It was a smashing start to the weekend as budding garden designers from South Eastern Regional College struck gold in the Team Garden Challenge competition and were named Best Overall at this year’s prestigious Garden Show held in Antrim Gardens.
This year’s theme of a Kitchen Garden, tasked garden designers to design and present a 3m by 3m garden and build their plot in one day, with a budget of only £500 – with the planning and designing of the garden taking many months preparation.
The finished gardens were judged by a prestigious panel comprising of Ireland’s world renowned plants woman Helen Dillon, gardening guru Geoff Stebbings and Reg Maxwell – former Head of Botanic Gardens and winner of Best in Show at the first Garden Show Ireland event 10 years ago.
The design trio behind the design, tutor Joanna Loane and HNC Garden Design students Paul Clarke and Yvonne McIlmail, expressed their joy at securing the prestigious prize exclaiming they felt “really proud of what they had achieved”. The trio have already won Silver medals for their garden at last year’s show held in Hillsborough.
Exhausted but pleased with the finished result, Yvonne commented: “We had some really positive feedback. It was a brilliant hands-on experience especially at such a big event. It has been great to be involved in this project from start to finish. Seeing our design evolve into a real garden has been a great experience.”
Head of the judging panel Geoff Stebbings commented: “The standard this year was extremely high and incredibly competitive. Designers used the theme to the best advantage and the different interpretations were most interesting.”
SERC garden design tutor Joanne Loane said: “We are absolutely thrilled. This is wonderful news and very well deserved. To come away with a Gold medal has put a fantastic finish on a very successful year. We were celebrating for two reasons, as not only did the garden win gold, but we also won ‘Best Overall’ title which means that we achieved full marks in every category.”
Horticulture student Paul Clarke said: “When I heard we had won gold I was so happy and proud that something we had worked on had won gold. I got to learn so much whilst building the garden and the team were amazing.”
Congratulations should also go to the Newtownards joinery team who collaborated with the budding gardeners to design the wall and rug for the competition.
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