A Sense of Place

This gold medal winning design was created for the Gardeners' World Spring Fair at Beaulieu in 2022.

This small space evokes the sights, sounds, taste, texture and colours of the Alresford area in Hampshire. With the backbone of the town based in the burble of chalk streams and watercress, the steam powered Watercress Line, and the colours of the town centre being pastel shades of a Georgian market town.

The planting brings these colours to life and are drawn from ‘communities’ which thrive on chalk, representing the community within the town and reminding us that plants and people need the right environment to survive. As the breeze ripples through the flowers, an evocative scent of local planting arises, and the bobbing of the heads of meadowsweet allude to the steam from the local railway.

This border is beautiful and useful using a sensory & wellbeing approach to design, it represents local sights, sounds, taste, texture and colours through naturalistic planting and the movement of water.

Following the show, the plants from this garden were donated to the Perins school well-being garden in Alresford.

Planting

I used the following planting in this garden:
  • Allium ursinum
  • Anthriscus sylvestris
  • Artemesia ludoviciana
  • Caltha palustris
  • Lonicera
  • Phlox divaricate ‘Clouds of Perfume’
  • Primula vulgaris
  • Rosmarinus officinalis prostrates
  • Veronica ‘Shirley Blue’
  • Betula pendula



Result..?

Doing a show garden is a rewarding and exciting experience - it gives me chance to show how a design can be turned into reality and a chance to talk to people about the garden and the design process. But it's nice to have recognition from the judges as well, and in this case I was lucky enough to get a gold medal for A Sense of Place.