Innovative designers face A Design Journey

Join us on ‘A Design Journey’ as this year’s RHS Flower Show Birmingham at BBC Gardeners’ World Live hosts a new Show Garden competition.

Metamorphosis ‘A Design Journey’ will challenge designers to be as innovative as possible within the boundaries of a set list of materials.

Cleve West, multiple Best in Show designer at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, has set the list of materials the four chosen designers will be using to construct their gardens. Each garden will receive about £6,000 worth of materials plus an additional £3,000 of funding towards plants and other associated costs.

Here’s what the designers have to say about their gardens

Woke from Troubled Dreams

Exhibitor: Mosaic Garden Design Landscaping
Designer: Owen Morgan

Theme: Metamorphosis = change in form. As you walk around this garden the design changes form as you look through three different areas, all centralising on the Amelanchier tree in the centre.
Inspiration: Inspired by the works of Ovid and Kafka, where Metamorphosis involves a complete physical change which can be a disorientating experience. This design reflects this sense of change and disorientation as you move around it. This sense is heightened by three contrasting styles of garden within the space.
Points of interest: Use of mild steel and timber to construct the walls. Fir cones contained in the steel gabions. Good interpretation of ‘disorientation’ through design.
Designer background: RHS Flower Show Tatton Park – Young Designer of the Year finalist 2011: Silver. RHS Flower Show Tatton Park 2012: Gold and Best in Show Orchestra garden.

Around the Corner

Exhibitor: About Your Garden
Designer: James Comiskey

Theme: This is a contemporary courtyard garden set in any British or Irish City centre. It is hidden from the city around it, yet the design is a response to its urban setting. The garden is designed with a couple in mind who simply want to sit and relax there. The use of metal, wood and concrete derived products are a response to the buildings around it, while a central canal adds movement to the garden. The vertical metal water feature acts as a backdrop to the canal and adds sound to the garden.
Inspiration: There are many hidden gems in cities in Britain and Ireland. We walk by these every day without being aware of them. At the same time there are many small hidden spaces that their owners may not realise the potential of. This garden could be one of those hidden gems, or it could be ideal for a small neglected space.
Designer background: New to RHS Shows. Bloom Ireland: 2009 Bronze / 2011 Bronze. Mallow Garden Festival: 2009 Gold / 2010 Gold / 2011 Gold. Honours Bachelors of Agricultural Science in Landscape Architecture from University College Dublin.  

Nature Lays Claim

Exhibitor: Creative Roots
Designer: Neil Sutcliffe

Theme: In a man-made world, industry and hard landscaping have had a big impact. However, we now realise the importance of the rest of the world around us and start to allow nature and life back in. Nature takes this opportunity and grows. This garden illustrates this metamorphosis of space.
Inspiration: The current economic and philosophical climate; how as a society we are starting to move away from the sometimes reckless development of mankind and return to the older ideals of community, nature and all things good for the soul.
Points of interest: Clever use of subtle planting concentrating on shape and form and hues of green. Plants include: Fatsia, Ferns, Ajuga, Pachysandra, Brunnera and Hosta.
Designer background: New to RHS Shows. Diploma in Garden Design. Practising garden designer and landscaper for past three years. In his own words: “I come from a family of over-obsessed garden enthusiasts.” 

Sketch to Reality

Exhibitor: Sharon Hockenhull Garden Design Landscapes
Designer: Sharon Hockenhull

Theme: The theme is based on the idea of a ‘sketch’, fixed in the designer’s mind and how this metamorphosed into a ‘real’ garden space.
Inspiration: I wanted to illustrate the creativity of the garden design process by juxtaposing two stages, the first simple idea forming in the mind to the finished real garden.
Points of interest: Clever and creative use of some of the materials; only designer to lay the Ivy panel down and only designer to have MOT on show under the mesh as steps.
Designer background: RHS Flower Show Tatton Park 2009: Silver-Gilt. RHS Flower Show Tatton Park 2011: Silver.
 
Thanks to Bradstone, which is supplying products from its Ancestry range for the competition.