Tristen is crowned top young garden designer for industrial-inspired entry

A GARDENER from Uttlesford has been named the RHS National Young Garden Designer of the Year.

Tristen Knight scooped the title at last week’s Tatton Park flower show in Cheshire for his Silver Gilt medal-winning design “Brownfield Beauty”, which was inspired by his passion for 19th- and early 20th-century industrial architecture.

The 28-year-old, from Saffron Walden, said that his garden aimed to prove that forgotten and unloved sites can be resurrected to create spaces of distinction and beauty.

His creation, part of a larger external courtyard area of a redeveloped industrial building converted into luxury apartments, was designed to look industrial yet rustic, with the selected planting and mock ‘Rill’ water feature producing a relaxing atmosphere.

Four large Venetian blind-style screens and large ornamental trees added a sense of seclusion and privacy. Other features included reclaimed brick seats, tumble-down brick walls, trees to create structure and intimacy and grasses and ferns to create year-long interest.

For four years Tristen has worked for Pat Fox’s Hatfield Heath-based Aralia Garden Design, which won a Silver medal at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show for its “Rooftop Workplace of Tomorrow” garden. He was part of the team that built the RHS Silver medal-winning garden, “Freshly Prepped by Aralia”, at Chelsea in 2009.

The former Loughborough University industrial design and technology student, who switched to studying landscape architecture at Writtle College, near Chelmsford, said: “Working at the show and creating the garden has been a great pleasure. This is the first time I’ve had control of the design and build and it’s been a lot of fun.

“Winning the title of RHS National Young Garden Designer of the Year is a great stepping stone for my career in garden design.”

For the competition, which was held in association with the Society of Garden Designers, Tristen and the two other finalists – Londoner Katharine Wills, 25, and James Percival, 26, from Cheshire – were challenged to submit designs for a garden with the theme of ‘colour’. They each received £12,000 funding from the RHS to create their entries.