Published at 13:08, Monday, 28 May 2012
A PASSIONATE South Lakeland garden designer is planning to enter the Chelsea Flower Show next year.
Jonathan Denby, who owns four hotels in the area including the Newby Bridge and Damson Dene, announced he intends to design a Chelsea garden after visiting the festival this week.
He is now working on plans to construct a Lake District themed garden – in a bid to help promote the area.
“It’s been incredibly inspirational to see the entries this year and chat to many of the garden designers,” he said.
“I was particularly impressed with the Pennine Garden which was one of two artisan gardens to win gold.
“It promotes Yorkshire and the Pennines in a very effective way.”
Mr Denby won a silver medal at Chelsea in 2010 with The Victorian Aviary Garden which he co-designed with Phillipa Pearson.
And last year he entered the Gardening World Cup in Japan – a contest intended to rival its world famous Chelsea counterpart.
Mr Denby, who kindled his love for garden design at his Grange home, Yewbarrow House, explained: “I’m talking to sponsors at the moment who may be interested in becoming involved in a Chelsea entry next year.
“I haven’t yet decided whether the entry would be a full show garden or an artisan garden. I’ve got some good ideas for both of them.”
Mr Denby said his visit to this year’s festival allowed him to catch up with friends from the gardening world. These included Bob and Cath Sanderson, from Cath’s Garden Plants, based in the kitchen garden at Heaves Hotel, near Levens, and Kazayuki Ishihara, who won gold with his artisan garden.
Mr Denby also chatted to gardening television presenter Diarmuid Gavin as he experienced his award-winning, seven-storey Westland Magical Tower Garden.
He told the Evening Mail: “It was really quite wonderful – a lift operated by Diamuid himself took us up four floors, we then scaled another three sets of ladders before a shoot took us to the bottom.
“It was the greatest fun but incredibly scary.”
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk
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