises the learning and introduction to nature that garden offers. It seeks to give the children the independence and chance to explore and learn that has been lost with the very real parental concern for safety today. The designers, from Aylesbury College, all had first hand knowledge of children and only one was not a parent.
Careless Rapture
(Gold) Another wild garden 'Careless Rapture' is a celebration of rural England - the idealised version, that is. A deliberate emphasis on plants rather than hard landscaping is reflected in the tatty old door, woven hurdle boundaries and the wild, tangled look of the planting.
Deep blue and purple Siberian iris mix with golden trollius and sculptural rogerisas, foxgloves spear through the large leaves of rheum, climbers scrambled over walls. The whole thing look, as the designers from Otley Agricultural College meant it to, abandoned.
The Living Paintings Garden
(Silver Gilt) A rustic studio set in yet another wild, meadow style planting by the Hall Green & District Amateur Gardeners' Society.
A stack of firewood forms a rear fence and baton fencing the remainder. An abandoned shuffle plough is almost buried in the flowers. Apart from spiky purple phormiums at the platform edge the planting within the space is styled to be wild. Rounded, soft and full groupings of soft lavenders and deep purples were lifted with magenta and white.
From Winters Slumber
(Silver Gilt) The winter slumber of the girl, curled foetal-style, formed the centrepiece of this courtyard. A pathway wound up a small incline behind the sleeping figure. An abstract polished steel fence in a wave pattern created a flowing effect at the rear.
Spiky phormiums contrasted with topiary balls. Small leaved maples contrasted with hostas and topiary squares. Designed by Denis Mathews Garden Design, the planting was edgy and immature; the garden did not quite make it, not really coming together into a coherent whole.
High Flyers Haven
(Silver Gilt) A bird garden from Millbrook Garden Company, but this time one with a modern rather than a nostalgic view. Metal poles arched over a curving bench to form a modern, slim arbour. Wisteria wound its way upwards and behind massed alliums, campanulas, grasses, teasels and bird-friendly plants.
Setts paved a circular central area and held a shallow copper birdbath nestled against a clump of flowering thyme. A birdhouse offered more comfort to avian visitors. Contrasted slim structures and the controlled forms of clipped box with the full but well-planted borders. A stylish and successful garden that demonstrated that wild-life friendly does not have to meant cottage-cute or wilderness.
Somerset Revival
(Silver Gilt) A ruin to restored garden, with a Somerset stone house (tumbledown and repaired). Before the miracle there is agricultural junk and a dead tree. Afterwards borders brimming with roses, clematis, Salvia s. 'May Night', foxgloves, geraniums all in a purple-blue and gold scheme with touches of white.
An old cider press used as a water feature united the two sides of the garden. Designers Amanda Patton, Steve Bradley & Queen Thorne Landscapes, represented the renewed prosperity of the countryside in the gardens, as well as Somerset's unique landscape and industry.
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A Child's Eye View
Careless Rapture
The Living Paintings Garden
From Winter's Slumber
High Flyers Haven
A copper bird bath
Somerset Revival | |
